Monday, March 05, 2007

Anatomy of a Sunday

8-ish AM: Wake up and exchange pleasantries with Munchkin & Peggers. Agree that while today looks quite cold, it still seems like it will be - ultimately - a Very Nice Day.

9-ish : Roll ourselves downstairs.

9:30-ish: Pancake breakfast, courtesy of Daddy/Peggers!

10:30: With grocery list in hand make our way to grocery store for week's worth of shopping. On list are ingredients for lunch this afternoon with Kim!!!

11-ish: Standing in grocery store watching husband get very Very VERY frustrated due to overwhelming number of absolutely stupid shoppers all getting in our way. Look for refrigerated pizza crust but can only find frozen. Figure that I can make it all work in the end by lunchtime, regardless.

11:15: Realize that the frozen pizza crust takes 4-6 HOURS to thaw........................Kim is due over for lunch in 45 minutes. Begin to majorly panic.

12 noon: Crust is thawed thanks to some major quick work by Peggers - ragu is simmering on stove top & oven is pre-heated. Still, major major panic.

12:05 PM: Kim shows up & pizza goes in the oven - springform pan - double-crust stuffed with with ricotta/mozzarella/parmesan then topped with home-made ragu composed of chicken sausage, mushrooms, celery, carrots, garlic, onion, and tomato. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes then top with loads of cheese and bake for another 20 minutes.


1:10: We sit down to eat, and Munchkin has a few bites of his lunch then gets too tired & asks to be brought up to his crib for naptime. We continue to eat double-crust stuffed pizza after he retires.

2:05: Leave for the Barnes & Noble knitting group meeting.

2:30: Meet Gryphon and lovely baby Lia. As my friend Rachel had told me in an e-mail, Gryphon really & truly is far too lovely a human being to have recently had a baby - if not for Lia strapped to her front in a baby sling I wouldn't have believed it myself! (3 months after the Munchkin was born, I wasn't calm, collected, happily knitting in a group of women at roughly the speed of light, I was frantically pushing my screaming bundle of colic around in a stroller - hair unwashed - wearing the same clothes that I'd had on the day before - wondering if things would ever get better and terrified that things in fact were as good as they were going to actually get for a long long long time.....)

4:15: Inquire as to the time & realize that the hour and a half that I told Peggers I'd be gone has stretched to two hours and fifteen minutes. Invite Kim & Gryphon & Lia back to my house for tea/more chat.

5:00: Kim takes off to finish her homework.

5:15: I start making dinner - marinated steak & potato soup with spinach.

5:45: After talking her ear off, my manners finally catch up with my brain and I think to offer Gryphon something to drink. Nursing mothers = fluid depletion = MAJOR THIRST. To think that I could have forgotten this is something that I was quite embarrassed about!

6:15: Gryphon and Lia pack themselves up and leave, after lovely lovely lovely talk between the two of us that covered topics from knitting to mothers to babies to Americans to genetic biology to co-workers to silent films.

6:17: Munchkin & I wave goodbye to Gryphon & Lia as they drive home.

6:18: Walk into living room and stare at my husband in disbelief. "How on earth could I have not thought to invite Gryphon for dinner????? I stood there and cooked an entire meal in front of her and never even had the intelligence to ask her about it. I have the manners of a basket of dirty laundry these days!!!!!!!!!"

7:15: Take soup pot off stove & walk it to center of dining room table. Open bag of pre-washed spinach, dump in pot, and stir in. (Heat from simmering broth wilts spinach just enough so that spinach is cooked but not overly so!)

7:16: Set table, pour drinks & round up Munchkin & Peggers for dinner.

7:20: Finish settling Munchkin & get him eating his applesauce & crackers & blow on his soup to cool it.


7:21: Peggers spoons up his first bite of soup as I move to do the same.




7:21.5: "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS???????????????????????????"


7:22: Peggers looks up at me & promptly spits out his mouthful of soup.


My first thought: Oh lord, it was hiding in the bag of spinach.

My second thought: Thank GOD I didn't invite Gryphon to dinner!!!!


7:32: Eat roll & half a hot-dog as rest of meal - Peggers eats a bowl of Cheerios.

8:15: Put Munchkin to bed.

8:35: Drink two glasses of much-needed wine and eat half a container of chocolate ice cream as proper dinner while watching Stranger Than Fiction with Peggers .

10:15: Bed, after a very very very strange day.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was going to comment that I was moving in with you if you ate like that every day - invited or not. Riiiiight up until you posted about your little guest. I haven't laughed this hard in AGES! It takes a True Blogger to take a picture of that kind of moment and share it with the world.

Sandy said...

All of your food looked absolutely scrumptious...until the bug. Eeek! Good thing you were sidetracked when Gryphon was around. ;)

Your B&N knitting group sounds great! All of the ones I've found around me are too far away...either in NYC or too far east. blah.

Gryphon said...

As usual, I'm behind on my blog reading and just finding this. What sweet things you write! I think I must defer the cause of my calmness to Lia who, as you saw, is a peaceful, even-tempered little critter. For this I daily thank all the deities to whom anyone has ever sacrificed, as I could never have survived what you did. You know, the main reason you should be happy you didn't invite me to dinner is that I'd have seen nothing wrong with a little extra visitor in the soup. BtW, happy birthday to your Munchkin!