June 2008 Archives

I went on a shower-free long weekend camping trip several years ago with my then-boyfriend, the long-haired tie-dye-wearin' Mike. We flew to Oregon for some hippie-fest where the temperatures were blisteringly hot and the fairgrounds served up billowing gusts of dust like some kind of movie set fog machine.

At the end of the trip we were chicken-fried in sweat and dirt, exhausted from excessive indulgences and poor Therm-a-Rest sleep, and each sporting our own musky funk. It was the first time I'd ever flown somewhere to camp, and as we waited for our luggage, tent, and sleeping bags to come around the baggage carousel I realized I wouldn't have minded the airline losing my stuff. The connection I had with those belongings was like the one I had with my backpack contents after a month of collegiate Eurailing--gratitude for having served me well, along with the desire to burn it all and never see it again.

As I'm yawning and scratching at myself like a geriatric Basset Hound, I'm suddenly jolted by a woman's voice calling from behind me at close range. "Kristen? Kristen Bruno?"

And before I have time to do a flying dive into the crowd and log-roll my way to anonymity, a perky woman in a crisp linen suit presents herself before me. She was someone I'd gone to college with. I didn't know her really very well, but in that small liberal arts school way, with any given person there tends to be at least one person in common who you both slept with. (Just kidding, Dad!)

She seemed to want to lean in to hug me, but on scanning my rag-tag clothing--or maybe smelling it--she reconsidered and just said, "How are you? How long has it been?" All this while no doubt thinking pityingly what a shame it was that I'd become homeless.

For a split-second I considering busting out a, "No hablo Englaise." Unfortunately though I took French in school so I'm not really sure how to say that (or, obviously, write it). My luck.

Of course, this wasn't the first time I've had an encounter with my past that I'd rather not have had. But everyone has ducked behind a life-sized cut-out of Michael Moore to hide from an old high school classmate at their home-town movie theater, right? Or veered into a random store to avoid passing an old acquaintance on a sidewalk? Surely I'm not the only one to have sunk my face in Common Grounds to hide from/spy on an old boyfriend at a coffee shop. (Hey, at least I inadvertently upped their readership.)

Don't get me wrong. There's plenty of times when I'm actually the person to prance in front of that past-life chum and ask in a dramatic lilt, "Tracey Phillips?" There are times when I've managed to comb my hair before going into public, am sober enough to not slur my words, and feel genuinely happy to see and reconnect with someone I used to know. Even when it's been since I had an asymmetrical haircut and listened to Dead Kennedy records (yes, records) that I saw the person last. Sometimes I'm actually eager to show off the life progress I've made!

And sometimes I'm just not in the mood to hear about the hockey team the other person's husband just bought. So sue me.

There's also the other problem I've harbored in these situations. It's the inexplicable seemingly-incurable syndrome I suffer from which makes anyone I bump into--whether we were good friends, barely knew each other, or threw blue drinks at each other in a girl fight at a Funky Cold Medina party. No matter who it is and my level of fondness or disdain for them, for the life of me I cannot manage to end our sidewalk encounter without saying, "We should get together some time!"

Truly. I need to have some kind of electric cattle prod classical conditioning therapy to break myself of this habit. There must be some way that other people manage to just say something clever like, "Okay. Bye!" And then walk away.

How can something so simple be so impossible to do?

Anyway, these days what I've come to realize in a reverse engineering sort of way is that the spate of old friends that the universe recently served up to me, I've been happy--no, delighted--to reconnect with. And it's not because I've been walking around lately in smart starched clothing and wearing a becoming shade of lipstick, with nary a speck on my teeth.

I can only deduce that I'm feeling quite happy with my life. I've got this little love dumpling Paigey who, lizard skin and all, dazzles me daily with her sweetness. And Miss Kate, a gorgeous blond with little braids who can talk circles around kids twice her age. Not to mention the man who made it all possible, Mark, who is either smarter than he is funny, or sweeter than smart--oh, I sometimes just can't make up my mind which of his many fabulous qualities wins out over all the others.

Knock on wood, but, surrounded as I am by these three blessed ones, how can life not be divine?

Oh sure, there are plenty of things that if pressed to I could conjure up as "wants." Things that I feel we should have, or do, or be like in order to be fully self-actualized. (And let's not forget the where we could/should live issue.) But really, if it weren't for those things existing in their state of not-yet-thereness, what would the impetus be to ever, say, go to another yard sale? Knowing there is room to grow doesn't have to be crippling. It can just help you justify buying more crap.

Last Sunday I spent such a lovely few hours visiting with my junior-year-in-France pal Randy. Just chatting and catching up and noshing. After Kate's initial two minutes of shyness melted away, she was having Randy carry her on his shoulders at the farmer's market. Which was sweet in that way that it is when your dog instantly accepts the new person you're dating. And then, in that small world thing that is frankly no longer getting surprising, it turned out Randy and Mark somehow knew the same academic-type person from some college or other.

I'm hoping to see more of Randy: Some nights where I can act like a non-Mom and hang out like a kooky kid in the Mission, and some times when he can come to Oak-town for a family dinner and to get his dapper shirts covered in baby spit-up.

The visit we had several weeks ago now from no-longer-long-lost Sydney was also great. I mean, she and I were friends long before either of us ever even had a boyfriend, and here she is walking into my living room with her husband of 17 years. It was wild. Being able to go out to dinner with someone you haven't seen for 25 years--and really having fun--validates my childhood character-judgment and friendship selection process.

As visual aids to going down memory lane--and to really bore our husbands to tears--I pulled out an old box of stuff I'd saved from the era of Sydney and my friendship. We flipped through yearbooks, those photo albums where you pull back the clear plastic sheets and stick your pics on the tacky pages, and embarrassingly enough some of my old school papers and report cards. ("Kristen is such a bright girl. If only she was less distracted in class she could really live up to her potential." Imagine that repeated over the course of 10 or so years by various teachers.)

Of course, it wasn't until I put all this old stuff back in the box to stick in the cellar for another 20 years that I found a letter Sydney had written me. Assuming she'd give me her blessing to reprint part of it here, I think it's a testament to just how long ago it was that we were friends back in my beloved smallest state. The fact that it's a real old-fashioned-type handwritten letter is maybe proof enough.

"Do you have cable? We don't but Sharla does. There is this new channel MTV. Do you get it if you have cable? It's like radio but it shows the groups videos for their songs. It's excellent!!"

But wait, there's more...

"I've fallen in love with Aldo Nova. "Fantasy," Foolin' Yourself," "Ball and Chain," etc. I listen to that album constantly."

Reading this letter explains a lot. I now understand why Sydney was eager to come out to San Francisco to see me once we'd reconnected. Like me, she's not the only one who periodically feels the need to prove how far she's come since way back whenever.

And in all honesty I was really thrilled that she came. Not only do we have the memories of our foolish Aldo Nova-lovin' youth--though, to be clear, that was really more her thing than mine--but we've got the makings of a whole new now-we're-grown-ups friendship. We're determined to not wait another twenty years until we get together again. Hopefully Mark, the girls, and I will make our way to Austin one of these days to see Sydney and Tere and meet their kids. 

And when that does happen, you can rest assured that I'll be wearing my linen suit to the airport.

In what has to be one of her most unique don't-want-to-sleep stall tactics yet, Kate called out to Mark tonight soon after he'd tucked her in.

He went into her room, talked to her for a few seconds, then came out shaking his head as he closed the door.

Me: "Yes?"

Mark: "She asked me if I'd cut her toenails."

I used to have a housemate whose name was Beth. As an adult, prior to going off to work at some hippie commune/primal screaming retreat on the Monterey coast, she decided to start calling herself Joey.

Somehow one of the nights I was hosting Bad Movie Monday this came up. Mind you, the now defunct BMM posse was comprised of some of my most ruthless and hilarious friends. When Rick learned of this Beth/Joey thing it was like throwing his sarcasm an immense piece of bloody chum. I think every time he called me thereafter--in the time that I was still living with that cah-raaazy woman--he'd say, "Hi. Is Beth--I mean Joey--there?"

Ah, the fun we had mocking her.

The closest I ever got to some kind of name change was around the issue of my non-existent middle name. I blame laziness on my parents' part for why my three sisters and I feel bereft every time we fill out a form requiring a middle initial or name. Or, I could say something like what my friend Scot who only has one 't' in his name says: My parents couldn't afford to give us middle names. In his case it's a second 't.'

Anyway, my father once made up some line about how he and my mother wanted to let us pick our own middle names. Riiiiight. To sweeten the deal he said when we came up with middle names we wanted we could go down to Town Hall and make it legal--have it be like a little field trip. As a lawyer I think my father over-valued the thrill factor of a trip to Town Hall, especially for an eight-year-old.

Determined to be like all the other kids I went to my room to ruminate on my new name.

And let it be known that for a great stretch of my life I was hellbent on finding a way to Wasp-ify or feminize my last name, Bruno. I even went through a short stage of spelling it Bruneau on my homework until some teacher put an end to that. I was happy with the name Kristen. But I saw this middle name thing as an opening--an opportunity to inject more femininity into my name as a whole.

After some musing I came down and told my Dad I'd decided on a name. Told him to grab the car keys, we were heading to Town Hall. Of course, he asked me what I'd decided on, and I announced with great pride: "Cherry."

That's right. Kristen Cherry Bruno. I thought it was brilliant.

At any rate, my father did the ole look at his watch and say, "Oh no! Town Hall just closed." It was probably something like 2:20PM. Undeterred I pointed out that there was always tomorrow. At which point he likely fabricated some kind of week-long government holiday.

Whatever his stall tactics were--and I'm sure they teach you some great ones in law school--they worked. Thank God. To this day I am middle name-less.

Actually, now that I think of it, that's not exactly true. In some cruel twist of fate I decided to take Bruno as my middle name when I got married and took McClusky as my last. (McClusky not exactly being the Smith or Jones I'd always longed for, but what can you do when you're in love?) So, ironically, the frilly and pretty middle name I eventually got was, uh, Bruno. Ah well.

So a couple weeks ago when I took Kate to preschool she marched me over to meet her classroom's resident caterpillar, Larry. But by week's end on the notes outlining what the kids did during the day I learned that the children had named the caterpillar Beauty.

I never found out what brought about the need for a name change. Did Larry just come to a place in his life where he wanted to reinvent himself a la Beth/Joey? Do caterpillars have penises? If so, did what the teachers suspected was Larry's turn out to be something else altogether? Had there been a terrible gender mix-up when Larry was originally named?

Maybe Larry was just looking for something a bit softer and more feminine in a name. I feel you, brother.

Soon after Larry became Beauty I was picking Kate up from school and one of the teachers scurried out of the nap room to talk to me. It was Monica, a kind of wacky older Chinese woman who has been working at the school for a few hundred years.

"Big day today! Big day!" she yelped.

I'd never seen her so keyed up.

"Today the caterpillar made a cocoon! While we watch! It take one hour. One hour! It so incredible! We watch! The children watch! In many many years of teaching this the most special day for me!"

When we were walking to the car I asked Kate about it. But I think she changed the subject to something like, "Emily picked her nose today." I could appreciate that. With someone else so hopped up on something it can be hard to find room for your own excitement.

Needless to say there was a lot of anticipation awaiting Larry/Beauty's debut as a butterfly. They moved the cocoon into a small netted enclosure so they could contain it once it was born. (Is born an appropriate word to use here? I'll have to ask Kate.)

The daily activity notes and Kate kept us updated. Mark would ask how school was and Kate would say something about "Beauty and chrysalis," causing Mark to ask, "Who is Beauty and what happened to Larry?" And me to ask, "What's chrysalis?"

Along the way Kate learned a caterpillar-to-butterfly song complete with little hand gestures, and how to say 'metamorphosis.' Despite the call I put into MIT as a result, they still seem to think we should hold off a bit until she at least takes the SATs.

On Tuesday's preschool pick-up, before I had a chance to read about the days happenings, Lilia, Kate's most favorite and adored teacher, walked out of the nap room to meet me. She closed the door behind her and leaned her back against it with a dreamy look in her eyes.

"Oh Kristen. When I saw you I just had to come out and tell you. Beauty turned into a butterfly last night, and today we had such an incredible ceremony at the meadow. I mean, it really really was magical."

During this Kate sticks her head into the carseat carrier and screams, "Hello, little Paigey!!!" at volume 11, causing Paige to shriek and start bawling. Then Kate comforts her by leaning all her weight into her for a hug. I try to pull them apart while still looking up to listen to Lilia.

"In my 14 years of teaching, today was no doubt--it was--it was really the best day. Ever! And Thalia took her harp and we had the most magical ceremony in the meadow, and the children danced and sang. Then we set Beauty free. It was just beautiful."

I thought of my most magical work days and none of them sounded even close to this. Was I ever misty-eyed with joy over delivering that perfect e-commerce platform to a client? Uh, no. Then again, the thought of changing diapers all day--other people's kids diapers, that is--pales in comparison to developing Excel pivot tables, in my mind at least.

But truly, I was happy they had a good day. It's such a great little school and Kate really loves it there. And it's nice that all her teachers are having peak experiences.

On our walk to the car I asked Kate what her favorite part of the day was. She looked up at me and said, "The hawp! The hawp!" Leading me to realize that no matter how far I raise my children from Rhode Island the accent may still find its way to them.

So, aside from the leaf-chomping, cocoon-makin', chrysalis and metamorphosis, Kate has also came to understand that you sometimes have to set the ones you love free--while a hippie preschool teacher serenades you on harp.

Fly away, little Larry/Beauty! We have learned much from you, and hope you are happy in your new home in the meadow.

Used to be politics at the grocery store was about campaigning out front and kissing babies. These days it's in the aisles, and can take the joy out of shopping faster than a checker can say, "Debit or credit?"

I gratefully vacated the house early this morning to allow our brigade of house cleaners ample space to do their thing. Kate was at school so Paigey and I headed for Berkeley Bowl. We were desperately lacking anything leafy, fresh, or in need of refrigeration. (Children probably can live off of mini peanut butter sandwich crackers, but I'd rather not test that concept out on my kid.)

Despite some of the agro-hippie experiences I've had at Berkeley Bowl, it's an undeniable bastion of produce, ethnic foods, groovy herbs, tinctures, green cleaning products, organic cosmetics and gourmet cheeses, micro-brews, seaweed, bulk quinoa, grass-fed meats, artisan yogurts--you-name-it. Plus you can get a coffee and a decent-tasting vegan pastry to quell your morning hungries as you shop. Even with its hassle factor, Berkeley Bowl makes you thank your stars that you live in a small rental house where the public schools suck versus anywhere else in North America.

Was a time when you had a list and just toodled along and picked up what you needed, right? Any brand issues were likely settled by choosing whatever it was your mom used, or getting what's on sale. But these days, for me, it just ain't that easy. Well, at least today it wasn't.

My first quandary was in my apple purchase. I was able to cut through the 3,271 varieties of apples Berkeley Bowl carries in order to get Fuji apples, which Kate--child of foodies that she is--requests by name. But side-by-side are the bins of organic and non-organic Fuji apples.

Normally I'd just get organic, but I happened to randomly read the little sticker on them and saw they were from Chile. So, not local. The traditionally grown apples were from Washington state. Close by, and they actually looked much fresher and tastier than the organic ones. The organic ones were pale and starting to feel slightly spongey. I figured they were picked long  enough ago for them to make the long voyage from Chile all the way to Berkeley. You could actually see their jet lag.

I've got this nifty wallet-sized card that tells me what produce it's okay to buy traditionally-grown--since they don't require lots of pesticides--and what you should buy organic. Bananas, for instance, you don't have to buy organic. Maybe 'cause-a the thick peel?! Strawberries on the other hand you should always buy organic. I think they're mostly water and slurp up all those chemicals like sponges. I mean, don't take my word for any of this. These are all the stories that I think I've maybe heard but likely just made up in my head.

Of course, the handy wallet-sized thing lives unhandily on our fridge, not in my wallet. It's been there since my days of wanting the nanny to use it on her rare outings to the store for us. (That is, when we had a nanny.) Some day when I'm good and ready I'll move it to my wallet where it can be of some use.

Anyway, Apple Crisis 2008 included the remembrance that apples require lots of pesticides. Though I countered that with the consideration that most farmers these days must be trying to keep chemical use down. And in Washington state of all places they're likely to use groovy apple-growin' practices, right? Maybe their farm is just barely under the limit for being qualified for organic status. (Yes, I truly had this thought.) Maybe I'm losing my mind by over-thinking this miniscule purchase. Wait, yes. I'm sure I am.

Before I was arrested for loitering in the apple aisle, I ended up getting the limp Chilean organic apples.

Then I was on to acquire the 24 other items on my list...

Pineapples sent me into another tailspin. They truly have five varieties and I couldn't tell what properties constitute a good pineapple. I know pulling the center leaves out easily means it's ripe, but many of them seemed over-ripe. I tried to remember if I needed these to be organic and decided I didn't. The Del Monte pineapples looked decent, but I recently saw some 60 Minutes episode about how some of the big fruit companies are supporting large rebel factions by paying them off to let them do business in third-world countries. Or something like that.

I don't even remember what kind of pineapple I got. I think I got one from Costa Rica, since I'd like to go there some day. May God forgive me if in buying it I've helped put a new machine gun in the hands of an eight-year old guerilla warrior. Hopefully it'll at least be a good sweet pineapple

So as not to be more terrifically boring than I already am--or to incite fear in the hearts of my loved one that I've finally truly lost it--I'll spare you a detailed run-down of all the other items I purchased. I'm sure there are some much better blogs that recount grocery lists. But I do have to mention my bread-buying efforts.

A gal wants a nice sliced sourdough, right? What can be so hard? I picked up a brand I think I've bought before. Then I notice that it wasn't called Santa Cruz Bakery, but San Luis Bakery--though in a similar bluff-the-buyer font. I hate when companies try to rook you into buying their wannabe brands. (Please note that "wannabe" is in my blog software's dictionary because it doesn't have a squiggly line under it to indicate it's misspelled. How weird is that?)

Anyway, I picked up another loaf from a place called something like El Faro Santa Cruz Bakery, which had a little amateurish sketch of a moustachioed baker in front of a wood hearth. Looked totally small-time hand-crafted, yadda yadda. But when I turned it over it turns out their attempts to pimp their bread as artisan are totally bogus. It's made by Sara Lee! Out of St. Louis!

So then I assumed the other one, the San Luis Sourdough, must be made in California in San Luis Obispo. Nope. Also from St. Louis. And another Sara Lee product!

Is Sara Lee using the San Luis brand to drive discerning shoppers to their other more artisany looking brand? Am I becoming a paranoid conspiracy theorist? Does Sara Lee own my soul? Probably, but it'd take a lot of fine print reading to figure it out. And as far as I can tell, I'm nowhere near the St. Louis arch. I don't think.

I mean, Avon owns Keihl's and Ford owns Volvo. Weirder things have happened.

At any rate, I guess where this now-kinda-embarrassed-to-have-to-have-shared-it experience got me is the realization it'd be so much easier to shop at Wal-Mart and buy Lunchables and Ding Dongs for my family instead of reading labels to scour out any trace of dairy or soy, or concerning myself with organizations that are decimating rain forests while their executives lunch on spotted owl. (Potential solution?: Move to St. Louis.)

I mean, I swear I'm not even that political. Have I just been living in California too long? (Case in point, yesterday when I asked Kate if she'd like to go to the zoo with her friend Bowen she said, "Yeah! That'd be awesome!" Perhaps I should read the proverbial writing on the wall...) What I want to know is how does someone who really is clued into all this--not just straining to remember what their absent wallet-sized card tells them to do--manage to shop? It's paralyzing!

With my grocery adventure behind me I went to the brilliantly named maternity and baby store Waddle and Swaddle, in search of some swaddling blankets that Paige would not spontaneously combust in when we're in the summer swampland of the East Coast. A cute pair of tights I was looking at for Kate proclaimed they were "made with love in China."

It made me think of a blurb I heard on NPR recently: There's a factory in China that produces "Free Tibet" bumper stickers. Fucked up, but hilarious, no?

Through my sister's films I know enough about the human rights injustices the Chinese have dealt the Tibetans. Enough to make me sometimes kinda think about maybe not buying things that are made in China. It's rate, but I sometimes do think of it. But something about the "made with love" thing was a bit much for me. It felt like an attempt at a work-around to reel you in. 'Made by Nazis with love.' Alas, no cute tights for Katie. (Though I guess if I really liked them I probably would've gotten them. See? My political intentions are flexible.)

After my two forays into local stores left me feeling like the last Californian who thinks about this stuff while shopping but still shaves her armpits, I made my way to Target, hoping the Rosie's organic free range chicken in the trunk wasn't breeding free range bacteria in the unusually hot weather.

Target provided a much-needed familiar consumer palate-cleanser. (When Paige and I miss a week of shopping at Target, the folks there nearly call to check on us that we're alright.) The huge red doors flew open to greet us, and we rolled happily into our air conditioned, well-lit home away from home. Where, no doubt, after 20 minutes I likely managed to undo any of the thoughtful consumer shopping I'd spent the previous two hours wrangling with.

Ah well. Baby steps, right?

Peggy and Gary, Mark's mom and stepfather, left today after a great visit packed with NorCal sightseeing, eating and drinking, and excessive granddaughter adoration. One of those visits that make you wonder why we all live so damn far away. I wasn't at the airport this morning for the final farewell, so I don't know exactly what took place. But even before Kate and Paige were on the scene, Peggy was known for getting teary-eyed at goodbyes, especially when she didn't know when she'd see Mark next.

If my memory serves me, my mother and I used to cap off most visits with a rousing argument. It made parting so much easier. Even without a separation anxiety spat, my mom was hardly the crying type.

There's actually a famous story in Mark's family about when his mom and sister dropped him off at college for the first time. When they left to head home, Peggy was crying so hard she somehow managed to drive off the road into a corn field. (Mind you, they were in rural Minnesota where such fields are abundant, not Manhattan.)

Needless to say, Mark and Lori will never let Peggy live that down. But now that I'm a Mama myself, I can totally empathize. How in God's name do you deposit your beloved sweet baby at college--off in another state or even a different time zone--to not see them again until Thanksgiving, if you're lucky? I'm hoping by the time Kate turns 18 homeschooling will be a popular collegiate option. Or that she'll insist on living at home and attending a nice local costmetology school so she can be near her Mama.

Even though the kiddies are still so young I'm finding I'm already nostalgic about things. At the park the other day there was a three week old baby I was mesmerized by. "A baby!" I thought to myself, as if it were such a novel thought--an unattainable object of desire. All this while I'm holding my own four-month-old. But, you know, Paige seems so big already. And the thought that she's probably the last of the little McCluskys makes it that much harder to watch her mini milestones pass by.

Mark, on the other hand, doesn't seem to share my sentimental streak. Nor does he share my on-again off-again yearning for another baby. In fact, after a long evening of bouncing Paige on the big blue yoga ball--our favorite method for getting our fussy babies to sleep--he turned to me and said, "God I'll be happy when I never have to do this again." And despite how my own lower back was crying out for an end to non-stop bouncing, my mind was aghast at the thought.

When that ball goes away, that means Paige will have grown up a bit. She won't be a teeny newborn who needs the motion of her Mama's movements replicated to soothe her. She'll nearly be independent!

And another thing. When that ball goes away after Paige, it's retiring. It will never be called to serve again--at least for anything other than yoga. And still for Mark there's no looking back. I think he mentioned something about gleefully taking an ax to it...

Well, unbeknownst to him, the other day as I was vacuuming the house I lamented that that huge ball, wedged under the lip of the TV stand, was taking up too much space in our small living room. And really, we hadn't had to use it for weeks. So I figured I'd stick it down in the basement where we could always grab it if we needed to.

The impulse to stow crap in the basement comes up often, so it wasn't until I was walking up the stairs that I thought, "My God. We are now officially finished with the baby-bouncing segment of our lives." May the big blue ball rest in peace.

No, no. I didn't cry. But hey, it's on to a new phase and goodbye (forever) to an old one.

Another thing that Mark doesn't know--not that I've actively been hiding it from him--is as Paige has been outgrowing clothes I haven't had the heart to give them away quite yet. For now I'm taking some comfort in just putting them back in the age-labeled plastic bins on the shelves downstairs. (See? The basement is my enemy and my best friend.) How can I let go of the soft froggy jacket with the satin bow that Lindelle got for Kate? Or the brown cable knit sweater-suit Mark got at his office shower?

In part, there's just so much cute stuff. I can't just give it to Salvation Army. But there's also the thought that there won't be another baby here to wear it some day--a thought I clearly haven't gotten my head around.

And for the record, I'm not planning to do some soap opera poke-a-hole-in-the-condom move for a third child. In my rational, non-emotional moments I truly agree with all the reasons why we're better off as a family of four. It's just--babies are so sweet!

Is this how my brother-in-law's parents ended up with 15 kids? Perhaps.

Maybe I just need to reflect more on my neighbor's deadbeat 37-year-old son who's just moved back home. Oy! Imagine finally being back in the swing of what life was like without kids, then being tossed into telling your grown son to pick his socks up off the floor. Even for a crazy love-addicted Mama like me, that just seems wrong.

I'll have to remember that when I'm veering off into a corn field 16 years from now.

This morning in our kitchen:

Kate: "Grandma! We're out of milk! Da-da says we're out of milk!"

Me: [calling out from bed] "No we're not, honey. There's a half-gallon lying down in the fridge."

Mark: "Ah. Mom's right. Here it is."

Kate: [skipping around the house] "We're into milk! We're into milk!"

If I do one thing right as a parent I hope I can avoid squelching Kate's amazing imagination. I mean, the things she comes up with make your wildest drug trips seem mundane. That is, if you were someone who were to ever have had a wild drug trip.

Sometimes in the middle of dinner she'll bust out something like this, which she said the other night, "When I was a big girl I had a witch with a tiny tiny tiny skateboard and she lived under the dining room table in such a silly place. It was SO silly!"

But more often it's when she's the teacher and Paige, or Mark, or I--or all three of us--are the students. There's a lot of homeschoolin' going on around here, thanks to Kate. Aside from compulsively covering babies with blanket after blanket all over the house, Kate's second favorite thing to do is to be the teacher. And God help you if you don't want to be the student.

Sometimes it starts with her singing the circle song from preschool which is how they wrangle the kids together every morning. It seems to be some global concept since every toddler I know in a wide variety of school settings has their own version of circle time.

And if it's not circle time you're needing to take part in it's "I read you a book, then I change you diaper." Or "then we play outside." Generally followed by a patronizing tilt of the head and a soft-spoken, "Okay? Okay!" If you're ever here and this happens and you need all your concentration because you're performing a complex surgery or something, still just say "okay" since she really doesn't require your active participation to plow forward in this game.

The other day Kate was "reading" a book to me, and the first few pages were mind-blowingly wacky and funny. Sometimes she says each word really slowly while she's thinking up what to say next. Mark and I are often on tenterhooks awaiting what weirdness will come. It's kind of like playing that add a-word-and-built-a-sentence game, but with just one person.

So since she was on a roll, I asked her to hold on while I found a pen and a piece of paper. I'm not sure how much awareness she had of my taking dictation--since the story did get a bit more subdued at that point--at any rate, here it is. Imagine her turning the pages and reading to me in a sing-songy patronizing voice.

The book was called Frederick, about a mouse:
The sun came up and I was eating some corn.
Some mouses went to a place called OSH.
Then a SoBe comb came. [I drink SoBe drinks, but have no idea what a "SoBe comb" is.]
And when I was SoBe comb I was a nice SoBe comb.
[Flips to the front to read an inscription, though there is none.] By Aunt Ellen. I love Kate.
I cleaned up all the cheese.
I ate up all the cheese.
They fell.
"Then we ate potatoes and falled asleep," said the mouse.
They say, "Oh!" Can I fall asleep?"
"Yes," said Omar.

Next she read 101 Dalmations:
[announcing title] All My Baby's Changers
All my baby's changers.
I go to my home and licked my baby's changers hand. [When asked what a changer is, "A kind of woman who knocks you down."]
D at changer goes, "Woo!"
That's what she says.
I was a good doggie.
"Oh!" they say to my old grandmother. "Oh! I can come here."
Then the pokey doggie doodle dosh.
I hope I was good.
I go to my home and wash my hode. [I double-checked this, and she did say "hode."]
I'm not going to go out of my hode. I'm going to stay at my hode.
I'm going to rush out the door.
Then Cinderella said, "Oh! I can come here!"
Then Cinderella placed a change to my home.
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.

Story time is now over. The library will be closing in five minutes.

I have an older aunt and uncle who share a bedroom but have separate twin beds. It's what I like to call the Laverne and Shirley bedroom configuration.

I've always thought that it's so crazy when couples do that. I mean, how can you expect to get a decent night's sleep in a twin bed?

Last night after an epic bout of wretched coughing Mark removed himself from our room to sleep on the couch. Even The World's Heaviest Sleeper, for which I hold the title, can't sleep through all that irregular loud hacking.

Sure I felt bad that he was collegiately couch-sleepin', but my time alone in the bed was glorious. I tossed and turned to my heart's content. I slept at an indulgent diagonal across the bad. And I selfishly gathered the whole duvet around my body like a huge fluffy cocoon. Aside from wishing he was in the same room so I could have the drowsy contentment of knowing my spouse was nearby, it was bliss.

Clearly the ideal bed configuration is two beds in the same room, but--duh!--queen beds. And to be clear, I'm no prude. There would be times when it would be appropriate for Mark to come to over to my bed or for me to go to his. Everyone likes a little snuggling sometimes.

Of course, this set-up doesn't account for the disturbance of middle-of-the-night coughs, snoring, and nose-blowing. But I guess that's what the couch is for.

My mother's group had been trying to settle on a night to get together to go out for drinks. Five foreign dignitaries can more easily schedule a summit. Finally Sacha suggested we see the Sex in the City movie on Monday night. And despite the endless email cycles to solidify a plan up until then, it suddenly stuck and we were all game.

Of course, plagued as this house has been with pink eyes, hacking coughs, sore throats, and utter exhaustion, I surprised myself by making the grown-up decision to stay home to try and get better.

This morning at the preschool Parent's Day breakfast I asked Sacha how it was. As silly and Rocky Horror-esque  as it's been that women everywhere are dolling themselves up to see the movie, part of me thought it'd be kinda fun to do it.

You know, pay homage to the days when an impulsive purchase of La Mer eye cream didn't make you feel guilty about the semester of college you'd be denying your child. The days when you ran your fingers through your blown-dry hair and smelled the fancy salon product you'd put in it, not day-old spit up. Those bygone days of buying skinny jeans that didn't require you to wear a corset over your jiggly Mummy tummy.

No, Sacha said. They didn't dress up.

But, she offered brightly, Mary did sneak a bottle of wine into the theater. And the two of them (the only two who managed to make it out that night) polished it off during the movie. Drinking the wine out of sippy cups.

OMG! Sorry to sound like a text-messaging teenager but I just went to my bookstore (Kate has this way of calling all the places she likes "my toy store," "my library," yadda yadda) to buy the new David Sedaris book (which they were sold out of), and the woman working there casually mentions, "You can order a book and get on the list to have him sign it when he comes here."

WHEN HE COMES HERE? Like to MY BOOKSTORE, just two blocks from MY HOUSE?? This news was nearly more than I could bear.

If you were about to ask me to do something on Friday, June 27th, sorry, but I'll be waking up that morning in a tent in front of the bookstore, using a generator to blow dry my hair and iron my fabulous outfit, and preparing myself to get into the sold-out reading later that evening.

My diet starts now! My God. What. Will. I. Wear?

I mean I truly feel far more Tiger Beat pubescent adoration excitement over David Sedaris than I ever did over Shawn Cassidy, or, uh, Michael Jackson. And my feelings for them at one point in my life I must confess were considerable.

I don't know if I'm alone in playing the Who Would My Celebrity Friend Be? game. It's not like it's really a game, but a form of day-dreamery. And puhleeze I really don't spend all day sitting around thinking about this, if you're starting to feel all like my life is so pathetic and tragic. Come on! I spend my whole day changing diapers, thank you.

Anyway, so my ex-best celebrity friend was Renee Zellweger. I know, I know, it's a weird choice, but sometimes these people who you somehow envision as your good old friends from before they got all famous but they still have you as a womb-to-tomb friend, someone who really knows them and is steeped in the real non-celebrity world, someone who they give their cast-off designer clothes to and who they visit on the weekends after they've broken up with some famous drummer and just need to not be in LA and not wear make-up and not be followed by paparazzi and feel grounded by coloring in a princess coloring book with your daughter--sometimes you don't pick those people in your imaginary game. They pick you.

So it's not like I think she and I have a ton in common, or that she'd even necessarily be super fun to hang out with. (Not like Mark's imaginary celebrity friend, who is--get this--Cameron Diaz! Someone who he thinks would be fun to hang out with because she seems "game" despite the fact that Mark himself admits that's he's not game.)

Anyway, at some point Renee just sort of stopped being my celebrity friend and I realized that of course it should be David Sedaris. And Hugh. I kind of thought maybe Hugh and I were the good old friends and then of course ages ago he and David got together and now, after so many years of me hanging out with them in Paris and Normandy and all those summer rentals in Tuscany that we did together--never mind all the wild times in NYC and their burrito-fest visits to me in SF--I mean after all these years it's really hard to remember that I was friends with Hugh first since David and I are so close now. (Oh and Anderson Cooper and I are also dear friends. In my mind, that is.)

I a moment which could have turned into one of those times where you say "You know how after you floss your teeth you sometimes swallow the dental floss" to someone and they look at you like, "Are you fucking serious?" and then you nervously laugh and say "Of COURSE not. Of COURSE I don't ever swallow my dental floss, silly!" Well, in one of those moments I asked my sister-in-law Lori who she envisioned her celebrity friend was. To be honest I can't remember if she had her answer at the ready, or needed to think about it a bit. (I was too busy being thrilled that she didn't mock my question.)

Anyway, I think she did think about it for a bit and said, "I think John and I would be a good couple-friend match with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner. I figure John and Ben could bond over their Red Sox fan-dom, and Jen and I could talk about the kids."

That was such a good answer! Of course I emailed David and Hugh right away to tell them all about it.

Friday night, for my final night of the five-nights-o'-cooking challenge (TM) we ate the galumpki  I attempted to serve on Thursday after an unsuccessful attempt at blindly setting my broken crock pot. And at some point while I was reheating it (after it had also cooked for a couple extra hours in the crock pot on Thursday) Mark expressed some concern over "food safety." As in, if it hadn't fully cooked in the several-hour process, perhaps what was happening instead was bacteria was sprouting, explosively procreating in large cabbage-and-tomato-soup-based mushroom clouds of funk.

I shrugged it off. "Nah, I think it's fine."

And then I served it to two of the people I love most in this world.

It wasn't until 3AM that, despite not feeling sick at all from the food, I developed a stomach ache over the thought that I could have recklessly caused serious harm to my family. But before my instinct to drag Mark and Kate out of bed and bring them to the hospital for voluntary stomach-pumping (or would that be Stomach Pumping by Proxy?), I fell back asleep and it turned out that everyone woke up alive in the morning (phew!) and as far as I know devoid of even any poo-related maladies.

So as it turns out, this whole getting dinner on the table for the family every evening thing has greater ramifications than just Mark not having to do it, and having the family all eat together. Talk about pressure.

This explains why growing up our mother's overcooked the shit out of most everything they served us. Turns out they were trying to not kill us.

For my part, instead of letting fear of poisoning everyone interfere with ever making another meal, I should probably just not use the crock pot until I get it fixed.

The epilogue to my 5-Dinners-In-A-Row Challenge: I may have not managed to truly prepare five separate meals (due to failed Thursday and Friday's Galumpki Redux), but I did come to the realization that  all it took for June Cleaver to have a hot meal on the table every night was some planning, some late-afternoon "Mama's cookin' and can't braid the doll's hair now"-type child neglect, and rebuffing the concept of gourmet for basic, balanced nutritious food. Which is to say, it's doable.

Heck, at the end of it all I heard Kate utter the words, "I like galumpki!" That right there is incentive enough to not raise a child on chicken tenders alone.

But anyway, all this food stuff isn't really all that's been bouncing around in my psyche. What I'm really excited about is that His Holiness David Sedaris has a new book out. This generates in me the excitement that collectively all the fans of the Harry Potter books have ever felt about any of those books coming out. (And by "coming out" I don't mean San Francisco-style coming out... I always feel like I need to make that clear.)

Despite my rabid enthusiasm I have yet to own this new book. So I'm going to hie me to the bookstore right now, seeing as Mark is home to hold down the sleepin'-kid fort. Yee-ha!

Everyone whose ever cooked has a good failed meal story, right?

For my 94-year-old Godmother, Mimi--an amazing Italian cook who in her prime thought nothing of devoting days to preparing mouth-watering multi-course meals--it was the Thanksgiving turkey that never cooked. I think it happened back in the Seventies some time, but she's still working through the horror of it all--a houseful of people and no matter how long she stalled everyone, the damn bird was still frozen in the middle.

Well, I don't have 70-odd years of cooking to draw from, but tonight's dinner was kind of a turkey for me. Apparently I was not able to adequately discern the proper slow cooker setting for galumpki cooking. (You'd think they'd just have a dial you turn towards "Galumpki.") I lugged that damn huge hot and awkward (oh, and heavy) crock pot to Ellen's, only for her to cut into one to reveal soft red meat. But here's the thing. We love these little cabbage rolls so damn much, she and Maia each ate their way through one as we discussed the situation and came to grips with the fact that they were in fact raw.

Then there was some experimentation with the microwave to see if we could speedily finish the work that the slow cooker failed to do. But even after several blasts the meat was still freakishly red. I insisted they stop. It was just too painful for me.

I must have had it on the Warm setting all day instead of Cook. Or perhaps it was the Sicken Your Family with Raw Meat setting. At any rate, this only validates my hunch that having a functional legible digital screen which indicates what the hell is happening inside that pot all day is really quite necessary.

Ellen helpfully offered up that she had ravioli she could cook. Alas, not for me, Non Dairy Queen that I am. So everyone else ate that and I had some pot stickers. And finally some delicious strawberry rhubarb pie made by young urban derelicts at Mission Pie.

It's nearly 9PM and we're back home where for some reason I'm giving the crock pot a second chance and have it back on. This time at what I guess is a different setting.

I hang my head in shame.

The next time you're looking for a good way to express the concept of 'nearly impossible' you can say, "Why it's just like giving a toddler eye drops!"

And for 'utterly impossible' tack onto that, "When you've only had 4 1/2 hours of sleep the night before!"

And for extra credit you can also say, "And the kid's in a shopping cart in the Target parking lot because it's there that you realize you should've given her the eye drops an hour ago!"

Fun! [She says while rifling through the medicine cabinet for any leftover C-section meds that might have mind-altering effects.]

What makes this ordeal truly Orwellian for me, is that with pink eye being as turbo-contagious as it is, I'm in solitary confinement with the Tasmanian Devil Patient. Well, me and wee Paigey, who I've been trying to keep out of Kate's germ-infested "I-wanna-hug-my-sista" reach.

I mean, Paigey is already afflicted with a variety of her own wretched skin maladies. Despite all my dairy denial everything has flared up again in extremis. The last thing she needs is to add pink eye to the mix. Right now going cheek to cheek with Paige feels like cuddling up with a burlap sack. One that flakes on you. Hopefully the dermatologist tomorrow can proffer an easy, instant, non-steroidal cure.

See? Even when the going gets tough I'm a die-hard optimist.

That said, is it too late to get my old job back?

Come child. Touch the hem of my colorful striped dirndl skirt and I shall whisk you away to a land of Polish culinary delights! Come! Take hold of my hand or the cuff of my flowing peasant blouse, and let's dance dance dance to the songs of Bobby Vinton, my long blond braids flying in the wind!

Okay so I'm not sure the dirndl skirt, peasant shirt and braids are really what those gals are rockin' back in the old country, but I do think it's what the Polish doll in my international dolls collection looked like. (Oh sure, my father tried to imbue his fervid obsession with collections onto me as a child. And if you don't believe me come 'round on the next rainy day and I can show off not only my It's a Small World-esque posse of dolls, but some old coins, stamps, and the business cards of Margaret Thatcher, Henry Winkler, and other long-deceased small-time Rhode Island dignitaries. I know, I know. Even more proof of my dazzling coolness that you knew nothing about.)

So, even though I was really wearing one of my two postpartum outfits yesterday (the shorts I think, not the jeans) picture me if you will dressed in the delightful garb of a Polish lass, cookin' up some of the food of my people.

Our dinner last night:

• Kielbasa
• Sauerkraut
• Dairy-free mashed potatoes
  
• Mini carrots for Kate (I blew her mind mentioning they didn't exist when Mark and I were kids)
• Red pepper for Kate (something she recently tasted and wanted to daringly try again)
• Sprite (Mark's soda pairing)

Last night at 5:15PM I was still waiting at the pharmacy for Kate's pink eye prescription to be filled. By the time we walked in the door it was just before 6PM, but I stepped up, people! I did not decide that gettin' a hot meal on the table when my hubbie got home (at 6:15-ish) was not possible! Nooooo! I stood by that stove and made sparks fly--while poor Paigey sat in her carseat bucket in a saturated diaper and waiting patiently for me to get everything on the stove. Bless that little crusty baby.

Nothing terribly interesting to report on the success or failure of this meal. Mark seemed to like it but thought that mashed potatoes made with Rice Dream aren't really up to par with those made with milk. And all I can say to that is, duh.

Since my sister Ellen and I had plans to get together at her house tonight, I was fearful my five-dinners-in-a-row would be in jeopardy. Instead I decided to make some galumpki--cabbage rolls stuffed with ground beef, pork, and rice, with Campbell's tomato soup on top--to take over for dinner.

These are something my Mom used to make us. You eat them with excessive amounts of ketchup, and though they're far from gourmet, in that weird way that some people actually like gefilte fish, Ellen and I adore galumpki. Every time I make them I jolt her into an intense taste and smell memory. (Similar to the smell "memory" your house gets after you've cooked cabbage in it all day.)

Speaking of slow cooking, the galumpki [Bruno family spelling] will be a bit of an experiment. Last time I made them I put them in this fancy crock pot we got from Williams Sonoma with a wedding present gift certificate. At that time the digital read out was starting to fail, but I was able to discern using educated guesses and my keen powers of telepathy what setting I was putting it on.

This morning I realized that in the few months it's been resting in the basement the remaining functionality of the digital screen has gone to hell. So I pressed a few of the extraordinarily un-intuitive buttons on the thing, genuflected, and walked away hoping that some sort of cooking was taking place.

I can say that my house is starting to smell like the cabbagey-smelling hallway of an old boarding house. So I think I did it right. In a couple hours after Kate wakes up from her nap and I've managed to lug her, Paige, and the forty-pound steaming hot crock pot over to Ellen's, I'll know for sure.

This morning Kate was shuffling through a stack of family photos my sister-in-law Lori recently sent.

Kate: "Cute cute cute!"

Me: [seeing that she's looking at a picture of John holding Gavin] "Who?"

Kate: "Uncle John! He is sooooo cute!"

Apparently she digs a man in uniform. And really, who can blame her?

Okay so no gourmet feast tonight, but there were actually four children under the age of five here up until about a half hour before Mark got home. And I was the only person over age five.

• Spicy Tomato Burgers on Potato Buns
• Ore Ida Crinkle Cut French Fries
• Left Over Green Beans (Mark made these Sunday night)
• Left Over Orzo (Kate only--while waiting for her burger to cook)

Not to besmirch the merits of a burger, since a great burger is a great thing. But I feel the need to defend this dinner offering based on the fact that there are so many other things I could cook, but the damn dairy restriction seems to significantly whittle down my options. Just needed to make that disclaimer.

My round-up of tonight's meal:

Prep stress level: Not bad considering at any moment toddlers could have been starting the curtains on fire in the other room.

Percentage of meal I did all by myself: Like last night 98%, since I asked Mark if he thought the burgers were cooked enough. (I needed to give them another 30 seconds.)

Orchestration of all elements: Good! I fretted a bit that the fries wouldn't be ready with the burgers, but my project management skills must have somehow kicked in. I hit my deadlines, nailed my milestones, and took the critical path to getting everything on the table at once.

Taste: Mark rated it as "very good." (Aw shucks.) He liked the little horseradish kick in the burgers, as did I, and said they had "excellent color." I hadn't even thought that was something the judges were looking at. Kate also seemed pleased with her un-spicy burger, and enjoyed making herself little sliders by sticking her cut-up meat between a bun she tore pieces off of. All this said, I should point out that neither Mark nor I touched the green beans that I reheated from the other night. I guess I don't get points for trying to make a balanced meal if we eat an imbalanced one. The fact that they were leftovers made them more easy to ignore, I think. Plus Mark had a multi-course work lunch.

Familial groove from all eating together: Excellent! We sit there and talk about what we all did during the day just like the Cleavers! Just two nights into this new eating together routine--versus our previous one of feeding Kate, putting the kids to sleep, Mark cooking, us eating, me trying to pry myself off the couch to clean up but more often than not just falling asleep and Mark doing it even though he also cooked.... Wait, where am I? Let me put it this way: It's 8:30PM now and instead of Mark and I just sitting down to eat, we're already digesting! The kitchen is sparkling! And Mark is now using the living room rug as a work shop for a bunch of greasy bike parts. Uh, progress, right?

A solid dinner overall. But now watching Hillary Clinton speak on CNN is giving me indigestion. Oy.

Guess what? I made dinner tonight like a big girl!

It's true. My dirty little secret is that Mark is our dinner-maker night after night. I know. I'm not working and there is really no excuse for this. Though the story that I have constructed around the situation is that "Mark likes to cook dinner" and "it helps him unwind after work" and "comparatively my food sucks." The reality is that really only that last statement is consistently true.

After hearing me say "Mark likes the in-the-trenches daily dinner prep and I much prefer cooking for dinner parties (when I also don't have children to tend to)"--hearing me say this perhaps a zillion times in different social situations where some small indication of our domestic set-up was revealed to someone--well, it's really a wonder that I'm still here typing today and that Mark hasn't strangled me.

I can't believe it took him as long as it did to finally set the record straight over pillow talk one night and say, "Uh, I don't always LOVE cooking dinner every night, you know. Sometimes I'd like to just come home and relax too. I mean, if you wanted to do it some time that would be great."

At least, that's what I think he said. I was too busy sticking my fingers in my ears and repeating "la la la la" loudly.

Sure one of my wedding vows was to always appreciate Mark's dinner-cookin'. And I think I've upheld that, and without much effort or prodding. I do appreciate having a personal chef as I often refer to him. (My God, it's a wonder I'm still alive.) I mean, my level of appreciation can't rival my brother-in-law Roland's who between bites nearly moans with grateful gastronomic delight. Me, I lick my fingertips, sop up gravy off my plate with my bread, and say at least once per meal how awesome the [INSERT ONE] [pork tenderloin with peach salsa] [pasta with homemade meat sauce] [chicken parm] [flank steak and baked potatoes] [chicken and corn chowder] [ziti bake] or myriad other meals are.

And he's not only about dinner. At lunchtime Mark makes a world-class tuna salad, a mean grilled cheese (with tomato soup, bien sur), and other fabulous sandwiches, quesadillas and left-over reincarnations with a twist.

I won't bore you with his mouth-watering breakfast and brunch offerings, mostly just because I don't want to run the risk of someone breaking into our house to steal him. Suffice it to say his skills in the kitchen have little to no boundaries.

So last night, after preparing another knock-out meal for childhood friend Sydney and hubbie Tere, we cleaned up, hung out, went to bed, and halfway through the night when Paige woke up to nurse Mark could not manage to get back to sleep. Just kinda tossed and turned and watched the hours on the clock tick by until of course he fell fast asleep mere minutes before needing to wake up.

Inspired by his measly 4-hours of shut-eye, I went to the grocery store with a fierce determination to do right by my man and to wrangle us up some dinner tonight.

For the record, it's not that I can't cook. I mean, I used to have a somewhat limited but solid repertoire. But somewhere between us dating, moving in together, and getting hitched those skills, well, atrophied. I can bake with the best of them, but always found savory foods more challenging. First there's timing everything to finish all at once, then there's the nasty handling raw chicken or having your fingertips smell like garlic the next day. (I'm such a princess.)

And frankly I just don't seem to have the basics of seasoning and discerning meat done-ness down pat. I'm a dyed in the wool recipe follower, which is why the precision of baking suits me to a T. To me hearing that you cook something "until it's done" and not for, say, 11 minutes, is arcane and maddening. My brain doesn't understand what to do with that directive, so before it short circuits I tend to flee and ask Mark to take over.

And that did happen a little bit tonight too, but I think I still get 98% credit for cooking this:

• Roasted chicken
• Oven roasted potatoes and carrots
• Corn on the cob
• Sippy cup of milk or beer (age dependent)

Not bad, eh? And the thing was, it WASN'T bad! Mark complimented me on it, though at this rate he's likely choking down raw chicken just to reinforce this behavior in me.

Kate even said twice, "Thanks for cooking this, Mama!" (Though maybe it was Mark throwing his voice.) She asked for more chicken a few times too, but did turn her nose at the roasted carrots in lieu of "crunchy baby carrots." The roasted carrots had "brown on them."

At any rate, the culinary merit of the meal aside, the whole dinner experience was, as Mark and I would say, exceedingly pleasant. I gave Kate a refresher course on table-setting, served everything up hot not long after Mark got home, and we all talked about our days like a nice little nuclear family as we ate. For her part, Paige happily did judo kicks in her bouncy seat while waiting for my breasts to be freed up for her dining pleasure.

So here's the thing. Even if I can't dice mirepoix in perfectly symmetrical micro cubes like Mark, and wouldn't likely take on anything that required mirepoix in the first place, I decided tonight I want to humbly try to bang out some dinners around here. Five nights in a row of me-cooked dinners is my self-imposed challenge. At the end of the week I'll either determine that I can contribute more regularly to our dinner-makin', take it over altogether (not my hypothesis), or just really amp up on my appreciation of all Mark's hard work.

No promises of gastronomic rapture. The goal is to make some healthy balanced meals that both Mark and Kate would be willing to eat. And that don't use Hamburger Helper.

Can I do it? Tune in to hear tomorrow's menu, and Mark and Kate's review.