Suddenly *Not So* Single Journey

And in the epic fail category: dinner!

Author: thenicknick

Certainly by now, if you’ve been reading me any length of time, you have picked up on the importance of meals around our place.  And so, Tuesday was big in the meal department.  It started Monday night with Rachel murmuring to me before she fell asleep.

Rachel: Mommy, let’s do breakfast in the morning.

Now usually when she says that it means that she wants me to take her to Panera.  And I wasn’t in the mood to drive her to school or get up that early to be ready or anything that little outing might entail.

Rachel: So, maybe you could make some eggs.  We have lots of eggs.

And she was right.  The only problem was that I didn’t know how many eggs I had…exactly.  See, on Friday, while I was doing my weekend grocery shopping, the eggs collapsed on themselves while I was checking out.  They fell out of the container and into the basket and I was scooping eggs while people stared me down angrily.  (Charlotte is not one of the warmer, sensitive, sweeter southern states like you see on television.  My guess…too many northerners.  And you can tell I’m a northerner because otherwise…I would’ve used the term ‘Yankee.’)

Still, I wanted to make the girl happy.  And she wasn’t really asking a lot.  So, I woke up early yesterday to maintain my routine and add ‘make breakfast’ to the agenda.  I thought it was going to be this lovely morning bonding.  Instead, Rachel sat at the counter reading The Last Song, the Nicholas Sparks novel Kimberly lent me…but I haven’t had time to read yet.  And I cooked in my big blue bathrobe.

Soon, I was singing.  And when I realized she was still ignoring me, I added a dance.  And when I realized that she was still ignoring me, I sang and danced over to her.  What did she notice?

Rachel: Mom!  You are such a freak.  You realize you’re still holding the knife, right?

me: Uh huh.

And then I made some comment about how she was saddled with me for a mother, to which she appropriately responded by listing friends who wished they had me for a mother.  Good, Rachel.  Nice compliment.

Soon, she was off to school, I was off to work, and she had a great hot homemade breakfast on her belly.  Score!  Mother of the Year, here I come!

Well, lunch was really great.  For me.  I ate with the new guy.  He met me…ah, the romance…in the food court.  And we ate a rushed lunch, during which time I had a startling revelation.

me: Want a chicken nugget?

And I gasped before he gave a response.

NG: No thank you.  What’s wrong?

me: I’m notoriously food selfish.  I really must like you!

He laughed.  And I think he thought I was joking.  Alas, you don’t get thighs like these from sharing.  Silly, new guy!  Yet, I can see why he would be confused.  He always comments about reasons that he knows he likes me.  Like…the other night when I told him how much I appreciate his texts.

NG: I hate texting.  And yet I text you all the time.  I really must like you.

So, there’s that.  Yay, me!

Then came dinner.  Rachel was supposed to cook.  She told me she would before she left for school.  Only then, I received a text from her Jennie, aka Ashley.  Rachel needed to stay after for tutoring and could I pick her up?  Tutoring.  That dedicated girl, so devoted to her grades.  Right.  Justin had to be staying after.  Still, there was a chance she might learn some geometry.  Sure, I’d pick her up.

Well, we arrived home just after 5pm.  I think we can all agree that this is not late by normal standards.  Only…I didn’t eat all my lunch.  And I didn’t get a snack because I let Kimberly talk me out of it…by text.  (Okay, and I was a bit distracted today with the new guy popping up unexpectedly here and there, but I mostly want to blame Kimberly…because it makes me feel better.  Sorry, Kimberly!)  Rachel was starving because of…tutoring.  And Keenan, well, we found him locked out of the apartment, waiting for us in the cold.  Needless to say, dinner needed to be ready…five minutes ago.

I was so proud of my grocery shopping over the weekend.  I had purchased everything we needed for the week.  Or so I thought.  Because soon it was evident that we couldn’t have drumsticks because I had bought thighs, that we would be dead before the thighs could become rosemary roasted chicken and potatoes, and that no one was interested in pork chops at the moment.  Hmmm.  That left hot dogs.  I hate hot dogs.  It wasn’t always that way, but I spent an entire summer eating them EVERY day because it was quick and painless and meant that I didn’t miss out on much pool time.  (I was twelve!)  And now…not the biggest fan of dogs.

Let’s face it.  Meals aren’t simply about consuming calories.  There’s more to hunger than ingesting food.  No, food must speak to the soul.  It must fulfill a deeper need, a greater hunger, in order for satisfaction to occur.  Well, to bastardize a song by Mick Jagger… we didn’t get no satisfaction.

Yup.  The milk was bad, so no side of cheesy noodles.  I made it as far as boiling the macaroni part of the deluxe mac and cheese, only to realize the pouch expired almost three months ago.  I thought I was being resourceful by using the Bertoli Vodka sauce on it instead…yet the children were less than impressed.

Rachel: It looks like prison food.

And she was kinda right.  I had cooked the hot dogs in a skillet since I was out of clean sauce pans and the thought of cleaning one only to dirty it immediately required too much effort in my haste to finish cooking.

We ate.  And we looked at each other.  It was, of course, Rachel who said what we were all thinking.

Rachel: Uh. That sucked.  I’m not full.  I’m not satisfied.

So, I went to the pantry.  And I grabbed my secret stash, the one that should have been in a case labeled ‘break glass in case of emergency.’  Let’s face it, we were there.  I doled out the huge Hershey bars that I had saved for s’mores.  There would be plenty of time to get more before we needed them.  It was, at best, a last ditch effort to salvage the meal.  Still, something of a fail.

I suppose I can comfort myself in the knowledge that thankfully, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  And I can further comfort myself in the knowledge that another breakfast is right around the corner.  Yet, it is very little comfort that I will once again have to play totally beyond myself to get up at the butt crack of dawn to cook breakfast.  Ahhh, redemption at its finest.

Quick Karma:

• don’t skip breakfast
  

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 5:46 am and is filed under Just Sharing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.