Unbelievably weird dream

T thought dinner last night was the cat's meow. The tiny, multi-hued potatoes were perfectly salted (secret, in my opinion, is to use flake salt), and perfectly roasted: when your knife sliced each skin, there was an almost imperceptible puff, followed by a subtle release of steam and an intoxicating fragrance of spud. Our steaks were cooked to each of our preferred doneness: mine, medium-well, his, medium-rare. The fava bean puree, resplendent in all its glorious spring-greeness, is such  a terrific summertime wing-man for steak. And a nice Rioja rounded out the meal winningly. Having had a large cup of caffeinated tea during my Italian class Wednesday evening, that night of sleep was foiled. The early morn was further foiled by the children, so by 9p last night, I was bushed. T offered to let me sleep in the basement -yay- so I took my tired self down, did a crossword and called it a day. Sounds lovely, right? Surely I am more rested today, yes?

No.

The wildest dream since the last wildest dream resulted in that wretched feeling of having been awake all night even though I'm sure that's not true. Apparently, we lived in a different home, went on a vacation and decided to bring home a tiger. Yes, a large, adult, from-the-wild tiger. Because he was cute. Naturally this was incredibly stupid, and what seemed to commence was a nightmare game of musical rooms: we all moved fearfully from room to room as we attempted to avoid the tiger.

Was I channeling The Hangover? I don't know. Concurrent with this ridiculous tiger-at-home situation was a visit from my parents during which we kept trying to go out to dinner at a fancy bistro -Mom even ordered a Lillet at the bar- but then the kids would escape and wreak havoc in another nice restaurant, and we'd have to race over and corral them and there were always two other kids with ours and apparently we were in charge of them too but why the kids weren't with the babysitter was a mystery but probably had to do with the large tiger pacing through our home.

I do not know what to make of any of this REM romp and I feel extremely vague right now and we have a rehearsal dinner in Baltimore tonight. So, I just iced a Reine de Saba and think I'll try to get dressed.

Thank you, for the Grands

An enormous, heartfelt thanks to all of you who so quickly have helped me clear out a good deal of space in my jam closet. I hope you enjoy your goodies; I'm off to make more! If you are still interested, I'm now out of strawberry-rhubarb-lemon, cherry plum, and peach-apricot almond but you are otherwise a go. And yes, I ship! I slogged my way through Pilates this morning, almost constantly repeating to myself the mantra, "this is good for me, this is good for me." If we'd stayed in any supine or prone position for long, I'd have been out like a light; as it was, I tried to muffle my many yawns. Mom had shipped up Louisiana irises from her garden for two of my friends, so I delivered those (I love the idea of my mom's garden reaching into others') and then headed home to cook dinner for the Grands (if you're not familiar with this, I cook dinner twice a week for the loveliest nonagenarian couple to whom I affectionately refer as the Grands): fava bean and mint puree to go alongside pan-seared filets, roasted potatoes with truffle salt, raspberry and watermelon salad. Aren't these steaks and the puree gorgeous? The meat looks lacquered! We'll be having the same meal this evening.

How hard is it?!

Grr! These are both simple and clear. Yet, two days in a row: wet bed, nightmare, "where is tool sheet?", some horrid combo has woken us at 5:20a.I am effing tired.