A ludicrous last 10, and I'm off

Friends, I haven't the slightest idea what I packed except I know I have three purses and three pairs of shoes. I think I packed all my make-up. I might have more than one pair of pants. Last night was the pits; it was as if we had a newborn except that we don't. I was up from 2:45 -3:45 with Jack wailing about not yet having Quidditch robes: would amazon run out before Halloween? what would we then do? I spent the entire conversation wondering if he was serious, in some sort of bizarre dream or a combo of those plus sleep-deprived nuts. At one point I fell asleep and he promptly elbowed me in the eye. Like right into the socket. I stumbled back to bed and T started snoring. Steam was starting to burst from my ears. Then there was some issue with Oliver, and then Nutmeg came in and started rustling in the coat hanger mound that is -my fault- still on the floor from the closet clean and then eating Tom. By 6:10am, everyone, including the apparating cat, was back in our bed. Little boy hands were everywhere, and I finally escaped to Ol's bed before huffing downstairs to find we were out of coffee. Needless to say, I actually don't give a rat's arse what's in my bag. Yesterday's sadness about leaving has been 100% replaced by glee about getting out of dodge for 48 hours. Good god people.

More from the relative balm that will be the airport. What??!!

CrawSlaw!

I really wanted Brussels sprouts last night but I knew T would be distraught if along side them I didn't serve a redemptive protein. I peered into our garage-based chest freezer and saw my last pound of Louisiana crawfish. An idea began to take hold. Long story short -blanching and food processing the B. sprouts, shredding in some Hakurei turnips too, boiling the crawfish, getting out the Tony Chachere's and making a fab aioli that included bacon drippings (just a little) and reduced apple cider, monitoring T's skepticism while pretending I didn't notice- I served us this.

And boy did he approve. Wonderful, flavorful, each element its own star. I'm writing up the recipe  next unless I decide it really is time to pack for Chicago since my cab comes at 7:55 tomorrow morning. I have not even mentioned that my college reunion -Go Northwestern, Go!- is this weekend because I have been so busy, and it came up so quickly, and I hate to pack so much, and really I'm in complete denial.

PS- The Apple Cider Muffins are fabulous- a favorite! The farro salad from two days back is one of my favorite Em-i-lis recipes too!

Fab farro salad!

In all seriousness, I'm not sure I've had this hectic of a day in some time. And coming from me, that's saying a lot. It started at 7:30a -still dark out!- with a fantastic presentation at the kids' school. Now it's 8:17p, and it's all kinda blurry. Not least cuz I've had two glasses of wine. And the gov shut down. And all that jazz. I will say that it's true that cats LOVE catnip -sweet Jesus is that true- and that I created a fabulous farro salad to go alongside our grilled chicken this evening. Y'all, seriously, this is delicious. Farro, roasted golden beets, feta, maple-glazed pecans, chive-sage oil... Bene, bene. I'll post the recipe tonight.

Thank you for the wonderful response to Cinderello, by the way. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your many notes of support and heck-yeahs!