The case for gal-pal dates, good food stocks and half-sheet pans

Today was as delightful as yesterday was the pits. Indeed, I am now, after thirteen busy hours, sitting on my birthday chaise, in the yard, in shorts, in the evening sunshine, with the paper and a glass of wine, timer set for a lovely dinner for one because T is out. The birds are chattering with each other as loudly as do the boys, flitting about all the while, from branch to branch, tail feathers up, down, up, the head a'cock-cock.

How did I get from there to here? With a little help from my friends, leftovers and my trusty half-sheets!

Let's begin. After dropping the kiddos off this morning, I came home and cleaned while waiting for one of my dearest pals, A, to arrive; we've had a walk-talk date scheduled for a couple weeks, and I was eagerly anticipating a leisurely time with her. Two hours, people! Two unadulterated, uninterrupted hours during which we both exercised and caught up almost completely. This is epic, not least during this psychotically hectic, end-of-school time; 22 days left, but who's counting.

That was swell and then I made a canyon-deep vat of red beans and rice for the faculty appreciation lunch in said 22 days. RB&R freeze beautifully so it's an outstanding dish to make in advance.

During the three-hour simmer that takes the dish from good to great, I planted tomatoes and the bell pepper plants Ol picked out in the hopes of sating his voracious appetite for them. Then to school, back home, and to work prepping for Ol's friend to come over for the "viewing of the desk." Ol has been planning this date for four days, practicing his Sith'iest voice so that he can spin in his new desk chair as his friend ascends the final stair, face him and intone, "I have been expecting you, Young Skywalker."

Things went perfectly according to plan, the three boys killed each other repeatedly with the swim noodle light sabers, Jack finished his homework and went off with the iPad, Ol and his friend did crafts in the basement, and sweet baby Jesus in the skies, friend's mom, M (another dearest pal), and I talked on the deck, largely uninterrupted, for nearly an hour.

Will wonders never cease?!

I made dinner for the boys, accommodated their various bath-time requests (demands?) and rummaged through the fridge in search of disparate elements to cobble into one great whole for my dinner.

Herein lies the immense value of good quality leftovers/food stocks, for I found leek confit, good goat cheese AND some Humboldt Fog, leftover phyllo and Amish bacon. Anyone could make a great dinner out of that array, especially when one also has a good half-sheet pan at the ready.

The humble half-sheet, aka rimmed baking sheet, is a quiet star of my kitchen; surely it is so for many kitchens. I have five: three are the standard half-sheet size; I received one for a wedding shower (thank you, Amy Junge, nee Ong) and the remaining two I was honored to receive from Tom's paternal grandmother's kitchen after she died. The fourth is a quarter-sheet, and the fifth is just smaller than that.

I use them all.the.time. Tonight I slicked the quarter-sheet with a bit of melted butter, patted the sorta-dry phyllo into it in an extremely casual way, brushed more butter on top, poured a little wine (nothing to do with the phyllo or half-sheet, peeps; just for moi), spread all the leftover leek confit in, dotted that with the two cheeses, fried some bacon, put it on top and threw that puppy into a warm oven. At that point I retired to the chaise and snapped the selfie above.

Naturally, J "tried everything but couldn't sleep" and so ended up on the deck with me, eating cereal and milk while I supped on my phyllo tart and tried to read an article about the a-hole Boko Haram kidnapper pricks with one eye at its outermost peripheral vision spot. This, as you might already have surmised, didn't work, so I threw in the towel and talked "great parts of our days" with my honey pie. Other than the design of his kimono in art class, I think he was making everything up as he went, but I had to hand it to his improvisational ability.

Finally, enough was enough, and "really, Jack, it's nearly 8 and most definitely time for bed." As an aside, do you remember the time Christopher Hitchens was on Real Time with Bill Maher (RIP, Hitch, I miss you all the time) and, while addressing and largely dismissing Mos Def, said, "well, Mr. Definitely...." Brilliant take down even though I like Mos Def.

In any case, I finagled that kid into bed and am now back outside, a half-moon smiling down at me, my quarter-sheet and leftover good leftovers on the counter inside, memories of time with real and dear friends still making me feel full. In the best way.

Holy breakdown y'all, peonies

I'll be honest in telling you that today has not improved much. My mouse battery died a slow death over the last few hours, just slow enough that I forget every time I stand up from the computer, and I have been repeatedly frustrated since. "Why isn't the cursor moving? Where is the cursor? What is wrong with the mouse? Shit, the battery again!" A dumb mind reel on loop. At present, Ol is utterly committed to an outrageous crying jag that commenced in the bathtub twenty minutes ago when Jack got in and took shotgun, continued during the initiation donning of his new hot dog, ketchup and mustard pajamas (which, btw, I'd hurried to launder today for said initiation because he was so thrilled), persisted amidst a loving backrub by a loving babysitter and showed no sign of letting up after I excused dear Katherine, informed Ol that his nonsense would now have to be his solo nonsense, put him in bed, turned off the lights and shut the door.

Jack was a hot mess when I got home too, with more than the usual amount of dirt about his face and neck, clutching his Darth Maul novel to his chest as if the entire populace was attempting to seize it from him, and so thoroughly disconsolate about something that he was unable to take his shoes up to his closet even though he had to step over them to ascend the stairs.

It's a rat's nest of silliness around here, people, just plum absurd. So perhaps I'd best get excited about Cinco de Mayo and make a margarita in the not-too-distant future.

In an attempt to escape the ululations reverberating throughout my home, I took my pruners and camera out to my peony bush. The two buds burst into bloom today and as it's supposed to rain tonight, I decided to go ahead and pick them so their delicate petals don't get razed. What a spectacular flower!

Grr

There are times when I retreat into hermithood simply to avoid dealing with jerks, the too-chatty checkout gal, inept drivers that abound, and general irritations and rudenesses that dot regular life but seem outsized on days like these. I bet y'all do this too; sometimes, it's really the only way to go. Today started off well enough, and damn if it isn't Cinco de Mayo, a faux-liday I usually love but feel ambivalent about this year. But things have sort of devolved for a whole host of stupid reasons, and now I'm grumpy and tired. I found ants in Nutmeg's food bowl, the space behind my left ear is sore because Oliver threw himself at me yesterday in a loving hug with the sad side-effect of pushing my earring against my head such that the back pierced my skin (OW! "There is just a little blood, Mom!"), Percy is driving me batshit with his neediness, the kids' "treasures" -read: crap- are everywhere, and frankly, I am really tired of the temps each night sinking to the low 40s. Let's call it a day on cold, can't we? I had to buy Oliver a new pair of jeans because the holes in the knees of all the others were approaching Kardashian-style which I can't bear. I just want to put away the coats. And maybe write a treatise on ways to express kindness or gentleness in emails.

Usually, cooking gets me out of a peevish slump but even that appears to be a roadblock to zen today because I just deconstructed what appeared to be a beautiful bunch of fresh (like, I JUST bought it) celery only to find that the interior of each stalk has been cored away and is now brown. Perhaps some pest on a bender went nuts and masticated the hell out of this thing, but I'm not using it and I'm not just tossing it (flipping organic celery). Back to the damn store I'll go where this time I will hope to avoid overly-chatty checkout gal -let's call her Vicki- who always asks annoyingly personal questions about my children's whereabouts. Every damn time. It drives me bananas.

It appears that it's time to take the bull by the horns on Ol's pronunciation of "r" and "th", and he's just commenced with some speech therapy. Jack did the same in PK, as he couldn't say "k" which was kind of hilarious because his favorite color was pink, which he pronounced 'peent', and we'd say, "Wow, Jack, you really love peent," and he'd yell, "No I don't! I love PEENT!" He was so sure he was saying pink, bless his heart. Anyway, now it's Ol's turn for his precious Brooklyn-like "r"s and I will SO miss them. I love his where-did-it-come-from accent because of that funny r. Boo.

I keep looking at that fabulous picture of Jack from last night's ball game, as if the happy balm that it is will erase my malaise. But as if often the case, I think I'll just have to let it run its course.