recipe for better: cooking with beef, garlic, and wine

Today started out ass, I’ll just say it.  My head cold kept me up until very late and nearly debilitated come morning, at which point I was roused by the knock of a government official at my door.  Later my husband and I had a very tense and wasteful argument revolving around a bag of potato chips (yes, really).  Outside the wind kicked up to buffet us between bouts of sour, pissing rain.

The upswing was a while coming but once it did it kept improving.  The sun came out.  I rested, began to feel better, and went to bellydancing class.  Ralph and the kids took a long swimming date.  While out I grabbed groceries for Julia Child’s recipe for boeuf bourgingnon (the laborious, steady, soothing preparations would cheer any cook up).  In making the dish my prized stoneware roaster finally succumbed to the hairline crack it had threatened, so Sophie and I went out and bought a new enameled cast iron pot for the kitchen (this cheered me up immensely) and a Space Police Lego set and strawberry bubble tea for Sophie (this cheered her up immensely). I love my one-on-one time with the kids.  They are seriously fucking awesome.  This is when I find how much they have learned and discovered, their hopes and plans and passions and dreams.  Sophie sat next to me on the bench seat and leaned her head on my shoulder and we were fine, fine, fine.

Upon our return we invited my mother over for dinner (which included the beouf along with butter noodles and cucumber salad – delicious!) after which Ralph let our chicks out for a run in the living room.  They have gained immense stature and are lovely from the neck down with their beautiful, proud new feathers (and yet their heads are unappealing, vulture-y, and scrappy-yet-fluffy). In their aimless and semi-alarmed bobbing about they terrified my mom’s terrier so much he moved behind my legs.  He is a dear old pup.  He’s going blind and becoming fearful.  My mom is considering either springing the hefty expense of having one of his eyes operated on (to restore sight, if not depth perception) OR having him put down.  I find it hilarious she hasn’t decided which.  Of course I’m going to pressure her to do the former.

Because my children had spent much of the day playing with their father they seemed almost wild to me by days’ end, small unknown forces who kept their own counsel.  Only a few hours away from my care and my son looked taller, older, absorbed in his play.  His plans and schemes all his own.  It’s funny because in only the space of half a day I can miss them, not at all a pining feeling, more like an awareness of their absence.

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