Monday, February 18, 2008

Stupid food and other observations…

You ever cook something and, when you’re done, think, “That looks stupid.”

Well, that happened to me last night. I made some pasta and a homemade meat sauce for dinner and… it just looked stupid. Not unappetizing, mind you. Just stupid. Stupid food. Food with a wheel missing. I don’t know if you have any idea of what I’m talking about but some food just looks stupid. And you think, “Am I really going to eat that?” Of course, you are. You cooked it; you might as well eat it.

I didn’t mention this to Vicky… but I did see her giving it a few extra looks before she dug in.

I was happy to have Vicky back home. She’d been gone Friday and Saturday night’s, dog-sitting for her brother. I, wisely and surprisingly, had used that time to start working on a PowerPoint presentation for my Kid’s TV class. In two days, I completed 11 slides… and I’m only about a third of the way through – shit! So, the thing I learned the most was just how much MORE work I have to look forward to! I’m so used to writing stories and straight-forward papers that this PowerPoint thing really took me off guard. It’s more like writing sketches, short scenes each with its own artwork or sound effects. So, I spend most of my weekend putting each of my ideas into bite-sized, slide-sized pieces and looking for pictures and sounds that fit. Took for-fucking-ever! Crap!

I did get a little break Saturday night when I drove out to Fontana to take Vicky to dinner. We only see each other for a couple hours each night during the week, so the weekends are crucial to our relationship, which is why even though she was in Fontana we arranged a date. We went out to Logan’s, our favorite roadhouse out there – a real country dive. We love it. Dinner was great and we got to spend a couple of hours together, but then I had to head back home and keep working on the presentation. I took off right away and only realized later what a stupid choice that was: homework over Vicky. Dumbass move!

But Vicky got back early Sunday, and I was happy to ditch the homework. Rather than remain cooped up in the house all day, we drove down to the Carlsbad Outlet Mall (or whatever the name is) to look at Crate&Barrel for a replacement patio umbrella. Turned out, they didn’t have the one we wanted but – so what? It was an opportunity to do something other than go to work or school or do homework! Hell, I loved it! We had sushi and I bought some clothes. It was a good day for me. During the entire drive, we kept the radio on Raw Dog (Uncensored) Comedy, one of our satellite stations and laughed and laughed. Another enjoyable departure from our constant, unending work: humor!

And then, came dinnertime. We ate in the dark and watched “Cities of the Underworld” but I could still see the stupid food. And we opened a bottle of cabernet someone had given to us and it sucked out loud.

Overall, not a bad weekend.

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