new stuff

In the past week, I've done some things I don't normally do, which has gotten me to thinking (that's a good turn of phrase... I should use it more often) about whether I'm already too set in my ways at age 37 and how I came to avoid certain activities.

For starters, I've cooked a little bit, sort of, with help from someone who clearly delights in it. And I've been cooked for which hasn't happened in a long time. As I watched my friend play around in the kitchen -- happily, consciously and decisively -- I wondered why cooking scares me so much. It's something I just never, ever seem to get right no matter how hard I've tried -- and I have gone through periods where I tried to learn.

Usually when people hear me say I can't cook, they just sort of guffaw and tell me it's as easy as following directions. When I tell them that no matter how hard I try to follow the directions, the food never turns out right, they don't believe me, but it's true. It just never does.

But this person with whom I was cooking this weekend didn't seem all hung up on specific instructions, and when he gave me any, they were sort of intuitive rather than rigid, like "You'll know the dough is ready when it starts separating from the sides of the bowl."

That I can understand.

So maybe I'll try it again sometime. He even got my son Henry cooking. When I woke up this morning (Saturday - - I slept in), my child had actually made - from scratch - 3 pizzas from the leftover dough, as well as fresh coffee and sliced fruit. Very tasty. So I woke up to food someone had cooked for me. Can't remember the last time that happened.

New experience #2 was a trip to Sam's. I've been there before but it's been years and years. The place really freaked me out. Yes, it's probably MUCH more practical to buy large quantities of things, but I found myself so overwhelmed by all the large quantities of things that I was sort of paralyzed at the idea of buying anything at all. It made me happy to hit the tiny, creaky, totally impractical neighborhood food co-op this morning to buy impractical-and-not-budget-conscious amounts of dogfodd, recycled trash bags, real butter, and cookies with no transfats.

New experience # 3: my laptop has sputtered back to life (no thanks to your microwaving tip, Steve Killefer ;-) and I bought a backup thingamajig and now my entire life -- 10 years of photos, writing, music, journals, etc is all safe on another harddrive. I have to say it makes me feel quite happy.

New experience #4: I sent my 9 year old daughter off to a horse show in another state for four days with her trainer and another horse show mama I know. I couldn't go and she really, really wanted to, so I packed up her boots, chaps, and helmet, wrote her phone #s on her arms in sharpie marker (yes, I really did this) and sent her on her way. She was as excited as if it were Christmas. I haven't heard from her in 2 days. I think she'll be a little older when she gets back.

New experience #5: My son Henry and a friend left a little while ago -- the first really marvelous East TN spring day this year -- to walk the mile or so from our house into downtown to go have coffee in the Old City. We've only lived in our house about 6 months and Henry's been dying to go downtown by himself ever since. So today I said okay. I passed him and his friend browsing a sidewalk thrift store sale when Elliot and I drove back from the co-op a while ago. He looked really big.

And now I'm gonna go plant Clematis .... that I bought at Sam's. It came in a smallish box.