In the Details

Yesterday afternoon was one of the most frustrating few hours I’ve had.

Too bad, too, because the day got off to a rousing start: lolling in bed with the Great Dater, then home to Chris and pancakes, which are two more things that make my life pretty happy.

Then I had a cooking disaster. Then I had another cooking disaster.

First, I was feeling a little under pressure, cause I’d booked the night up pretty solid. Lunchmates* and dinner at Shelley’s, then off to pick up G.Dater then meeting Jennifer at the Aloha. That’s a lot of timing to work out.

I started the soup for lunchmates a little late, but not too late. But I didn’t have any onion. So off to the sotre and the soup started quite late. Still within reason, however. Spent about a half hour chopping various veg, getting all prepared-like before actually making anything. Sauteed some stuff. Dumped the split peas into the pot. Watched the bugs pop up on the surface.

Sure, I could have just scooped ‘em out and gone ahead. And had it been soup just for me, I would have skimmed the pot, boiled the soup for a while extra and eaten it anyway. In all my years of eating at restaurants, I’ve probably consumed worse than a tiny speck of a bug. But this was for a bunch of other people, and who wants to list “unidentified bugs” as one of the ingredients in what is supposed to be a delicious insect-free soup?

I wanted to take something though, so I thought I’d just whip up a rice/chick pea/veg salad, using the lemon juice and rind I didn’t put in the bug soup. For a change, thought I’d use quinoa. Lesson learned. Never use a new grain for the very first time in a salad you’re going to be feeding other people. It came out mushy and porridgey and no matter what I put in, I couldn’t seem to get any flavour going.

Then. Add dishes for pancakes, soup and quinoa salad all over the counter; add bills and mail and papers spread out over the table; add clothes half-exploded out of the suitcase in my bedroom; add toiletries all out of order and spread around everywhere and you get one very cranky out-of-place Megan.

Dinner was good, the salad went over fine. It won’t poison anyone and a glass of wine or two lifted my spirits somewhat. Enough to get home in good time to get changed for the Yo La Tengo show.

Enter major hosiery issues. Decided to wear fishnets to YLT. And either my legs have shrunk alarmingly or gotten very slippery since the last time I wore them. By the end of my block, the stay-ups were no longer staying up. I felt a little slip, a little slip, and then boing, they were down around the tops of my boots. Attractive. Went home, found a smaller pair, off again. Late to pick up G. Dater, who is so punctual it makes me wet. I hated to be late in return.

What was supposed to be a smaller pair of fishnets was not a pair at all, but one smaller leg and one bigger leg. So one leg stayed up, and the other leg started the familiar slow slip slip before the final kaboing. I had to stop in Dundonald park to hoik the stayup as far north as it would go, taking a quick look around to see who was going to get a show in the process. Not that the denizens of Dundonald park would be much shocked by a glimpse of my inner thigh.

None of this boded well for the enjoyment of YLT. The show was good, I could recognize that. And I did have several moments of enjoying myself. But I was hot and I was tired, and then had this weird sort of blackout during the last song before the encores. Felt like a drinking related blackout, but no excessive amounts of alcohol were involved. Bleh.

And man, I know that none of these things rate even close to important in the grand scheme of things. Hell, in any scheme of things. Even in my life, which is a very small scheme of things to start with, these things are very small things. But that’s a lot of small things for a few short hours.

*Lunchmates is Shelley’s very good way of getting more varied lunches. All participants bring a meal big enough for 5 lunches. They also bring 5 empty tupperwares. Having given 5 meals away, they take 5 different meals in return. So far, I have enjoyed my ratatouille very much.