Odd notes on a Saturday

 

lamb ragu

Sometimes on a Saturday night you can find yourself doing the oddest things. I just finally stopped myself from scrolling through a site that listed 50 dressing styles and trends women should avoid if they don’t want to look old. Do you realize how endless 50 pages can be? And yet it was one of those situations—you tell yourself, “Just one more. I just want to see the next one.”

Some of these were no-brainers: don’t wear our mother’s pearls, avoid too much blush or eavy black eye-liner, old lady handbags (calls Queen Elizabeth II to mind, much as I admired her). Knee socks with sneakers (really? Who would?). But the fashionistas, whoever they are, can just keep their hands off my stretch jeans now that I’ve finally found a pair that fit. And don’t tell me I can’t have short hair—except in rare instances, I think long hair on a woman over, oh let’s be generous and say sixty, looks dated and out of place.

I am angry at myself every time I get caught up in one of those sites with the endless “Next” button. Often they tell some heartbreaking story, and you’re caught up in it before you know. Because such are a vehicle for ads, writers draw the story out too many pages, repeating details, coming at them from another direction, delving too far into the back story. Still I get caught, even while I’m thinking what a mindless way for a writer to earn a living.

It's not been that kind of Saturday at all, so I’m a bit surprised at myself. I spent the morning keying in corrections to Irene that my mentor found—and occasionally feeling triumphant because I was right. It is Spaghetti-Os, not Spaghetti O’s. and a Frenchman would call a police station a commissary because the French term is commissariat de police.  I had great three-o’clock-in-the-morning thoughts about the next Irene adventure—can you believe this? The fourth is not anywhere near a publication yet—at least another two months —and I’m planning the fifth. But I had a great opening scene in mind and hastened to write it down. I have nary a clue what happens after that.

We are at sixes and sevens as Christian’s mother is hospitalized, and he is spending a lot of time with her in first a Grapevine hospital and now a Bedford nursing center. So we never know who will be where when. Which means I don’t know what to do about dinner. Jean was coming tonight, and I couldn’t wrap my mind around what to do—should we go out? No, I didn’t want to gear up and dress up enough to go even to the Old Neighborhood Grill. Should I ask Jean to bring something, though I couldn’t think of any convenient, reasonable take-out between her apartment at Trinity Terrace and my cottage. No surprise that the easiest option was to cook. Christian brought my curbside order from Central Market, the order that I flubbed yesterday and finally placed for today. There was a pound of ground lamb in it, and I decided to make a lamb ragu. Served with butter lettuce salad with Newman’s Own Caesar salad dressing and lots of grated pecorino. A good dinner, if I do say so. I’ve decided I’m going to keep a pound of ground lamb on hand—it’s so good for burgers, makes a terrific shepherd’s pie, and was great tonight in ragu. Not sure I’d know what to do with a leg of lamb anymore, because it’s gotten so expensive. But ground is a good way to get the flavor.

So that’s my Saturday. Here I sit, dishes all done, cottage as neat as it’s going to get, candles flicking odd shapes and lights on the ceiling, Sophie asleep in her crate. I’m going to read a bit and then slink off to bed.