Until I had to tell another person exactly how many mouths get fed around here, it never occurred to me just how extensive our buffet actually is. I went over early, before my daughter woke, to feed the three dogs next door. By the time I returned, worn out, she was up, starting to feed my dogs and cats. We were working on pouring water into my lizard cage, when I caught sight of the sunflowers by the fish pond shaking violently. It was then I remembered there are two ludicrously spoiled squirrels who expect an offering of walnuts each morning. I went out and put a small handful of nuts on the fence post where the cow skull hangs, and while standing there, I put three pinches of fish food into the pond. All of this before either of us humans put a bite or sip into our own mouths. I hope I didn’t forget anyone. It wasn’t until afternoon that my buddy came to visit, bringing a fresh bag of crickets for me, that the lizards got fed this week. They might be cranky, but they’re still alive and properly sized (not skeletal). I’m considering them fully cared for. Flowers were watered late afternoon. I think we covered it all.
I can’t tell whether I’m eating as much as I think I am while my daughter is here. After days of zero or few bites of anything, while I was out of commission, having any solid food at all is alien all of a sudden. I mostly consumed liquids yesterday until she arrived, and then we had a solid serving of spaghetti. Today, we learned that grits in the instant pot are not as simple as Pinterest suggested it would be, but we still used it for brunch. I’m pretty sure that was all I ate until dinner, other than a handful of blueberries, but I swear it feels like I ate all day.
For dinner, I asked her to use one of my favorite recipes, a garbanzo flour tempura batter from Against All Grain. Since I started watching tv halfway through the down week, I’ve been seeing thousands of fried chicken ads, and cursing my inability to digest certain grain proteins. I made my kid swear she would make that for us. Because we are who we are, she also cut up a mountain of vegetables to fry in the same batter. I sat in the hot kitchen, pointing out locations of utensils and food stuffs, sampling each kind of veggie as it came out of the oil (except mushrooms because ew), and developing a huge, crippling guilt that I was making her do all this work for me, in the heat, while she has a summer cold. (Yes, I felt similar guilt while her sister cooked the week before.) Then, as the last batch of chicken hit the oil, it occurred to me, I make this every few months, for me and the Mr. At least once, I made it for the D&D group. It wore me out every time to stand over that oil (undiagnosed cancer will do that to a body). Yet I don’t remember anyone expressing any sort of sympathy/apology/guilty thank-you for the work side of it. Yes, I’m sure someone agreed the food was good (it’s a great batter), but I can’t remember anyone suggesting I should sit while they finish, which is what I desperately wanted to tell my kid. I’m leaning toward thinking it isn’t so much that I needed someone to jump in and help as I need now to learn to sit back and accept it when people are willing to do things for me. That’s a hard, hard lesson.
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