Report from The Weekend Without The Mom

My kitchen is in such a state, I don't even know where to begin. My focaccia bread pizza did not turn out the way it usually does on Friday night, and last night we ate the tortellini salad warm, which was not a good idea, and I really think I need to either halve the amount of onions or double the tortellini. But it was great fun using the vegetable chopper for just about everything in a recipe, sending onions, celery, and peppers to their death in serial fashion. Beat chopping by hand. Anyway.... Swimming was great fun, though the girls took the Longest Time Ever to change and shower afterward: 40 minutes. I was getting ready to break my cardinal rule that I will never send anyone into the locker room to get them. Laundry is in good shape, been doing a little bit all weekend. Hey, what was up with the movie "Grease" that we all thought it was so great? I knew it was dumb, but it seemed a lot more fun twenty-five years ago. This time I just couldn't suspend disbelief when Olivia Newton-John showed up in spandex pants at the end, since there were no spandex pants in the '50s. I was going to make some flip comment about how everyone has forgotten that Cha Cha DiGregorio was the real party in the picture, but that would be unfair to Stockard Channing, who got a lot of attention at the time for doing the only actual acting in the entire movie, which got a lot of attention and an ill-advised TV deal at the time, and then she sank to mid-level obscurity (and, to be fair, a lot of Broadway) until she re-emerged on "The West Wing". (IMDB lists her first credit as "The Victim of the Number Painter" on Sesame Street.)

Okay, reeling the topic back in now. The whole "Grease" thing started because I suddenly got "Who put the bomp" etc. in my head at lunchtime, so we got the movie at the library. Watched it after supper and I made popcorn for the first time in years. By "made" popcorn, I mean heated up oil in a pan and popped it. I never do this because it makes the whole house stink of burning vegetable oil, but last night I got it just right (and opened all the windows first) and it came out okay. And I was such an accommodating dad that when Bekah said, "There's not much butter" and I said that was because there wasn't any at all, and she just said, "Oh," I got up and melted butter for it. Know what? Much better with the melted butter. Duh. So, they trundled off to bed with surprising efficiency, I watched some aimless TV while reading "Low Life," and when I got restless did a little mayhem with Grand Theft Auto 3. I always want, when I'm on my own, to be able to put on the headphones and crank the stereo, but I'm too nervous that one of them will need me and I won't be able to hear them, so that never happens.

Today we're on our own most of the day. Promised Hannah we'd watch Branagh's "Much Ado About Nothing," because she has decided she is going to read Shakespeare, and I thought it would go a little easier if she had some frame of reference for what is going on in the story while she struggles with the words. Besides, it was my introduction to Shakespeare and has ever since been my favorite of his plays (9th grade, "Lulubelle" Dunsworth. We got out of doing "Romeo and Juliet" because we had seen the Zeffirelli movie the year before -- it was quite a scandal, since there was an 8th of a second flash of breast as Juliet jumped out of bed. We were 13, and that 8th of a second went a long way.) Also today, I need to set up the grill. Got Lee the cutest gas grill for Valentine's Day, perfect size for our desires which, like the popcorn, involve being able to cook pork and chicken without stinking up the house for days.

But first, I've gotta find the coffee pot in that kitchen . . . .