A nice day yesterday. I proclaimed it a day of recovery from a wretched week for both of us. I told Ernie the only thing I thought he needed to do was to get rid of the cobweb near the ceiling in the bathroom. It’s one of those things you can’t unsee once you’ve noticed it. He did. After that, there was much reading on my part, crosswording on his part, some Master Chef Australia viewing and an attempt to make a good dinner. I totally failed on the last one. Win some lose some, huh?
We had bought some nice fish which we planned to have on Thursday. I was planning to put it on a bed of celeriac puree with some sort of fresh celery mmmm….I don’t know…. chimichurri or salsa kind of thing. Well, my Thursday went to hell and there was no way I was cooking dinner and Friday was the MRI…and yeah, the fish was bad. I HATE it when I waste food. Then I read a recipe for pork chops that sounded good and we haven’t had a pork chop in ages, so when Ernie went to the store he picked up some. In the meantime, we cooked our celeriac with some potato. Unfortunately, we let the water boil down too far and some of the celeriac burned. I tried to cut off any burnt parts but that really didn’t solve it. I threw the potatoes and celeriac in the food processor with a couple of pats of butter. I tasted it and it was pretty good, added some salt and lemon juice and it was better, but it still had that hint of burn. Damn it. We served it with the chops, which were good (just salt and peppered, seared in a cast-iron skillet and finished in the oven), and some leftover green beans, which had been lovely but turned out to be, um, a little too leftover. So there you have it, a totally subpar dinner. Lately, since we don’t cook as regularly as we used to, we’re usually thrilled with our dinners. Not this time. I guess it means we have standards?
Leo headed back to the train show at Lincoln Square yesterday (where he kindly got some incense for us at International Galleries, which the inimitable Debbie Stewart helped him pick out. I’m pleased that both my boys adore Debbie Stewart. Seems like a good mark of character for them). AND, although Leo himself did not show up on the news footage at 6 pm, at least his engines did!!!
I came across this picture of me by the famous Tama, Iowa Lincoln Highway bridge as I was looking for something else. It made me the tiniest bit wistful. I don’t really want to be that girl (it’s from 2017) as she went through some very hard stuff since then, but just the same… Look, I barely have gray hair! I’m wearing purple! I’m by my favorite bridge! I’m on the Lincoln Highway! I’m in Iowa! I’m wandering with my husband!
I really miss our wanders. Life has just gotten too complicated to take many. Hopefully, we will again.
Ok, yesterday was my free day, today I need to get some work done.
Onward.
You’ll note on the top photo that Bob was sleeping by Ernie, but kept one paw on Ernie’s wrist to make sure he didn’t get any ideas about wandering off.