12-01-09 Tuesday 1334

E,

You beat me by a couple of hours on the Tuesday assignment. I was just about to snuggle up in bed with a laptop on my lap… a real cozy 21st kind of image.

Tuesday # 1334 was another K inspired crazy kind of day. I don’t mean to write all my entries about her but our Tuesday writing assignment seems to coincide with her calendar of events quite well. I had “K dinner” on my calendar and we gchat-ed around noon. I asked if she wanted to cook at my place or go to a nice restaurant nearby. “What?” she said “why your place of course,” and proceed to rattle off the name of four of our friends who were also coming. Turns out in classic B form, “K-Dinner” on my calendar meant I had volunteered to host our semi-regularly scheduled family dinner and I would soon be visited by six hungry friends, all of whom had cooked for me in the past and was my turn to feed and impress (see http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/03/18/88-dinner-parties/)

2 pounds of steak, a baby’s weight of butter and some blessedly pre-sliced mushrooms later, I rolled out some very fine beef stroganoff. My plan to use the rest of the tofutti sour cream was roundly vetoed and I very much stuck to the regular gourmet store brand sour cream. Even with my proclivity towards self effacement,- I will say it was some mighty fine beef stroganoff that succeeded in making all of us home-sick yet happy. K pitched with garlic bread and salad,  a cheese platter and several bottles of wine materialized and we had ourselves a right fine meal.

Again, the somewhat err… focused evening of cooking, shopping and food prep was just another chance to celebrate having such good friends, not to mention a Mom that made great stroganoff and an Aunt that taught me something about the kitchen (fortunately I haven’t had to make any pies under pressure but that may be coming). I still pack a fine- way too good quality for me- knife set in a rolling case- that lives in the drawer (a woodblock may be coming but let’s not get ahead of ourselves). Knives and the comfortable I have are the only material possessions apart from clothes to accompany me in all the places I have lived since junior year of college (neither made it on the campaign trail but I really wasn’t living anywhere then).

Earlier in the day I also had another challenge that reminded me of you when I had to speed rewrite a press release to turn what was really advertising copy into something of a news piece for a conservation update at work. My work made my boss happy so I was proud of that, I have a few questions about the long term value of their approach to “conservation updates” and sending copy out and about but that is for the long term. Short term if he is happy, I am happy.

Thanksgiving was terrific in Atlanta. It was absolutely worth the drive to be settled down in with a family and one of my closest friends. J’s family was amazing and she continues to amaze me with both her accomplishments and her nonchalant yet not entirely unfocused approach to life. Very willing to not let herself or her success or happiness be defined by what we might call traditional social expectations. She has spent her post college odyssey sailing, returning to camp, volunteering in New Orleans and generally refusing to let herself be limited by the pursuit of wealth and status that seems to be what a lot of our culture is based on. She is a very qualified life coach, a terrific human being and hopefully a nursing student at Johns Hopkins next year all though not her top choice. In short, you should meet her.

That said, Atlanta is quite far away and I think next time I will fly.

H and I had our one year roommate anniversary on the 29th; dating from the time we met not when I moved in. I, of course, forgot to call and sent in a belated anniversary e-card this week. We will probably celebrate it next week with an argument about dirty socks and yogurt passed the sell-by date.  That is another post in itself but our odd-couple country mouse/city mouse friendship, fight because we care friendship continues for the near future.

Your community activism continues to inspire- with job, and fitness in place, getting involved in the community was the third leg in B’s mad plan for sanity and you have that one covered!

Alright, I am fading fast and with only four Tuesday s left in all 2009, I better get some rest.

Love,

B

PS- K has a blender I actually returned last Tuesday because pesto was not on the horizon and my pesto partner in crime actually has a nut allergy but for some reason never had any problem with pesto until he realized what went in to the making. Here’s to not knowing.