At 9am this morning, Zoe had a gargantuan meltdown because her "princess necklace" broke. She uses it every 3 months, but was convinced that it was magical and she was an actual princess because she had the necklace. When we tried to sooth her by saying we could restring it on a stronger string she said the magic had been in the actual string, and that the magic disappeared the moment it broke. She was melting down so loudly that I had to shut her bedroom window so people outside wouldn't think she was dying. I'm sure our immediate neighbors were woken up early, wondering what the hell was going on over here.
She eventually calmed down and I started my recovery process, but had to dig a little because I had a lot I wanted to accomplish today and everything had to happen at an exact time in order for me to pull it off. So, I got right down to business and was really on a roll. I even got the kids out to get their haircut, which wasn't part of the original plan. After haircuts, I found myself cruising along, bread in the oven and dinner on the stove. I was cooking dinner early because our afternoon is full of stuff we have to do outside of the apartment. The dinner I was making not only smelled great but was going to feed us for 2, maybe 3 days so I was feeling really good. I even dared to think to myself "Alright, nice work turning a bad day into a great day!" and the next moment, I wine glass randomly feel out of the cupboard, shattering into tiny pieces all over the counters and floor. I wanted to scream, but instead reminded myself that I could put cooking on hold to clean it up, and keep on cooking after. I had to dump a bowl of spices that had been waiting to be added to the pot of stew on the stove but other than that I thought it was all salvageable. After cleaning the floor, I kept stepping on tiny, unseen pieces of glass so got the vacuum out. After vacuuming the floor and taking a deep breath to move on with the stew, I noticed shards of glass on the stovetop. I stood there for a few minutes trying to decide what the likelihood was of pieces of glass making it's way into the pot too and then realized I couldn't take any chances. I threw away the stew and then cried.
I'm slowly feeling better but am having a hard time shaking the awful feeling that I just wasted 3 days worth of dinners for us. In the end though, I do realize the best thing to do is follow Zoe's sage advice (bestowed upon me in the midst of my tears): "Think of it this way: at least you're not dead!"
Do me a favor and share any similar stories you may have? I'm almost out of the self pity stage but could use a couple of chuckles and "I know how you feel"'s.
Once, I made a delicious vegetarian stew for Floyd. This was in NY at the time, and we were having a problem with confused flour beetles. They were so confused that they often got into the hot pepper flakes.
ReplyDeleteI was at the last stage of finishing up my stew, got out the jar of hot pepper flakes and started sprinkling them in. You guessed it. Dozens of confused flour beetles (which are tiny). I almost cried as I tried to fish them out and couldn't. There were too many and they were too small. I wavered back and forth but finally decided to let the stew cook for another 15 minutes and serve it. I figured it was extra protein.
Also, another time I made falafel for dinner and make an amazing mint yogurt sauce with tahini, cucumbers, and tomatoes. When it was finished, I tasted it. I accidentally used vanilla yogurt instead of plain. That one I had to throw out.
BTW, I regularly have meltdowns in which I realize that I'm no longer a princess because the magic has worn off. And I shut my bedroom window, too.
Ha! Oh man, thank you so much for that Michele! XO
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