A Case of the Grumpies

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

So I'm finally venturing out a bit. After living in Houston for three months- we have finally found ourselves a babysitter the girls adore. Naomi is a high school senior, and she watches Annie and Lucy an afternoon every week, and babysits for us on the occasional night out. (She tells me the movie "Mean Girls" is a totally accurate portrayal of high school today...)
Sunday night, Matt and I tried a sushi restaurant downtown- called Fish. It was very good- not up to Zenbu (our favorite in La Jolla) standards, but very good. It was such a treat to wear lipstick, and talk to my husband without having to spell certain undesirable words.
Tonight, I went to a "Cooking Club" meeting for my Mom's group. The theme was tapas, and eight other women were all cooking up something tapas-related to share. I had high aspirations of making empanadas, but since I was supposed to go to the grocery store this afternoon, and flash flood warnings and tornados were imminent (it was a bit nasty today- like Noah's Ark Nasty), I had to make do with what I had on hand. Luckily, I remembered a tasty dip from a Barefoot Contessa episode- and I whipped that together. (roast up some eggplant, bell peppers and onion- throw in a food processor with tomato paste and Voila!)
My dish was the most "rustic"- these women can cook! We're talking authentic Spanish meatballs, hollowed out cucumbers filled with gazpacho, roasted eggplant with tapenade and feta---- delicious!
I was a bit nervous, because Naomi could not babysit tonight- so the girls were in the hands of their well equipped father. Now Matt was post-call, which means up until the hour he was to start babysitting, he had been at work for 48 hours. That tends to make one grumpy, even if you do not happen to be a person who's baseline is a bit grumpy to begin with. I left my little family with Lucy in the pack-n-play, and Annie sitting next to her Daddy on our bed watching "Jack's Big Music Show".
An hour and a half later (and one urgent phone call to please hurry home) I arrive to find everyone in the exact same position. Lucy is now asleep, but surprisingly, Annie is crying. She tells me she was "feeling grumpy," "took a HUGE poopie" and "Lucy had big boogies". Sounds like I missed one hell of a night at home.