Anyway, with the windows open, I could smell what my wife came up with this morning: she decided to make some cinnamon rolls from scratch. (There is no shortage of reasons I love this woman so dearly, and something like this is only one of many.) So I wrapped up in the garden and headed in for the rest of my breakfast: two cinnamon rolls and the remainder of my coffee.
Then we loaded the boy up in the stroller, leashed up our older dog, and walked the half-mile to our local farmer's market.
There are lots of foods I don't like to eat. There are more foods I don't like to eat than there are foods I like to eat, by far. I'll blog about my eating some day. Probably soon. But man, we were strolling around the market in the shade of redwoods and valley oaks and a guy was selling nectar-plums, a hybrid of pretty obvious origins. Those things were SO FREAKING GOOD, and I would never claim to like nectarines or plums. I guess I should try harder.
We did our stroll of the market, our old girl enjoying the attention that's always poured upon her, and filled the bottom of the stroller with the weeks' produce, supplementing those things are garden won't or isn't yet providing, like potatoes, greens, corn, and nectar-plums. My stomach was still full from the cinnamon rolls, and the farmer's market samples didn't help that much, but it was great to be so full.
We got home, unloaded the produce, and changed clothes for an easy family jog. Our younger pup goes along on the jogs, so we leashed her up and were on our way. It was really an easy, pleasant jog. We weren't out to set records. We chatted the entire time, covered a little under 4 miles, and our son fell asleep toward the end. We transferred him in to his crib for his nap and a little while later, my wife went off to do some poolside reading at the gym and run a couple of errands.
My son woke up shortly after she left, and I had planned to go grocery shopping, but instead decided to do some cleaning so my wife wasn't coming home to such a wreck of a house. I got a couple of rooms straightened up, swept the floors, and mopped the tile. (This would seem like a simple task, except straightening anything when you have a toddler and trying to clean a floor when you have two shepherds is...well, it's futile, to be honest. But it needs to be done no less.)
My lunch for the day was taken in a grazing fashion: a banana...a pink lady apple (they're my favorite)...a handful of whole-wheat pretzels (fiber is so important)...a nectar-plum (which surprised even me), and my wife returned with some nacho cheese, so we snarfed down a few chips dipped in cheese. That was all eaten over a couple of hours, and some of it was shared with my son, who was doing his best to help me clean, even if his best efforts to clean pale in comparison to his weakest efforts to make a mess. These are things you come to accept as a parent.
With my wife there to take over with our son, I finally headed out to the grocery. Yes, we shop at a major "natural foods" grocer. And it's not Trader Joe's, because I don't like Trader Joe's. Nor is Trader Joe's closer than our market of choice. I nabbed the rest of what was required for the week's menu and a six-pack of Deschutes Brewing Company's Inversion IPA.
I ended up at my PC soon thereafter, blogging about physical misperceptions. I can only hope you read that, because it describes a really important realization for me, and one I'm not sure others have had the chance to experience. But what do I know? I guess all of this is ultimately for me, although I hope maybe someone reading these things can take some nuggets of info away with them.
The day was pretty lax from then on. We got some reading in, and we played with our son. I ultimately drank the last glass of wine from my bottle last night, and then we were all getting hungry.
My wife and I decided to tag-team the dinner effort tonight. Granted we'd just had pesto at the fair yesterday, but I'd cut a bunch of basil from the garden a few days ago and kept it in the 'fridge, and I always prefer my own homemade pesto. So lots of garden-grown basil, our homegrown garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a hefty handful (or two) of parmesian cheese went into the food processor. My wife sauteed some chicken and boiled pasta, and we sat down to our chicken pesto on whole wheat spaghetti, with big torn chunks of the best bread in the world: a locally-made garlic parmesian cheese bread. I can't explain how great that stuff is. To quote the great Meatwad, "I would kill someone in front of their own momma" for a loaf of that bread. Okay, I wouldn't really go that far, but it's seriously good stuff. I opened a bottle of Montevina's barbera for the evening's beverage, and I've drank more of that than I really planned, partially a result of not doing much other than hanging around and playing with the fam--not that they drive me to drink, it's just how I fill some of my time. After three successive nights, we finally made it through The Social Network. We only watch TV when we eat dinner.
I'm on my final glass of wine of the night now. Just poured. Too much more than half the bottle gone. I've said it before: I drink. But keep in mind, too, I've drank this over a period of about...5 hours. I sit here relaxed and nowhere near drunk. Drunk is an uncommon state for me, although drinking, obviously, is not.
We had a bit of family music time, which always brings a smile to my face. I hesitate to call myself a drummer, and I have an electric 5-string bass and an acoustic guitar. My skills on each are rudimentary at best, although I guess the drums are my strength of the three. Liam (our son, who does have a name I guess I can share) has shown quite a bit of interest in the music, so I always let him bang around on my drums or slap the strings on the bass or strum the strings on the guitar. His experimentation is inspiring: why wouldn't you hit the bass with drumsticks? Or your feet? We had our bits of drumming, and for a while he and my wife toyed around with the bass while I was drumming. We're not the Partridges; it was cacophonous. But that doesn't change the value of the experience.
A bit more time in the garden left me frustrated and ready to kill my dogs, who have a great desire to eat whatever organic fertilizer I throw down, no matter the cost to the plants it may surround. Oy. Lately, the garden calms me in the mornings and frustrates me in the evenings. But I (hopefully) salvaged what I could, had some therapeutic yelling and cursing at my dogs (while Liam and Angie [my wife]) were out picking blackberries and couldn't hear my string of nonsensical expletives, and then I sat down to read. When Angie went to lay my son down for sleep, I came to type to you. Or for me. In my mind my blog is for others, but I know it fills a need for me as well. Or maybe it only fills a need for me. Regardless, I'm still going.
The house is quiet now except for low-volume music, random from our library. Tool, at the moment. My wife is reading. I'm going to join her, and I'm hoping for a good night's sleep. I've enlisted the aid of a pill, and I hope it works some magic. Tomorrow is my long day at the office, and my moods are a bit more volatile when I'm heavily sleep deprived, as I am right now. Ask my dogs.
So that was it for the day: good homemade food, fresh produce, easy exercise, and lots of family time. That's what Sundays are about.
Good night, kitty kitties. (We have two cats, too.) I have a bit more reading to do before drifting off to sleep.
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