Chronicle of a Dinner

Monday:
Poured over cookbooks. Six cookbooks, to be exact. Found exactly 2 recipes I can make at a reasonable cost in Shanghai - cookies and pasta.

Tuesday:
Trip to the grocery store. Paid nearly $10 for bacon - but the recipe wouldn't be nearly as good without it, right?

Wednesday:
Made the cookies. YUM. I'd make that in America!

Thursday:
Searched a large vegetable stand for zucchini. No luck. No pasta tonight.

Friday, 12:30pm:
Searched the wet market for zucchini. Bought 3 different types of cucumber, but no zucchini.

Friday, 2:30pm:
Girls are both napping - or at least penned up and relatively quiet. Decided to move forward with the pasta, sans zucchini. Chopped and prepped everything.

Friday, 4:00pm:
Dave calls. He's coming home early! Dinner at 6:00 tonight.

Friday, 5:00pm:
L-- pees on the couch. Pull off the cover and stuff it in the sink, because it won't fit in the washing machine. Sink is down to a single for the remainder of the evening.

Friday, 5:15pm:
L-- pees on the couch. With no cover to remove, scrub the couch to remove any remnants of pee smell. Patience is wearing thin.

Friday, 5:30pm:
Move the laptop into the kitchen - its our only source of music - and blast The Fratellis. Mood is improving, although my dancing is not.

Friday, 5:35pm:
S-- moves into the kitchen and begins playing quietly on the floor. Mood is improving even more. Dancing is still pretty poor.

Friday, 5:40pm:
Cook the bacon.

Friday, 5:45pm:
Move bacon to a papertowel, and begin cooking chopped onion in the bacon grease. L-- moves into the kitchen. Still a bit grumpy from the two recent full-body-pee-clean-ups, she steals empty pitchers and Tupperware lids from S--. It wouldn't upset most people, but it sends S-- into a fury.

Friday, 5:50pm:
L-- has been permanently moved out of the kitchen, leaving the onions burnt and the kitchen a bit smoky. Thank goodness for a lack of smoke detectors!

Friday, 6:00pm:
Dinner is ready, right on time. Despite the burning and the smoke, things moved along smoothly. L-- has not peed a third time. Mood has improved again.

Friday, 6:02pm:
Call to Dave.

Lynne: Where are you?

Dave: I got out of the office a bit late. Just entering the tunnel.

Mood drops dramatically.

Friday, 6:05pm:
Dinner sits on the stove, either growing cold or burning. L-- and S-- circle me screaming. Tuning it all out, I sit on a children's plastic chair facing the computer placed on a fake-Corian countertop in a dimly lit kitchen, listening to whatever came on after the Fratellis, and just write for a few minutes.

As Garbage begins on the I-Pod, Mood-ometer rises again to full.