Friday, December 01, 2006

Minor Annoyances

More from the Ill-fated Cooking Chronicles. Wednesday night is my night for making a bit of an effort, cooking wise. I teach Monday, Tuesday and Thursdays, and Fixit generally has beer night on Fridays so Wednesday is the night where theoretically we could sit down, enjoy the meal with a glass of wine and no rush.

This Wednesday's menu plan was based on some rather fine looking steaks, (possibly New York fillet? but lacking a real cook's eye for detail, I can't be sure of that) to be served with raw carrot matchsticks, oven-roasted potatoes with garlic and rosemary and a red wine and mustard jus.

It's all going quite well. Like I say, I do try with my cooking. But Fixit is much later than usual. So what with the boys' bedtime looming, I leave it all sitting on the benchtop ready to serve when the kids are down.

Anyway. There I am reading Climber the Secret Garden when Fixit finally gets home. So he assumes that I've eaten and as the boys are in control, he goes off to look at the dinner situation. There's a few pots and pans scattered everywhere, so as the chief dish-doer in the household he rinses and stacks a few of these. Bam, good-bye red wine jus, down the sink. When he sees 2 steaks sitting there he doesn't click that I'm still unfed. He assumes there's a spare for his lunch tomorrow, so he packs it away in a lunch container with some of the potatoes. Then he cuts into his steak and finds it too rare for his liking so he sloshes a liberal amount of oil back in the frying pan and and re-cooks, achieving a medium-rare interior but a greasy, slightly burnt exterior. And then proceeds to knock off all the carrot matchsticks. I of course ruin my steak the same way when I return to the scene of the crimes.

But at least I had a glass of wine.

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Yesterday the Climber's school was closed for industrial action. I considered doing the "Fill the 'G" - I love a protest rally as much as the next person - but I didn't fancy being in a large venue full of stairs and Jimmy Barnes with 2 little 'uns. Call me crazy.


We had a great time at Scienceworks instead, it is a fantastic museum; very hands-on and lots of fun activities.


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On our way there, we passed a car where I noticed a youngish looking mum talking and cooing and adoring her baby in the back seat. Isn't that nice I thought. I used to do that when I had only one child.

A bit further on, I am stopped at the red light. I glance in the rear view mirror and realise its the same mother approaching us, and she is still so busy cooing backwards at her baby that she is going to run up the arse of me. I just have time to get my foot off the brake when biff!!

We jump out to inspect the damage. Letting go the brake has minimised the impact. I am just thinking of something soothing and nice to say, like aren't kids distracting? because I wasn't angry, although I was a little bit jumpy, when we noticed a scrape of her paint on my bumper so I leaned closer to look, as did she. Which resulted in her head-butting me. Which hurt. So instead of saying something soothing and nice as intended, what actually came out of my mouth was:

Oh, fucking hell!

So this poor chick thinks I'm being aggro now, and says I didn't mean to do that you know which of course I knew and I say I'm sorry I'm jumpy you've just hit my car and now you've head-butted me.

I was thoroughly unnerved by the whole thing and the lights had changed so I said I wasn't going to pursue anything because there was no damage and I jumped in and drove off.

And so did she, but I know that she would have had to pull over again almost immediately because she's got a lovely delicious baby in the back and all she was doing was loving it and it all went horribly wrong because of the grumpy bitch in the white car, and she would have felt guilty and unnerved and jumpy and wronged and she would have burst into tears.

So I feel good about myself.

17 comments:

  1. Sorry to laugh at the misfortunes of others, SG, but ha ha ha ha ha!

    now I feel bad, too.

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  2. I think you did well by her. Goodness, even though it was a minor "bump" (car and head!) it is still unnerving.

    When daughter #1 was only 6 months old we were hit about 1 km from home. A man hit the back of the car and spun us 180 degrees up and onto a dirt verge. It was shocking. But the guy was so apologetic and said he would take full responsibility and did and then sent me large bunch of flowers. So you know how I felt then about asking him quite vehemently "...what do you think you're doing...I've got a baby in the back..." (cue here righteous expression). I wasn't so humble though when it took two weeks to get my car back!

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  3. Oh no! Well, after the steaks and the accident and the head butting you're in line for a really good week next week, aren't you?!

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  4. I know the baby was probably lovely and adorable and sweet... but her goal should be to not get it hurt in a car accident, which means she needs to look where she's going!

    I think you handled the situation very nicely, considering all. Banging heads together like that can really hurt!

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  5. Your cooking story is hilarious!!!

    I'm glad the accident was only minor. Children can be awfully distracting in the car, it is quite an art form learning to ignore them. When we first got back from the US I hadn't driven in 9 years (apart from the odd holiday drive) so I'd never driven with children. I had an accident a few months in (kids arguing in the back etc.) when I rear ended someone... fortunately it wasn't serious, but it still wasn't fun. I'm now getting better at ignoring them.

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  6. Get a lottery ticket. You must be up for some good news this week.

    When my son was seven months old, I was driving slowly up the street next to ours one wintry afternoon. The sun was just at the right position to ensure I couldn't actually see anything on the road and it was only at the last minute when I noticed a van and trailer DOUBLE-PARKED and swerved. But alas, too late, and it took out my bonnet and side panel. It was LC's first trip to the hospital in an ambulance (setting a fine pattern, I might add - we've been in an ambulance once more since then.) Neither of us was hurt but my caesar scar hurt immensely. And to add to the injury, the police fined me. ME! Was I the one double parked? Would I have hit anything if the moron hadn't double parked in the first place?? Thank you so much NSW Revenue Collectors, oh, I mean NSW Police Service.

    Oh, and back to you. Let's hope she reads your blog and realises just how upset you are about it.

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  7. Oh dear, poor you. At least you got a funny blog out of disaster... and now, a present from Kirsty!

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  8. 1- I have had sauces and gravies and so forth unceremoniously dumped down the drain more times than you can imagine.

    2- It has taken me 13.5 years of wedded bliss (plus 1.5 of assorted courtship) to get my wife to go from well-done to medium. (Me? I cook it until the cow just stops mooing.)

    3- Did she head-butt you on purpose???

    -J.

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  9. Joke : 3- The headbutt hurt enough to make me suspect it was on purpose. But I think she was just a bit of a klutz, not deranged.
    2- Can't quite stomach the still mooing steak. We still err on the pink side of rare as opposed to the burgundy. But preferably without the burnt, greasy exterior. And with the sauce!

    MF : Bought the lottery ticket. Zilcho. But got a laugh (which feels wrong considering the ambulance component) from your accident story.

    Fingers crossed for a better week like Bec suggested. And am feeling a bit better from hearing other driving disasters, (and because of my prize from Kirsty. yay!) Thanky'all.

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  10. Mate, how cute would that baby look concertina-ed between you and the mack truck behind her?

    These tend to be the times when I feel obliged to give people a Good Talking To. Lesson 1 = Don't Gaze Adoringly into Baby's Eyes While Driving Fucking Car.

    Jesus, people can be stupid.

    I think your patience was exemplary.

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  11. ps. and tell joke that steak should be eaten blue, or not at all.

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  12. Whiffy sounds like steak for some!!
    have untold disaster stories from car disasters.
    Glad to know you are still here- & 'alive' so to say!

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  13. ...and that is how accidents happen. Not concentrating on the road. I agree with Shula!

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  14. daft woman (her not you!) doesn't she know she's supposed to keep her eyes on the road? She's just lucky that none of you were hurt and maybe she'll remember this and watch where she's going in future.

    blugh loathe rare steak. has to be medium or keep it off my plate.

    am soo jealous of you getting a present from Kirsty. Have entered into the draw thingy cos I want one too!

    thankyou for the savlon suggestion by the way. It worked fantastically

    I hope this week works out a little better than last

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  15. Have to agree that baby adoration is best expressed by keeping one's eyes on the road and said baby out of the hospital. Not that I am withoit sin myself. Had just taken The Suze to the vet and held her head while he quietly sent her to doggie heaven; came out, got stuck in traffic, distracted by my emotions, and promptly rear ended someone......

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  16. Hee hee hee ... I can't believe your well intentioned meal went so horribly wrong!!! That's just the sort of thing that would happen in my house ;)

    And the bingle - well, lets just say she'll get over the coo-ing to the baby pretty quickly once it becomes a toddler that demands to 'get down!' or 'juice!' or the million other things toddlers think are essential to their day. I'm glad no one was hurt and your cars survived with just a little exchange of paint.

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  17. Oh, the dinner :( Sounds like something that would occur here ( inc: consolatory wine )

    As for the baby bingler .. well, you know .. I would have swore too, and maybe she really should be cooing off-road, if you know what I mean ...

    If you're the bitch of her day, then it was a pretty good day, IMO.

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