I Got It. I Got It.

I’ve got dinner tonight.  I’ll make something.  Don’t worry.  Yes, and I’ve got the pick up from school.  Yes, there’s a call at four and a call at five and a pick up at six and another call at seven and then, there’s the important one at eight. I got it.  I got it.

I drop my wife off at her studio at three.  Returning I stop and make my way through our mini Jenny Wang market.  Sometimes its one item I see that can send me down a taste pattern to what I intend to make.  I think I saw green peppers, and then the spuds.  “Three tastes from below the earth” The 地三鲜 from the back gate at HuaDong ShiDa comes to mind.  Pretty soon I’ve spring onions and some sesame oil as well because I wanted to make congban doufu the other night and was thwarted without those bits.   A piece of pork.  I’m all set.

Calls mean well.  “Let’s discuss.”  But they use time differently.  They feel less “productive” because they are not explicitly tied to the tyranny of the to-do list.  They interrupt the progress of the robotic removal of the items between you and the Lake Isle Inisfree.  And now I’ve got to chop up these vegetables.

If you take one more kitchen task you will be late to pick up the girls.  Loyal readers will know I have a dysfunctional phone.  I write my girls, but they don’t get the message.  They write me, but I don’t get the message.   No one is there when I get there.  I park, angry, walk around searching for my kids, searching for Wifi.  My little one’s text makes it through.  “I'm in the gym.”   My older one’s now comes through as well.  “LOL.  I took the bus.”  “I see. LOL-on you.  The door’s locked.”

When I get home I get back to chopping, but now my wife is calling.  Her idea of riding a bike home has been interrupted by a thunder and lightening storm.  Of course, I’ll go to get you.  And though I still have the faint residue of the meal I’d intended in my mind’s eye, I will need to surrender the preparation of this meal to my better half.  I’ll be home with only fifteen minutes before my next call.