The Grilled Fu-Dogs

My wife was clueless, before she was Clue-Queen.  We’d ordered and I’ve written before about buying a game of Monopoly for us to play here at the house, during our prolonged quarantine.   Alas, we’ve only played it once.  I won, as I recall.  But not long ago the little one asked me to order Clue.  We’d had a set, back in China, though I don’t think we’d played it for years.  I seem to recall she had a particularly strong affinity for the game as she seemed to play the French version over and over in her fifth grade French class avec Mssr. Moutard.

I told her I wouldn’t play unless there were four people as it would be too predictable otherwise.  We got her older sister and the Mrs. to join and while the kids and I were back in stride fairly quickly my wife labored with basic logic.  She would show her own cards, (“No!  Don’t do that.”,) guess things that had already been guessed and by the end of the first game, which someone else won, it wasn’t clear that it made sense to play a second time.  The box does say however that it is appropriate for ages eight and up and fortunately she caught the swing of it squarely the second go-round and proceeded to win this next as well as the subsequent game we played.

I’ve been accused of making too many dishes, when I make the dinner.  It’s true.  The fridge is running low, I’m on-point this evening, and I thought I’d do a simple crowd pleaser; mac n’ cheese.  There were some veggie hot dogs in the freezer and no frankfurters to be found but that’s fine, one less dish.  Grilled some eggplant and called it a dinner.   The vegan and I consumed the cheesy noodles and tofu heartily, but our guest, my daughter’s chum is allergic to . . . soy.  Hmm.  (Does that include soy sauce?  Edamame?)  Sorry.   I’ll have to remember that.  The younger one ate around the grilled fu-dogs and my wife hardly touched hers at all.

Earlier in the day I’d notice her setting out on the swinging chair, reading the copy of “Thomas Jefferson, Author of America” by the late, great, Christopher Hitchens.  It was on a short list of things I’d wanted to read as we went back over U.S. history in this bit of home-schooling we’re doing.   Tonight, she said she was finishing the book off.  Often, we don’t read the same thing and I was so glad to be able to sync-up with her on this.  Whatever I was going to read next just got bumped off the list.  I’ll be sure to dive to this “Eminent Lives” series next.

Wednesday 04/15/19