Accidents, Learnings

So, I guess this is what it gets to be: Everything collapses and then you have to put it together again.

The weather, as previously noted, turned weird here over the weekend, but what else is new on the far edge of North America. Nobody ever moved here seeking "normalcy," or if they did, I'm quite sure they were bitterly disappointed.

Anyway, it rained again last night but that's getting ahead of ourselves. While in a major funk, as I tried to multi-task in both familiar and unfamiliar ways, I managed to injure myself in the kitchen yesterday.

Now even the most casual reader of this modest little blog, which is neither commercial nor ambitious in its reach, knows about my love affair with food and with cooking, especially for those I love.

Since our family life has become complicated lately, I've had to make lots of adjustments, not the least of which is abandoning my old favorite habit of cooking a Sunday roast for my kids.

Our schedule works like this: Their Mom drops them off at 4:30 on Sundays, and we all eat together an hour or two later.

At least, it used to work like that.

Then, the boys became teenagers, with schedules that often disrupt my expectations. Then, their little sister announced she is a vegetarian, which really complicated the whole family roast Sunday thing.

The good news is I discovered how delicious vegetarian spaghetti can be. We call it "orange spaghetti" around here, no meat, a few ingredients from the garden like snow-white green onions and sliced ripe red tomatoes, but I don't serve it swimming in sauce -- just delicately coated with a fine orange-colored minimalist sauce.

Plus lots of grated cheese.

Yesterday, however, in a revisionist mood, I was determined to cook, at least for the boys and me, a good old-fashioned Midwestern Sunday meal. I started early. The goal was a pork loin roast wrapped in bacon, with baked potatoes covered in sour cream and chives, plus a serving of edamame as the veggie.

You know, I am not really good with technology, or with cooking utensils. I have a lifetime's worth of evidence of these truths, all of which makes me want to cry, as I contemplate the unrelenting series of failures to reach anything close to my expectations, over and over, again and again.

Yesterday, therefore, happily peeling the inevitable bad spots off potatoes before baking them, I managed instead to slice off a piece of my finger, spreading bright red blood, Type O-Negative, over all the patiently waiting potatoes.

Yuck. "This is not good," I thought to myself. "I can't think of anyone even able to give me a lift to the E.R., should it come to that."

Then, I remembered the last time this happened. That time, I cut off the end of my finger with a fishing knife, while trying to perfect slicing limes for an upcoming margarita party in the Pink House (Don't ask.)

That time, my future son-in-law, a medical student, taught me what to do when this kind of thing happens. "Pinch the cut, hold it above your heart, and wait."

I may well not be the brightest light in the attic but I am not the dimmest, either. Larry's advice worked eventually, and so I resumed the meal prep. But then I noticed something truly gross, besides all of my blood in the sink.

The potatoes had green mold on some parts of their lovely brown skins.

They'd grown too old! I knew this much from growing up in farm country: Never eat a moldy potato.

The point is the accident never need have happened had I checked what bad shape the potatoes were in before I started cutting.

And it didn't help that I was trying to watch my beloved Giants on TV in the other room, over my shoulder, whilst I skinned those damnable potatoes. Plus, I also tried to watch how the 49ers were doing in their season opener on my computer, at my pathetic workstation in my kitchen.

This post could go on and on. I could tell you about travails with my scanner/printer today and how hard it is to extract crumpled paper from a tiny space when you actually need to use a finger that has a big, black, splotch of dried blood holding its flaps together, but I'll save that for another day.

Let's just say I wish someone -- anyone -- had been here with me to help. Sometimes it is very, very hard to make it through the day, let alone the night, completely alone, at least if you're me.

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