On Sunday, we woke up early. Actually, Esteban woke up very early, went to the bathroom, then came back to bed and woke me up with his moaning and subsequent trips to the bathroom. Poor boy was sick, abysmally so. We weren’t sure how it happened, because the only thing he’d eaten on Saturday was a hamburger at a restaurant with Scotty Boom Boom and also the Swedish meatballs I had made that evening. Since I wasn’t feeling the least bit ill, we’re guessing that it was either food poisoning from the restaurant or just some kind of intestinal bug. I knew that he wasn’t just being a wimp when, during the middle of the horrendous first playoff game, he said ‘I don’t think I can go to the game today.’ Which is shocking. Esteban has been attending his Dorkathalon religiously on Sundays ever since I’ve known him. He’s attended on my birthday (with my permission). He’s attended on holidays. If we plan a weekend trip, we have to be back by one on Sunday so that he can get to his game. I think when he had pneumonia five years ago, he still crawled out to the game, hacking and gasping for breath. So when he suggested that he would skip his game, I knew that it had to be bad. I wasn’t even grumpy when he asked if I would mind going to the grocery store an hour before the Packer game (which is a very bad time to go to the grocery store’ think Day Before Thanksgiving bad) and get him some seltzer water.
Whenever I’d ask him if I could do anything for him, he’d make an inappropriate suggestion, because he was ‘sick and strangely horny’. He further expounded that he didn’t think he could actually do anything about it without throwing up, which made me feel like the sexiest thing on the planet, I assure you.
After I made it home from the grocery store (my second trip of the weekend, grrr) and was putting away the groceries, I realized that I had many many chicken breasts that probably needed to be cooked in the next forty-eight hours or thrown out. The game was just starting, so I laid out parchment, pounded them flat and dipped them in egg and seasoned Panko breadcrumbs and shoved them into the oven. During the half hour it took me to do that, the Vikings had made 18 points while the Packers were sitting on a goose egg. Fuck. Esteban continued to moan, declaring that he shouldn’t watch the game because every time he watches, they lose. Of course, he hasn’t watched all season, and they’ve still been playing like hell.
We watched the first half of the blood bath, punctuated by Esteban’s shivering and frightening abdominal stirrings, along with my own exasperated ‘Fucking Christ!’ which Esteban feels will certainly assure me a painful eternity in Hell. I assured him that I was resigned to going to Hell anyway, since he’d be there and Satan won’t want him cluttering up the netherworld with his socks, rolled up like into little crusty foot condoms. And then he countered with ‘If you were there with me, then I’d be in heaven’ and gave me puppy dog eyes. Oh, how the man plays dirty, even when he’s physically ill.
Finally, midway through the third quarter, when God himself opened the heavens, pointed at the Packer’s sideline and said ‘Ha ha!’ I picked up the remote and changed the channel. However, there was nothing else on. Nothing. In effort to just get the carnage off the screen, I flipped to one of the educational channels, which purported to have the most incredible footage from National Geographic. That footage apparently being a variety of animals eating each other. It was like a wild life version of Reservoir Dogs. You have not seen horror until you’ve watched a spider bisect a live bee in 51-inch high definition. The legs! The eyes! The humanity! We both watched in stunned silence until I said, ‘Do you mind if we just turn this off?’ and Esteban replied ‘Oh my god, please!’ So no spiders, no Packers, enough of the brutality for one day.
Esteban moaned about wishing he could eat something but how everything made him feel barfy. I offered to make him some crescent rolls and he said ‘Oh, I don’t want to put you through that trouble, sweetie. I shouldn’t eat anyway, with my stomach so bad.’ Which is apparently code for ‘Yes, I want you to make me some rolls this minute’ but apparently my decoder ring was broken, and I didn’t get the hint. About five minutes later, he grumbled ‘I’ve been sitting here waiting for you to say ‘Oh, it’s no trouble to make you some delicious crescent rolls’ but you’re not saying it, you’re just sitting there reading!’ I jumped up to make him some biscuits and then suggested that maybe when he rails about my passive aggression, he should also take the same advice.
While I was up, I helped myself to the delicious chicken and some of the leftover jasmine rice from the previous night, since I hadn’t eaten anything all day myself. It felt oddly reversed, making yummy food for myself, even though he couldn’t eat anything. I felt like I should have been eating cereal in solidarity, but was oddly empowered by the fact that I wasn’t allowing the needs of Esteban to dictate my own needs. I think that society encourages women to be selfless in so many senses of the word, and it’s about time that we make lovely Panko chicken breasts for our own damned selves. Poor Esteban has Montezuma’s revenge or something and I find a way to turn it into a feminist tirade.
We called it an early night and went to bed to watch the crazily addictive ‘Project Runway’. Forget Top Model’ I am all about Project Runway. Mostly because I’m sort of fascinated by talent and ambition, mostly because talented people seem to have little personal ambition (Ken Jennings: ‘What is ‘Reason why Weetabix still hasn’t written a novel’ Alex!’) which might just be an excuse, because I know there are some incredibly motivated and organized creative types out there. Or rather, there must be. Somewhere.
Right?
Update on the Tsunami Donations from Amazon’s Associate program: As of yesterday at midnight, your orders have added more than $60 to my Tsunami Relief donation, which is awesome. To make searching Amazon’s site easier, I’ve added this which should allow you to search to your heart’s content.
Also, apparently there is no Chopped Cherry Jam to be had from Amazon, so if you ordered from them and were disappointed to learn that they had sold out, you might try calling Bea’s directly at (920) 854-2268. They do ship and then you have a choice of all of their flavors and products, instead of the nine that were offered on Amazon (the Summertime Jam and the Strawberry Rhubarb are also quite good, and their garlic baby dill pickles taste just like my great grandma’s). The additional advantage of this is that you can buy the Chopped Cherry jam by the pint (instead of the half pint offered on Amazon) and have Jamapalooza. If you do call them, however, and live outside of Wisconsin, you’ll want to remind them to not charge you sales tax.
