The Holiday Lunch

So I'm up early and groggily head on over to Lisa's to pick up Johnnie at 7 AM. Only problem was that he was still asleep, surprise surprise. AND before I could go Lisa had to give me her instructions for the day. This time she made some gingerbread cookies for dessert. She went on about having to use real molasses and everything. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I had to go quickly because I had a ham in the oven, and the rest of the meal to prepare still. But alright, at least she is contributing to the lunch. AND she promised her mom Johnnie would be decorating the cookies with icing. Apparently that would be his task in my house too. I was confused. Does that mean we have to stay at Lisa's to decorate? How am I going to fix my meal? Is it okay if we come back? I know Lisa doesn't process a lot of data readily so I let her work it out. And finally, she decided she'd just decorate it herself right then and there. And I took the other cookies home for Johnnie to work on. Having just gotten up, we went to McDonald's to pick up Johnnie's breakfast. And actually today felt like a school day for him. That means he watched his Blippi videos. More than ever, I needed him out of the way. I thought preparing the ham would be easier than the turkey meal. Turned out it was just the same. That's because I made cornbread stuffing. With real cornbread. And it turned out really REALLY good too. I made green beans and onion. And then cut up sweet potatoes and drenched them with melted butter and brown sugar. Ok maybe this is even a little more difficult than just popping mashed potatoes in the instant pot. Still I got everything done by 11 AM. The ham was already half cooked so that didn't take too long to bake. My glaze didn't exactly turn out exactly right though. Oh well, at least the ham was cooked right? And so I packed everything up, got some McDonald's nuggets for Johnnie's lunch, and I got to Lisa's office by 11:30 right on time with all the food. Was there any doubt? Her staff was grateful they got to have a home-cooked meal. I often ask myself why do I do this? What's in it for me? It's not like I need or want Lisa's approval. Or any of her staff.  For me I think it's just an act of connection. It's because I can. And I think I'm good at it. And I got to connect with her staff if just for this Saturday. We know of course that Lisa wouldn't acknowledge me. We know she might even find fault with one or more of the dishes. I didn't care. I KNOW I put out a good meal. And that's that.

One thing though, I put out a lot more energy into creating this meal than I thought. I had over 100+ active minutes and more than an hour of cardio and I was just in the kitchen pretty much the entire morning. And I was tired afterwards too. So much so that when we got home, the first order of business was to find about an hour's worth of video for Johnnie to watch so I could take a nap. He settled on Isla Nublar Jurassic World of course. And that bought me almost an hour or so. Of course I was in a lazy mood the rest of the afternoon. And Johnnie got bored. So much so he wanted to go to his mom's house. That's because he had another project to work on. This time a gingerbread man house he got for a present from Angie. Since I hadn't heard from Lisa yet by 5 PM, we went to get him food at Panda Express so he could at least have his dinner. Who knows what Lisa was planning on making him after a hard day's work. When I dropped him off Lisa was cutting up the extra ham. There was a LOT, which was to be expected considering I cooked 9 lbs of it. I didn't really want any of it but there really was a lot. You know how I am with my own leftovers. But I took some just to take it off Lisa's hands. And so finally I had the rest of the weekend to myself. I wanted to clean the kitchen, and really the rest of the house too. I did do the dishes but I did make a mess on the floor. But somehow I felt a lot lazier than I wanted. Hey it really did take a lot of energy out of me. I just plopped on the couch. And watched the USC-UCLA football game. It used to be I'd be worked up about this game. Rivalry game you know. And for once, UCLA is playing better than expected. They roared out to a 21-10 halftime lead! Wow! USC came in undefeated. I had horrible memories of actually watching UCLA get routed at the Coliseum during the Pete Carroll years. And I have a memory of UCLA winning while we had dinner one year and while we were in Vancouver another year. Tonight, it was a ho-hum game. Maybe because I have already had my share of winning all year. I would rather root for the Rams to go all the way to the Super Bowl. UCLA had already clinched their best record in 3 years. But the good feelings got wiped out by a USC comeback from an 18-pt 2nd half deficit to pull it out with less than a minute to go. Sigh. Oh well. At least it was a good game. And at least it was a good day today.