Welcome
to a monthly Fly on the Wall group post. Today 3 bloggers are inviting
you to catch a glimpse of what you’d see if you were a fly on the wall
in our homes. Come on in and buzz around my house. At the end of my post
you’ll find links to this month’s other participants’ posts.
Just after his birthday, PurDude and a bunch of his high school friends were meeting up in NY city. I'm always nervous on travel days, so he knows to keep in touch with me along the way so I know where he is. The day before he left, I asked him what time his flight left, and he said he didn't remember exactly, but that it was early.
The next morning I started watching for his texts from the time I woke up. Finally, at 11:30am, I heard from him:
PurDude: Just leaving for the airport now.
Me: Now? One of us needs to look up the word "early" in the dictionary.
When he got back from NY, he called me to fill me in on his trip. He'd had fun, visited all the places I'd hoped he'd see, celebrated his birthday, saw a play, and then, of course, I wanted to know what he'd eaten.
Me: So did you go to some interesting restaurants.
PurDude: Mostly all of our meals were $1 pizza slices.
Me: What? Doesn't sound to me like you took advantage of the diverse NYC culinary experience.
PurDude: Are you kidding? $1 pizza slices IS the NYC diverse culinary experience.
Looks like one of us also needs to look up the words "diverse culinary experience" in the dictionary.
On Monday night I was trying to figure out what to defrost for Tuesday's dinner.
Hubs: What are you thinking?
Me: I'm thinking I'll marinate some jerk chicken to cook on the grill.
Hubs: Sounds good. Should be a warm, sunny day, too.
Now if you know me at all, you know that it rains every time I use the grill.
On Tuesday, Hubs was right, it was sunny. I walked out the slider to put the chicken on the grill and felt something on my head. I freaked out, came back in the house, and noticed a few rain drops on the deck.
Me: Phew!
Hubs: Phew?
Me: It's sunny out, but it's raining.
Hubs: And you're happy about cooking in the rain? What is this, opposite day?
Me: Well, considering what I thought had fallen out of the sky and plopped onto my head, yeah, I'm pretty happy about that.
I was sitting on the couch, drinking my coffee one morning when Hubs came up behind me and looked over my shoulder to see what I was doing:
Hubs: What the hell?
Me: What?
Hubs: Did you really submit that as a guess?
Me: What? It's a word . . .
It's a good thing he wasn't looking over my shoulder later in the week. Because there were way too many options that would work for this one:
And I was just going to have to try them all!
I do try to give the names I choose for my recipes some thought. Apparently I was way off my game this time.
Hubs (looking over my shoulder): What is that?
Me: I'm writing up a new recipe.
Hubs: Do you want to rethink that name?
Me: Why?
Hubs: Well, Greek Stuffed Portobellos sounds like you stuffed your mushrooms with a bunch of Greek people.
Not really what I was going for, I changed the name.
Stuffed Greek Portobellos
Speaking of not what I was going for with a name, and of making changes, I almost changed the name of one of my writing challenges in a most unfortunate way.
I was about to publish the Word Counters challenge just a few days ago, when I {{phew}} took one more look at the title of the post. I'd dropped a letter. In fact, a very important letter. It read:
Holy crap, how do you go about apologizing to your friends after a mistake like that?
Hubs
came up from the man cave with his cell phone and handed it to me, he'd
been talking to PurDude. As I started talking, Hubs headed back to the
man cave, then came back up to tell me that when I was done, not to hang
up, he just remembered something he wanted to ask PurDude.
I finished talking and went downstairs.
Me (handing the phone to Hubs): It took me a long time, but I finally convinced him to talk to you again.
And I swear, I could hear my son rolling his eyes, all the way in Colorado
I was
doing some prep work in the kitchen and had been cutting onions. My
eyes were red and weepy when I went into the den and turned on the TV.
College Boy: That's it, to the nursing home for you.
Me: What are you talking about?
College Boy: You've officially met the criteria for being committed to a nursing home.
Me: What criteria?
College Boy: What you're doing, sitting in front of the TV crying at Hallmark movies or McDonald's commercials.
Me: I'm not crying at the TV, I was just cutting onions.
College Boy: Tell it to the judge.
College
Boy was going to need a ride to and from work last Wednesday. Hubs had
taken him there before and knew where it was. On this particular day,
Hubs could take him to work, but had a late meeting and couldn't pick
him up.
I
said I'd pick him up, they just had to let me know how to get there. I
don't know how to use the GPS in my car, and with the VPN on my cell
phone, Google Maps tries to give me directions from 3 states away.
So
College Boy gives me simple directions: go past Walmart, go under the
highway, then take the first right. At the stop sign take a left, at the
next stop sign take a right. The building is on the left.
Pretty
simple directions, no problem. Well, in my mind anyway. All week long
Hubs and College Boy were expounding on the directions.
Hubs: You go under the highway, then up a hill.
College Boy: There's a light there where you take a right.
Hubs: And a car dealership on your left.
College Boy: And the building is the second one on the left.
Hubs: Maybe that morning you should take him to work so he can show you the way.
It went on and on like that all week. I kept reassuring them that I'd have no problem finding it.
Tuesday
night, Hubs comes home and lets us know that his appointment the next
afternoon had been postponed, he'd pick up College Boy on his way home
from work.
So,
apparently, after my family having spent an entire week explicitly
mapping out the entire 4 mile route inch by excruciating inch, I no
longer needed to know how to get there at all.
Now click on the links below for a peek into some other homes:
Stuffed Greek Portobellos
©www.BakingInATornado.com
Ingredients:
4 portobello mushrooms, cleaned, stump removed
1/4 cup Greek dressing
1 TBSP olive oil
1/4 cup TBSP chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup fresh spinach, cleaned
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
8 - 10 large grape tomatoes, quartered
4 oz crumbled feta cheese
Directions:
*Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a 9 X 13 baking pan.
*Brush the Greek dressing onto the bottom (rounded) sides of the mushrooms. Place them into the baking pan, gills side up.
*Heat the olive oil in a large saute pan at medium heat. Once the olive oil is hot, add the onion and the garlic. Cook, stirring for about 3 minutes, until the onions start to soften. Add the spinach, salt, and pepper, and continue to cook and stir until the spinach wilts. Remove the pan from the heat. Mix in the tomatoes and feta.
*Spoon the spinach mixture into the mushroom caps. Bake for 20 minutes.
I love the fly on the wall posts! Carol Cassara
ReplyDeleteThey're a readers' favorite, and they're fun to write too.
DeleteHahahahaha! I love these posts!
ReplyDeleteHmmm...now I'm interested in those Greek Stuffed Portobellos. And I love it when I have a task that gets cancelled!
Oh, I hope you try these Portobellos, I'm making them again.
DeleteThe "how to get to your son's job" reminded me of the time some one I know spent an hour (probably more) trying to tell us how to get to her lake house (after she sent us written instructions). Almost an inch by inch commentary. At the last minute we weren't able to go and I wonder how the trip would have gone if we could have. Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteThat's so funny, basically the same experience I had.
DeleteOf all the things that could have fallen on your head, rain is probably the best. lol
ReplyDeleteWordle is so fun. I use the first three words the same everyday.
The mushrooms look great. I still can't believe there are so many people that hate mushrooms.
If you're on FB, drop your Wordle results in the thread of my daily Wordle results posts and share with us.
DeleteI'm always happy to have one less errand, even if I was tortured for a few days about how to carry out said errand! Curious about your wordle word strategies now... I have mine too.
ReplyDeleteI can tell you that today my strategies aren't working at all.
DeleteI rarely have any type of meat at home, so these mushrooms would be right up my alley!
ReplyDeleteOh, that does sound perfect. Hope you try them.
DeleteHeeheehee! You and your family are so much fun. It rains here, too, as soon as i put any clothes out to dry on my portable rack, even if there is no rain on the radar within 50 miles.
ReplyDeleteSounds like we're both rain magnets.
DeleteI am soooo sad I forgot to do this today!!! Your FOW post is awesome---dying laughing over the Greeks in the portobello mushrooms! And omg your convos with Per Dude are my fave!!!
ReplyDeleteI'll look forward to catching up with your family next month.
DeleteNY pizza was pretty memorable for me too when I was there in 2004. Glad he enjoyed.
ReplyDeleteI'm just glad he and his friends got away and had some fun.
DeleteI used to be the go to person for directions back in KY here it's hubby unless we're going on a trip and I still use an old fashion road atlas. I've planned many of trip with mine over the years!
ReplyDeleteHubs always knows which direction to turn just by asking me. If I say to go right, he knows to turn left.
Delete