wherein I sound like an episode of I Love Lucy (only less sexist)

Today was a bad day, a Very Bad Day, and when Christofer came home from work (at 9), I marched downstairs, planted myself on the kitchen counter and announced, "I hate my job. I hate it. It is stupid, and I am quitting."

He looked at me for a minute, then came over and hugged me.

"I'm not kidding," I said, and I was fighting back tears. "This is ridiculous, and I'm not doing it anymore."

Chris kind of nodded his head in understanding, and we sat silent, still hugging.

After awhile he looked around the room and said, "Hey. Do you remember our first apartment? And how the living room was in the kitchen, and the bedroom was in the living room and the closet and the bathroom were basically the same?"

And despite myself I had to laugh, because, really, that place was awful. "And how whenever we opened the door to the bathroom after showering the smoke alarm went off?"

He laughed. "I forgot about that. And remember how it was so hot the whole time we lived there until we finally called maitenance..."


"... a month before we moved out..."

"And all they had to do was clean the filter? We just assumed it was unfixable because our rent was so cheap."

"We weren't very smart."

"And remember that time you decided to make curry?"

we were both laughing now.

Because you have to understand: before Chris and I were married, I could not cook, and I am not exaggerating at all. I routinely ruined oatmeal, oatmeal of the instant variety. I swear, half the reason Chris and I began dating was because he was so appalled by my ridiculous eating habits: he felt he had to make sure I was properly fed, and I was so overjoyed to not be in charge of my own meals I would have gone with him anywhere. Before we were married he did all the cooking, which, to be honest, mostly meant eating out, but even when we were eating in, it was no one but him.

After we were married, though, we began practicing Fiscal Responsibility (boo!) and I decided I needed to learn how to cook; and this one Sunday afternoon I decided to try making a curry. Because a friend had given me a recipe. And because Chris and I love Thai curry.

I assembled all my ingredients, began working, and things seemed to go smoothly til the garlic. The recipe called for one clove of minced garlic and the truth is I didn't know what a clove of garlic was. I mean, obviously I knew what garlic was: I had bought a big fresh bulb at the store for the sole purpose of making curry. But since the bulb was covered with skin I couldn't decide if the whole thing was one clove, or if those tiny little pieces inside were cloves. And instead of looking it up like a smart person (google! wikipedia! yahoo!), I debated for a moment with an equally clueless friend, then set about mincing 12 cloves of garlic and adding them to our dinner.

When Chris got home he could smell the garlic down the stairway and probably out into the parking lot. Our teeny-tiny apartment reeked, the entire space filled by this garlic miasma. We spent days airing it out.

The best part, though, was when Chris tried a bite. We had only been married a matter of weeks, and this was my most adventurous foray into cooking yet, so he bravely took a sample. His face stayed entirely neutral while he chewed, and then said slowly, "It's not...bad."

So tooke a bite, too, and almost choked on it laughing, because Not Bad? NOT BAD? I used 12 cloves of garlic. It was DISGUSTING.

Anyway, remembering this story managed to nearly obliterate my foul mood, and I went to bed proclaiming tomorrow a New Day.

Because, as Christofer inadvertantly reminded me, if I can manage to move from the garlic-curry fiasco of '04 to making entirely edible food in less than a year, I can do anything.

(But really these stories are about what a great person Christofer is. thank you, Christofer.)