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I made peanut butter cookies tonight. The recipe came from my Aunt Emma. She was my grandmother�s brother�s wife. Most of my memories of her involve her being sick and not wanting my cousin P.J. and me to play in the house when we were small. She was a wonderful cook, though, and made the best peanut butter cookies I�ve ever had.
She was a perfectionist about them, too. Once, I saw her throw away an entire batch because the bottoms were slightly browner than she wanted them to be. I begged her to just give them to me anyway. I didn�t care about the bottoms. No matter. The cookies went into the trash. She made me new ones.
Aunt Emma died when I was about 15. Fortunately, she didn�t take the recipe with her.
For a long time, I couldn�t seem to hold on to the recipe. Every time I wanted to make them, I�d have to call my grandmother and have her dictate it to me again over the phone. It got to be a running joke between us. When she�d pick up the phone and hear me on the other end, her first question was always, �Are you looking for the cookie recipe?� I think she was a little disappointed when I finally managed to get it into my recipe box and not lose it again.
Last weekend, while flipping through a cookbook that lived in the Conway kitchen, I came across a piece of paper with the cookie recipe written on it in my 8-year-old handwriting. I remember sitting at the table in the big camp at the top of the hill while Aunt Emma read it to me, taking care to spell all the words correctly.
I brought the whole cookbook home with me. I don�t want that to get accidentally thrown away.
So now, the whole apartment smells like home-baked peanut buttery goodness. Like my childhood. It�s a very comforting smell.
Should you want to make some of my childhood for yourself, email me. I�d be happy to share Aunt Emma�s recipe with you, too. Just don�t burn the bottoms.
I got the urge to bake tonight, I think, because our kitchen was really clean for the first time in a while. Chris and I are not great housekeepers. But today, I found out on very short notice that my mom was coming in to the apartment, and I needed to get it in mom-visit condition. Thankfully, Chris took care of the dishes while I ran around and vacuumed and cleaned the bathroom and sorted the 18 tons of mail that had been sitting on the counter in the hall. I like it so much better here when it�s pleasant inside. I like my Sunday nights so much better when I can spend them at home.
I like having some time to myself.
This whole weekend has been a good example of that�a good example of what I was trying to express the other day when I was floundering through my explanation about not moving in with the Boyfriend.
Friday, I got out of work a little after six, and decided to stop in JP center on my way home. Ian was working at CD Spins, and I wanted to extend the Thanksgiving invitation to him and Bonnie, since I wasn�t able to reach either of them by email last week. He was manning the store alone, and had plenty of time to chat, so I ended up standing there with him for almost two hours. We hadn�t seen each other since August, so we had plenty to discuss�
I was browsing through the dollar CD rack and commenting to him that although I believe every band must have at least one fan (even if it�s the bass player�s mother), I couldn�t find anyone in the whole rack that I�d ever heard of! In the middle of my explanation, Mark, the eye-candy waiter from the Centre Street Caf� (yes, Carla, THAT waiter) came in and heard my proclamation of ignorance.
He stood over my shoulder and laughed. �No�that can�t be true! There are plenty of bands you�ve heard of in here. Um�How about them? No? Okay, what about them? No again? Well, what about Eleven. I�m sure you�ve heard of them!� He named off other bands that the members had played in, bands that I had heard of, but shook his head when I still insisted I�d never heard Eleven themselves. �Ian, give Jennifer these two CD�s and put them on my tab!�
�Mark, you don�t have a tab.�
�Well, give them to her anyway, and I�ll come back and pay you later! Jennifer, if you don�t like them, give them to Bison.�
Mark took off back to the restaurant, leaving Ian and me to laugh about his gesture. As Ian was telling me I didn�t need to take the CD�s with me, and I was protesting that if I didn�t listen to them, I�d flounder when Mark asked me what I thought, Mark came back in, plunked two dollars and eight cents on the counter and walked out without a word.
The CD�s went in my bag. They sound a little like Ben Folds Five meets David Bowie meets some bizarre rock opera soundtrack.
Anyway�
From there, I headed home, gathered my stuff, and drove to my mom�s, where I managed to finally accomplish what I�d intended for the night�popcorn and Gilmore Girls. Mom and David got home around Midnight, we talked for a while and I went to bed around 1.
Saturday was�well, Saturday was fun. Mostly. Betsy was actually very pleasant and not pushy. She�s not the marathon shopper you need to be to keep up with my mom, though. We tired her out!
Did some more Christmas shopping, bought myself a pair of earrings, ate some really yummy lobster bisque and way too much kettle corn. Got home much later than I�d expected. Sat on the couch and watched Billy Elliot. Okay, truthfully, I slept through half the movie, but I�d seen it before.
Today was an odd day. I woke up in the Condo at about 8:30. The Boyfriend was awake, but still trying to be asleep. He knew I was awake, though, and he knows I won�t generally go back to sleep at that point. Still, he wavered in that half-asleep spot for quite some time while I gradually got from here-in-bed-with-the-Boyfriend mode to ready-to-start-my-day-and-get-all-the-things-I-need-to-do-done-before-my-mom-arrives-at-my-pit-of-an-apartment mode. Despite that, at about 9:15 or so when I leaned over, kissed him and attempted to get up, he pulled me back into the bed and attempted to get all romantic with me.
I could not have been less responsive.
Still, he tried. And when he noticed that I wasn�t responding in kind but was, in fact, still moving toward getting up, he asked me what I was thinking about.
I grimaced inwardly a little.
�Well, truthfully, I�ve been awake for a long time now, and my head has moved out of in bed mode into start my day mode. I have a ton of things to do today, and not a whole lot of time to get them done, and I�ve used up the amount of time I have to stay in bed. I need to go home.
�Oh.� That�s all he said to me.
At this point, were the situations reversed, I would have probably just let me (or him, I suppose) get up and shower. He, instead, took this as some kind of challenge. Instead, he went back at it full force.
Part of me thinks I should have then restated my position and gotten out of bed. I didn�t do that, though. Instead, I stayed and had a rather halfhearted and distracted non-romantic romantic moment with the Boyfriend.
I didn�t hit that �since I�m here, I might as well enjoy myself� spot that I think he was hoping I would hit. Instead, I stayed in this rather ugly �okay, soon I can get up and start my day� spot.
I will never, ever do that again.
And not because he noticed. That�s the part that floors me the most. He then said to me, �So, did I bring your head back to bed?� all satisfied-with-himself-just-had-an-orgasm-and-all-is-right-with-the-world like.
No, he had no idea.
I will never do that again because it left me feeling badly. Badly toward myself, and badly toward him, and badly toward my day.
I am the world�s crappiest communicator. But I am going to spend a lifetime of mornings next to this man. Therefore, I need to find it in myself to make my own needs�and boundaries�clearer.
Anyway�
So I got home at 10:45 and spent about two hours as a cleaning whirlwind lunatic. Then I went to brunch with mom and her friend Paula. Paula and Mom went to school together, 4th through 12th grade. They were best friends. After a long separation, they recently got back in touch, and have rekindled that friendship. It�s nice to see them together. Paula offers me a rare insight into Mom as she was before me. I like that.
We went, of course, to Centre Street to eat. I told Mark I had listened to the first CD and gave him my assessment. He told me to listen to it again and let him know what I thought after that.
After brunch, the three of us walked through all the stores in JP. I did some more Christmas shopping (I may be done before December 23 this year!). Mostly, though, we just enjoyed each other�s company. Finally, we dropped Paula off at the T and came back here. I made us tea, and we sat in the now-clean living room and talked wedding stuff.
I am so very, very lucky in the mom department. In so many ways. It was a perfect Sunday afternoon.
Chris and I ordered Chinese food from the only restaurant in the area that can find our apartment, and ate it while we watched the 100th episode celebration of Inside the Actor�s Studio. Can anyone tell me what Julia Roberts laughed so much about? Then I got the urge to make cookies, resulting in the reminiscence that began this entry.
I should really, really be asleep, but my head was too full. Perhaps now I can rest more easily.
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