Over the weekend my daughter turned 8. She spent a lot of time making little signs that said, “Happy Birthday!” and sticking them to windows and doors, as if to remind us that we weren’t quite meeting her standards of celebration. Everybody’s a critic. I’d put the picture my brother took of her wearing the outfit her aunt got her for a birthday present up here to show you that she might actually be 17, not 8, but every time I look at it I get hives because she’s too good looking and too saucy for everyone’s good.
Yes. I just said “saucy.”
We saw We Bought A Zoo over the weekend. Worst title for a movie I think I’ve ever heard. It wasn’t a movie I really cared much about seeing. I’m not a big animal-story fan. It’s not about animals, as it turns out. It’s about people – and I cried seventeen times. Every so often my son would look over at my and announce, “Oh look, there goes mom again!” I was like the freaking Trevi Fountain, minus the filthy tourist-maimed coins. I don’t even know if I liked it; I know I wasn’t manipulated. I just know it worked.
Animal print hair extensions:
Nope.
Oh, yes. I rather think so.
Yesterday, whilst dodging reminders that it was someone else’s VERY SPECIAL DAY, I got a present. This book:
Not only is the book completely spectacular – more on that later, but the giftiness of it just took my breath away. You know how you’re just living your life, minding your own business, when these perfect people wander through your door? Out of the ordinary but sane, funky but brilliant, uplifting but grounded? And then they become your friends and your life is so much the better for having them in it – there is laughter and community and did I mention the laughter? Well…that. Sometimes fate has other plans and when you are too good at what you do, you have to follow where your star leads – even if your star leads to New Haven, or thereabouts. So they moved, but not without taking the spirit of Wednesday Spaghetti with them. They’ve had two of their own Wednesday Spaghetti dinners now in their new home.
This cookbook begins with an introduction written by the author that captures the absolute spirit of Wednesday Spaghetti – don’t freak out, just invite people over. Of course, then she gives some gorgeous recipes so that the food is somewhat more impressive than boxed noodles and jarred sauce. Maybe if I can, one week, get the numbers down under 50, I’ll rustle up a Wednesday Pork Roast (but don’t count on it).
