This is a weird time in our little household.
Spike - who tours insanely throughout all the non-snow months, and roofs/renovates in between - is having a slow few weeks. I, on the other hand, have just begun a new class and a new sermon series, with an Annual Meeting looming on the horizon, Easter quickly following it, and I'm speaking at a weekend retreat right after that. Plus the regular work.
I woke up entirely overwhelmed this morning, after a 17-hour work day yesterday. Spike woke up quite relaxed.
He's done a lot this week. Made a dish for a potluck dinner we were going to. Made supper for us a couple of times. Cleaned the house. Shoveled the driveway. Told me how great I am, several times in fact.
This morning, when I left for work, we agreed that he would pick me up after my class, at about 5:30 PM. I wondered if I should mention dinner to him, but decided against it. I would live to regret that decision.
He picked me up, and halfway home, after telling me what a lovely, leisurely day he had had, he said the five words that can really send me into a slow burn. "So ... any thoughts about supper?"
I paused. "No," I said in a meaningfully firm tone. "I didn't think about it during my class, or during my frantically busy work day before my class."
"Oh," he said. "Well, I know there's meat in the freezer."
I considered a couple of directions to go in the conversation. Suggest, rather pointedly, that I had NOT mentioned dinner to him this morning because I was really hoping he'd think of it on his own. Muse out loud at the wonder of the idea that we actually do EAT SUPPER every single day. Try the never-helpful introduction, "We need to talk...."
I chose silence. And not even the huffy kind, not a single huff did I emit. I just grunted agreement that there was, indeed, meat in the freezer, and kept my mouth shut. Aren't you proud of me?
We silently rode home, he oblivious to my hungry irritation. Pulled in the driveway, where he got out of the car, forgetting his cell phone - again - in the process. I gritted my teeth and grabbed it for him. (He was, after all, carrying my school bag.) Tried to get my brain to consider easy and quick dinner possibilities ... eggs? cereal? popcorn? And followed him into the house....
... where the wonderful smell of steak, potatoes, carrots and onions greeted me from a warm and welcoming oven. He grinned. "You jerk," I said. "Do you know how ticked off I was??"
"Yup," he said, with a great deal of self-satisfaction.
It was delicious. And now he's gone down to his man-cave, giving me space to do my homework.
*sigh*
They really don't come any better than that, do they?
