Missed the Gravy Boat

Work came roaring back for me last week after an eighteen-month dryspell. It’s wonderful. I’m so grateful.

I have fifteen hours of childcare per week. So my husband had to spot me several days this week for two or three hours at a time so I could attend meetings and measure houses. I make up the rest of my work hours at night.

When we’re both busy with our businesses, Joe and I get into a routine. Once we get the kids down for the night, it’s dark outside, and the house is a wreck. The dishwasher door stays down til 11:00 p.m., its gaping maw a reminder of the 45 minutes of clean-up that awaits us between work and bedtime.  The spatula and our only remaining sippy cup lid better be washed because we’ll be warming milk and scrambling eggs at 7:00 a.m.  Joe and I plow ahead, listening to old songs on the radio. The fragrant fuchsia peonies on the dining table & Lou Reed’s “Dirty Boulevard” prop our eyelids open. We look up from our laptops and laugh at the lyric “…Statue of Bigotry…” then refocus on our screens.

At 9:30 tonight I took a break and ate a sandwich (dinner) in front of the T.V. I could hear my cell phone chirping in the other room; my text message mailbox is full. I watched a telechef on the show “Everyday Food” make a boneless roast of lamb. He deglazed the pan with red wine and chicken broth, strained the “jus,” and suggested, “for your presentation, serve in a gravy boat.”

A gravy boat.

That made me laugh, too. Not at the chef, but at how shape-shifting life is. One day you’re using a gravy boat at Thanksgiving dinner, and the next, you’re cracking up because it’s been ten years since you last unearthed the spouted vessel from the cabinet.

Here’s another long lost item: “pumice stone.”  For Joe, it might be “creel” or “draught beer.”

We’ll have a reunion with these old acquaintances one day. But for now I’m going to do some more research on acoustical ceiling treatments. Then track down that last sippy cup lid and make sure it gets in the dishwasher.