Only the Lonely...

The realities of a single girl are these:

You are more akin to the moon then you are to anyone in your family.

You don't always make the bed just to prove you answer to no one. And then you cry about it.

You have to take your own trash out and you have to check your own oil. And then you cry about it.

The rare occasions where a man holds the door for you, you stand back and look to see who they are holding the door for.

Generosity is your Achilles heel.

You spend countless nights perfecting your pot roast because you still believe this is the way to a man's heart. So as John Wooden preached, you will get ready, and then, perhaps your chance will come.

Yesterday I took the chuck roast from the freezer. I had bought it at Christmas thinking I should have it on hand in case anyone comes to visit me for the holiday. I would whip up a lovely Beef Bourguignon if I had a few hours notice and some red wine. So I also hid the Merlot in the dry sink.

Today is January 14^th. .

I take out my favorite pan and sprinkle it with olive oil and turn the burner to medium high. Rummaging around in the fridge I find half a shallot and some mushrooms. Do mushrooms really last this long?

I chop the shallot and watch it change to the color my face powder claims to shed on my face; then add the garlic. While that melds I go to the porch and steal the happiness away from a Rosemary twig that was basking in the sun. The petals get ravaged into tiny particles and forced to marry the onion and garlic. But like Livvy in The Magic of Ordinary Days; Rosemary begins to realize her true purpose and spreads it around the landscape.

The chuck roast gets strategically cut into thoughtful chunks of husband material; they are drowned in salt and pepper and optimism. This roast alone could yield five opportunities.

I lay the ways into the hot pan and let the flavors form a beautiful crust on all sides. The caramel color forming brings out the color in my eyes, sans the smudged, two day old mascara. It smells like a marriage; well no it doesn't. It smells like 1950's family programing, with Merlot.

I add the wine and allow it to evaporate; just like every Saturday.

Then, I bathe the hopefuls in beef broth and gently cover the favorite pan with foil and take to the already heated 275 degree oven.

And then I wait.

Aromatics fill my little gray house, but still I wait.

The hopefuls are basted, and still I wait. The clock has moved from 4 to 7 pm.

In the still I take a sauce pan and melt some butter and sprinkle some flour and momentarily it says fill me up. I add a splash of Merlot and bits of mushroom. Then sprinkle salt, paper and drippings from the pan of hopefuls. They await their finest hour.

There is a pot of boiling water to the left; I fill it with egg noodles that swim in anticipation. Within minutes I hear Mario and I drain them....but don't rinse. They go back in the pot that brought them as all ladies should.

After three hours I assemble  a presentation for 'to go guests'.

First, lay a bed of the noodles, then grab pieces of the hopefuls that fall apart at your beck and call and top the noodles. Then drown it all  in the Finest Hour.

I package up the meal in Tupperware and tin foil and wait for pick up.

Oddly accomplished I take to watching the Saints and 49'ers game searching for icing on the proverbial 'I am a good catch' cake!

The realities of a single girl....

Morning Song

A diamond of a morning

            Waked me an hour too soon

Dawn had taken in the stars

            And left the faint white moon

O white moon, you are lonely

            It is the same with me

But we have the world to roam over

            Only the lonely are free

            ~Sara Teasdale