Alaska: Mad Housewife Day

That's a mighty fine-looking baked Alaska, though I didn't make it.

I thought I would jump back into the whole cooking thing this morning, but I began the day by having "words" with our nice painter over whether the beams should be linen or bright white. Please feed me to a grizzly bear now. I have become the most disgusting of bourgeois cliches, the remodeling matron worrying over the different shades of white. 

Tension still crackling from that strained interaction, I drove Isabel to the orthodontist, basically ranting the whole way, and we were very, very late. Owen wore his pajamas and stayed in the car. We ate Krispy Kreme donuts. I gradually calmed down. 

Home again, some peacemaking with the painter, a conference with the contractor, and at this point it was noon and there were eleven people in the house, most of them speaking Spanish, and I still had not brushed my hair and was wearing dirty blue jeans and jogging shoes. Dumpy gringa! Way to keep it together, Tipsy Baker! 

Had to escape the house and since I'm officially still burning vacation days, I took Isabel and Owen to see Kit Kittredge, that Abigail Breslin movie about a family purportedly suffering privation during the Depression, but doing it ever so picturesquely in a gracious old house filled with gorgeous, radiantly lit antiques. What a crock! 

And yet I wept. The scene when Chris O'Donnell returns from Chicago and embraces Julia Ormond. . . .

My children need to grow up so I can stop seeing these horrible, treacly, manipulative movies.

The day seemed like a complete bust as I hadn't even made it to the supermarket to purchase halibut and ingredients for baked Alaska.

BUT: When we came home my copy of Oakland, Jack London, and Me had arrived. A most excellent and crazy book. I started reading, and decided to heat Red Baron frozen french bread pizzas for dinner. Perhaps the sanest decision I've made all day.

And, come to think of it, a truly Alaskan meal.