mercury moving forward again

Last night I dreamed that I came home to a big generic subdivision McMansion. It was either new or unloved, no landscaping, hay down on the ground, construction materials piled by the dumpster. I couldn't figure out how to get into the driveway, so I just parked in the alley behind the house and had to walk through the yard to the back door. Inside the house was shabby, needing repairs. The ceilings were lower than you would think in a house that big, trashy dropped ceiling tiles with water stains. I realized I lived there, and that my husband was leaving me, or had already left. At no point in the dream did I have a mental image of the husband, or a name, or know anything about him other than a vague sense of being glad he was gone. He might have taken our children with him. I didn't care. There were big rooms with no furniture, just bags of trash or clothes, empty boxes. We decided to have a pool party, and I was messing with the controls on the pool thermostat, warming it up to bathwater temperatures, it was wintertime. The sky was gray. The Jansens all arrived for the pool party, but it felt wrong, like a mess, like nothing was going the way I wanted it to. Everyone talked about wanting to get in one of the (two) hot tubs on the deck. I looked around and thought, "I hope this isn't one of those depressing indie movies where you just feel sort of sorry for everyone and there is no real point to the ending."

I have no reason to say this, but I'm so glad it's Friday. I took most of Wednesday off, it's not like it's been a tough week at work or anything. We had a beautiful, fulfilling, relaxed time last weekend. But it doesn't mean I'm not really happy that tomorrow is Saturday.

Since I was at home Wednesday, I worked on ripping recipes out of magazines. When Austin got home, we had artichokes and a potato-and-egg Spanish tortilla, which is not the same thing as the flat Mexican corn staple. Chopped potatoes and onions, tossed in a skillet with olive oil, cooked until soft, then poured in 10 eggs, salt and pepper, bake for 5 minutes until puffy. It's sort of a strata, sort of a quiche, and really great. I'm already daydreaming variations, mostly involving cheese. Last night we ate at Rumours East: I had orecchiette with julienne vegetables and pesto cream sauce. Austin had the mixed seafood linguine with white wine cream sauce. It was a creamy starchy spectacle, and soooo good.

I hope you don't mind if I take this NaBloPoMo opportunity to tell you about the food I cook and eat sometimes.

Halloween Pics (and others from October) here.