Royalty and Me

Kate Middleton woke up to get married today. Was she much like me? Did she go outside in the dawning hours and feel the dewy air on her bare shoulders as the sky pinkened into day? Did she take a few minutes to write down her feelings in a spiral-bound notebook? Did she have a cup of coffee? A bagel? A fresh kiwi? Was there time to reflect, to realize the threshold she was crossing? What had she and her sister talked about the night before? Fond memories of childhood, perhaps. Or maybe the excitement of what was coming next. Both, probably.

As she rode from the hotel to the church, did she realize she'd forgotten anything? I suppose she didn't have to fret about the caterers showing up on time. Had she described the dress to William? Was she nervous about the world's approval?

I didn't follow the courtship or wedding prep or much royal family news at all. I can't say I cared much. Until today. Suddenly, I couldn't get enough. I turned on youtube at home this morning to watch live coverage and saw the couple parading through London, the ceremony long over. Once at work, I watched The Kiss(es) over and over, read up on the Royal Family, watched highlights of guests and their get-ups, clicked through slideshows of Harry's, Kate's, and William's lives and read about Kate's "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue." Frowning Flower Girl and the octopus hat, Beckham's lapel pin and William's whispered words - I became an expert on all of this. I was proud to be part of the 1.6 million who made the Royal Wedding the biggest event ever to be watched on the web.

My excitement stemmed from the feminine fascination with romance as well as from my own love for Great Britain. (How would Simon Schama have narrated this wedding day?) But it was not only the "princess bride" magic and the pageantry that drew me. I also found myself captivated by, if I dare say it, the normalcy of it all. Isn't Kate a woman just like me? With more money, a better sense of style, and a lot more social pressure, perhaps, but she's a young married lady with a future ahead. She'll disagree with William, be tired at the end of a long week, long for a vacation. When everything is peeled back, at the heart of Wedding Day is a couple not much different from my husband and me.

It didn't make media headlines I read, but I know some people assume this "celeb wedding" will end like so many others: that Kate and William will divorce. Marriage is difficult, and no palace by the sea or custom-designed acorn earrings or Astin Martin convertible can make it easier. The battles every couple fights will seep through the Welsh gold of the wedding ring and become part of Kate's experience too. I don't know if the marriage will last - I hope it will - but I know marriage will be for these two what it is for all couples: challenging.

In this big world God has sprinkled people into all manner of situation. Kate and William live in a castle on an island. Children in India live in boarding schools. I've spent 24 years in southeast Pennsylvania. All of us, though, face the ultimate decay of our world, our friends, ourselves. Kings and queens are not exempt. I know that when my life fails, I'll be part of an eternal royal family. Will Kate?

Working Woman

My day:
6:30 Got up, showered
7:00 Ate breakfast, had my coffee, read the Bible, got ready for work
8:00 Left the house
8:30 Arrived at work (OK, it was more like 8:40. I am habitually late.)
9:00 Helped serve breakfast and walk morning laps in the Gathering Room (I work at an adult day care center with people more than three times my age. I love them.)
9:30 Sit-down Tai Chi (very relaxing; I love this part of the day)
10:00 Read the news to our clients
10:30 Took a short break, read part of a short story from this book
11:00 Led a game of Trivial Pursuit with my clients (Team A won. It was fun.)
11:30 Sit-down exercises with my clients (A few of us stood up for the line-dancing part. Line-dancing is so much more effective standing up.)
12:00 Served lunch (Vegetable soup followed by macaroni and cheese with ham and stewed tomatoes. Unless you're on a low-salt diet in which case you got peas and carrots.)
12:45 My lunch break, which I enjoyed outside in the lovely sunshine (No stewed tomatoes for me! A ham and swiss sandwich on a potato roll, fresh strawberries and kiwi, and the last slice of Easter's Cherry Chess Pie)
1:30 A game of indoor golf with the clients
2:15 Office work (End of the month = Newsletter time! It's going to be a crazy few days getting this newsletter together)
4:30 Drive home, including a brief stop at Wawa to fill my leaky back tire with air
5:15 Dinner prepared by my fabulous husband. Ham, green beans and potatoes with macaroni & cheese! A perfectly simple meal with easy clean-up.
6:00 Work on freelance project, of which I am thoroughly tired and am thrilled to be completing this week.

My day, as I wish it would have been:
7:30 Wake up
8:00 Get up and go for jog in the cemetery 
8:30 Get back home, shower, lather on cocoa facial, lotion feet, eat a crumpet with strawberry jam while coffee brews
9:00 Enjoy coffee on the porch with morning devotions (Hope neighbor does not walk by and see cocoa facial)
9:30 Wash off facial, vacuum living room carpet, dust furniture, open widows for some fresh air, water plants
10:30 Work on book review of Bel Canto which I'm writing for my other blog
12:30 Meet an old friend for lunch (Order a salad with mandarin oranges and feta cheese, if possible. And a strawberry lemonade.)
2:00 Browse discount stores for home decorating items on sale
3:30 Write a letter to a long-missed friend across the country
4:00 Clean the bathroom, wash some stockings, mop the kitchen floor
5:00 Start dinner (Pesto Pasta with Chicken and Zucchini or All-American Chili)
6:00 Serve dinner to my ever-complimentary husband, and then settle in on the couch with a bowl of Cookies 'n' Cream ice cream and an episode of Downton Abbey.
7:00 Read a few chapters of PG Wodehouse before drifting, carefree, off to sleep

The real day versus the dream day. Life as it is compared to life as I wish it could be. Duty against pleasure. The things I wish could fill my day are squashed into evenings and busy weekends, placed on To Do wish lists for when I have extra time, and sometimes given up on completely. Instead I serve decaf coffee with Sweet and Low, play indoor golf, write low-budget newsletters and marketing materials, spend over an hour in my car each day, and ponder - always - all the other things I could be doing.

What I hate about work is not the work itself. I love "my old people." I enjoy serving lunch and morning Tai Chi and even the occasional game of indoor golf or bowling. I don't mind the work I do in my office, either. Writing newsletters, creating ads and marketing materials, filing medical paperwork, updating databases and sending emails. It's not such a bad gig.

My problem, at the root, is pride. I long, I suppose, to be a woman who does not need to work. I long for the freedom of choosing, hour by hour, how to spend my day. I yearn to be a woman dedicated to home, family, friends, and mostly her own pace. "Is that too much to ask," I hear myself saying. If it results in utter dissatisfaction with the everyday ins and outs of life, then yes. If it causes me to harbor bitterness toward my boss, my coworkers, others on their morning commute each day, the working world at large, then yes. If I had all that I wish for, and were content, I would be basking in the supreme pride of self-success. My journey each day keeps me from pride. It prevents satisfaction and requires me to find pleasure in smallness. It demands thankfulness. Most of all, it causes me every day to examine priorities, time commitments, and needs and to shed that which is unnecessary. It forces me to preserve my energy for the One who deserves it most and convinces me of my own need for Him.

I would still choose my dream day if I could. I'd trade the Bingo and the 1940's trivia games and the new brochure for a day to myself. But for now, I'm called to be a Working Woman. For now, I will use each day to starve my pride and nourish my soul with more permanent satisfactions.

A Sunday Evening

Sunday Evening. The sour taste of Monday's stealthy approach can make one disheartened, irritable, or simply glum. Weekdays start too early. They ask too much. They begin with a foot heavy on the gas and end with a screeching halt as one finally collapses into bed. Small joys go unnoticed or at least unremembered. Weekends, though, weekends are slow. They wake you up with slices of sun through the mini-blinds and the smell of coffee - and the time to smell it - while The Quiet Sounds of Sleepy Hollow welcome you into the day.
Here are a few ways we relished this weekend:
Friday evening brought four wonderful friends to our home and we offered our usual appetizer fare of summer sausage, Armenian string cheese, and garlic and almond stuffed olives. These were met with mixed reviews. For the main event, we gathered in the porch around burgers hot from the grill and just-made peppermint iced tea. It was a brisk night, but with a few blankets for the more goose-bumpy among us, we managed well. We topped off the night with a plate of superb blueberry cheesecake squares and various hot teas.
On Saturday, I enjoyed a rousing concert by One College Ave, the jazz chorus in which my sister sings. A rendition of Alison Krauss's When You Say Nothing at All topped my list, but all the pieces were excellent. I also spent some quality commute time with two dear grandparents as we traveled to the concert together.
Today, Pete and I hit the mall for some serious shopping after church. As usual, he met with greater success than I, but I did come away with a delightful wide-brimmed beach hat which I am anxious to put to use. I stocked up on food for the week at ALDI, the best find being a container (1 lb) of strawberries for just $1.99. When I got home, Pete fired up the grill and made us some cheeseburgers. I threw a tray of frozen curly fries in the oven, sliced up some of the strawberries and a kiwi, and cozied up with PG Wodehouse on the porch rocking chair until the burgers were ready. During dinner Pete said he couldn't imagine anyone being more in love with anyone than he is with me. Could Sunday night be sour with those words sweetening the air? I don't think it could. As I settled on the couch with my crocheting bag, I determined to let my muscles relax, to let my mind release stress, and to fret not for Monday for Monday shall fret about itself.

Dinners, First Week of April 2011

I must be reaching that rung of life's ladder where cooking matters. First year of marriage. First real kitchen. First chance to fill the cupboards with things I love and keep that little countertop sparkling every day. I've found I love cooking. I love planning meals for the week, shopping (first at ALDI, then at Giant for the things I can't find), and putting things away like a little field-mouse... I usually do well with dinners and have recently found great success with some new recipes (Lemon Chicken Stir Fry, Beef Bacon Stroganoff). But this week my cooking was less than stellar. On the whole, it was just food. Not really a collection of meals. Thankfully, Pete is an awesome husband and gracefully ate every bite.

First of all, there had been a minor fire at my ALDI store, so I was forced to do all my shopping at Giant. This used to be fine with me back when I was blissfully ignorant of a whole store of generic food and shopped only at Giant and, yes, Wegmans. But now I am appalled at what Giant charges for simple ingredients and get all I can at ALDI. To save, I went easy on the groceries this week, planning to make do with what I already had. I had potato soup on my menu, for example, because I had some potatoes I'd forgotten about up on top of the cabinet and I thought I should use them up. When I got the bowl down, though, they were ogling me with dozens of growthy eyes, and leaning a bit towards the softish side, so after doing a bit of online research about the edibleness of eye-studded potatoes, I determined I should toss them. That left me one meal down. Fortunately, I still had a packet of Shake 'n' Bake in the cupboard, so I scribbled out potato soup and jotted Shake 'n' Bake Pork in instead. Under that I wrote Apple Slices.

Monday was going to be Lasagna Pie out of my Betty Crocker Annual Recipes Cookbook, but when I got home from work I saw that it would take 44 minutes to bake, and I didn't have that much time. It was Craft Night at church. So I swapped the Lasagna Pie for Thursday's plan: Taco Salad. This was the single triumph of my week and only because it's impossible to ruin Taco Salad. I brown the meat with some onions while chopping up black olives, green peppers, and more onions. When the meat's done, I add a packet of taco seasoning with 2/3 cup of water and let it thicken a bit. Some rinsed green leaf lettuce (placed on the table still in the colander), tortilla chips (straight from the bag), salsa, sour cream, and a bag of shredded Mexican cheese make for minimal dishes when it's time to clean up. And it's remarkably filling. The leftovers gave me two delicious lunches Tuesday and Wednesday, definitely a perk in my full-time working life.

Tuesday's pork was when things started to go downhill. First of all, I guess I had a coupon, but normally I do not buy Shake 'n' Bake. It's just got something slightly chemically about it that I can avoid by using a bag of plain breadcrumbs, basil, and pepper. Also, I've never liked pork. In Tuesday's case, the pork tasted alright, although overly salty for some reason, but it did not crisp up the way it should. The Shake 'n' Bake breading was gummy and wet. Ick. The apple slices, paired with extra sharp cheddar cheese, though, were perfect.

Wednesday I planned to get the agony over with and eat Tuesday's two leftover pork chops. I made a box of Zatarain's cheesy rice, reheated the pork in the toaster oven, then chopped it and tossed it with the rice. It wasn't bad, actually. I made steamed broccoli - one of my specialties - and the whole thing turned out OK. OK enough, in fact, that I took the rest for Thursday's lunch.

When Thursday evening rolled around, it was time for the Lasagna Pie, something that sounded so weird I'd been dreading it all week. It actually started its relationship with me on last week's menu, but was scribbled out in favor of leftover Italian sausage soup. I had time for the 44 minutes of baking on Thursday, so there was no more excuse. The Lasagna Pie is made with Bisquick, eggs, ground beef (which in my life translates to ground turkey), tomato paste, lots of cheese, and several other generally yummy-sounding things. But somehow the prospect of all of it together made me crinkle my nose. I recalled something Mom called Impossible Cheeseburger Pie which, while sounding similarly nose-crinkle-worthy, was actually something I remembered fondly. I googled this and found it to be a simpler Betty Crocker recipe with fewer ingredients and the benefit of being linked to positive memories of youth. I made it. We both loved it, had second helpings and took it for lunch today. This will be a new stock recipe for me, just like I suspect it was for Mom.

Friday is always left blank and today that meant stromboli for Pete and a chicken caesar sandwich for me, both from Giovanni's down the street. It was a yummy dinner, one eaten far too quickly, and one that mostly required crumpling aluminum foil to clean up.

Tomorrow is menu day. My goal: A list of meals that don't scare me. A focus on foods I already love to make. Forecast for next week's evening meals: Perfect.