Improv, Italian style

Okay, I'll admit it. Friday nights are problematic. Bev always finds herself in a coma, face down on top of piles and files and undone stuff. Freaking and fretting. Wanting the weekend to get going. Too guilty and exhausted to plan actual frivolity and fun. Knowing that the past week stopped being productive last Monday around 10:00 a.m. and feeling a sort of pressure that borders on the magma buildup under Old Faithful seconds before it erupts, but not in a way that inspires awe. In a way that inspires Xanax.

And to make it all worse, Michael was late getting home tonight.

So Project La Cucina Italiana got off to a really, reallyreallyreally bad start. BUT Bev swore on David's fig leaf that until our anniversary on the 21st, there would be an Italian meal on the table EVERY night without hostility. Amendment to the oath: " ... without (head-spinning, green-pea-soup-spewing) hostility." Okay, I was a little crazed tonight.

Plans went awry as plans do. This called for creativity. Being frugal, I had frozen a crazy-great tomato sauce from the pot roast thing last week. So it went into a fabulous improvisation over angel hair pasta sprinkled with cheese. "Improvisimo"? Good enough for me.

I call it Spa-gotcha. (Look! I'm starting to speak Italian kinda!) Because I dished it up with a flourish and the hovering grace of Aunt Bea, Michael was never the wiser. He didn't know it was a leftover. He doesn't know about leftovers. Remember: Up until a few days ago, he thought popcorn was a hot meal. There is never leftover popcorn.

Michael thinks I was in an apron between 6:00 and 7:30. I wasn't. I went for a run. This sweat isn't from chopping and stirring. It's from lumbering around the neighborhood. But don't tell the man. I like it when his eyes are filled with wonder. I like it when he's ... grateful.

TOMORROW LONG RUN AT DAWN WITH OUR FRIENDS!
SEE YA ON THE TRAIL!