It all falls apart

Bob left Tuesday morning for a few days--he's going down to his friend Phil's condo on the Lake of the Ozarks for a fishing trip. Yes, it's January. It's snowing. It's about 2 degrees outside. But yes, fishing.

I went to the store that evening for some provisions, since he won't be home to cook for me, like he usually does. If asked, Bob would probably say that I would buy a bunch of frozen dinners, and I used to do that--buy a stack of Stouffer's entrees, macaroni and cheese and lasagna and tuna casserole--but I tried to do better than that this time. I already had a bunch of pasta and sauce and frozen ravioli at home, and that's probably what I'll have for dinner this week.

Tuesday night's trip was mostly for lunch things. I bought lettuce for salad, and hummus, and French bread. I got some artichoke dip for a treat, and Diet Coke and Diet 7-Up, and cat food, and mayonnaise so I could make Ranch dressing (the real kind, with buttermilk) for the salad. So my lunch this week has been salad (endive and red leaf lettuce, black olives, fresh mushrooms, and Ranch dressing), hummus and French bread. Oh, and I got a few bagels for breakfast--Asiago cheese and chocolate chip, and I had one of each this morning with my chai.

I never look at my site statistics, but I ran across a site this morning that was celebrating getting 50,000 hits, and I suddenly wondered what my numbers were doing. I assumed that my readership had fallen off lately because I haven't been writing as often as I used to, but I was totally surprised to see that I'm averaging over 1,000 visitors a day. Not a lot compared to, say, Yahoo! or something, but still sort of staggering.

When Bob is gone, everything sort of falls apart. Tuesday night I stopped on the way home and got a salad to go at Sweet Tomatoes; last night my dinner was artichoke dip on Triscuit crackers and a Diet Coke, then later I microwaved a couple of pancakes that were left over from Sunday morning breakfast. I'm not sure how long it would take, but I'm guessing that if he was gone for a month or so, by the end of the month I'd be reduced to eating cold chili out of the can . . .

It's just that by the time I get home, I have no interest in cooking an actual meal, even if it only involves boiling pasta and heating up some sauce. I don't know what I'm going to do tonight, maybe get a salad again.

Bob doesn't understand that--we have totally different outlooks on food. For instance, when he called last night, I asked him what he had for dinner, and he said beef stew, with beef that he had marinated in red wine. His friend isn't even down there yet--he arrives today sometime--but Bob made beef stew for himself. He's making a Cajun pork roast tonight.

When Bob goes out on a fishing or hunting trip, he's usually in charge of the food, and he always feeds his friends well. He'll make a prime rib or pork roast, make gravy and take it in Tupperware containers, make mashed potatoes, and vegetables and salad. I made spinach dip for him to take this time, and more Ranch dressing for the salad. Gard said that if he was ever stranded on a desert island, he'd want Bob with him, because given enough advance warning, Bob would bring enough food for an army.

And the cats! Pyewacket especially, of course, since she considers Bob her mother. She pouts when he's gone, and stomps around and acts mad, and climbs on the tables and knocks things off, and refuses to sleep with me. She does deign to lie on my lap in the evenings, but she lets me know by her expression that she isn't happy about it. She'll settle, but I'm definitely not her first choice.

They were both acting badly last night; I had to separate them about three times when they were facing each other down in corners. Like I said, when Bob's gone, it all falls apart.