One of THOSE evenings

We had one of THOSE evenings earlier this week. I thought I should document it. The menu was fish fillets and artichokes. Curtis got the fish fillets started (they were to bake in the oven) and I got the water on for the artichokes. Curtis continued in the kitchen making baby food for Zachary while I got out of his way. Curtis had finished pureéing squash for Zachary and was ready to pureé some mango when I realized he had not cut the skin away. So he started pureéing pears while I salvaged the mango. The water started boiling as a timer went off. I put the artichokes in the boiling water and reset the timer, noting how convenient it was that the timer went off just as I needed it.

Curtis continuing pureéing food while I continued working with the mango. 10 minutes went by and the timer went off. “Oh good,” said Curtis, “the fish are done.” “The fish?” I said, “No, that’s the timer for the artichokes.” That was the first oops: why I didn’t think about that first timer going off I’ll never know.

As Curtis was getting the burnt fish out of the oven, he lost a bit of control (because the hot pad wasn’t thick enough and he was getting burned) and some of the burning hot juice dripped onto my leg. That was the second oops: why didn’t I get out of his way when he was getting stuff out of the oven?

Okay, dinner gets on the table (after running water on my leg to prevent a burn), and we start eating our artichokes (which are big, huge, giants, by the way.) It doesn’t take long to realize that they’re not fully cooked. There’s the third oops: why did I think big, huge, giant artichokes wouldn’t take longer to cook?

Sigh. The artichokes went back in the water and we ate our burned fish.

The rest of the evening passed relatively uneventfully, and we consoled ourselves by playing videogames until bed time.