,and a perfect day for Mary’s super-special stew! Yep, there’s nothing quite as cozy as warming your hands with a piping hot bowl of homemade stew and watching the rain outside your window. Some baby red potatoes, onion, mushrooms, baby carrots and garlic, add some Lipton’s Onion Soup mix and a can of Cream of Celery, and then let the beef simmer until the succulence permeates the whole apartment. Now just pull those little yellow butter flake rolls out of the oven… Mmm-mmm!
Now, let me be the first to say that Kelsey’s been a delight this weekend. For whatever reason, she decided not to just sequester herself in the other room during this visit. The door to her room has remained irregularly open. She’s hung out in the living room watching TV, even sitting with us yesterday afternoon when we watched “Rain” (which I really should have liked a lot more). She even asked to come run around with Mary and me yesterday as we ran a half-dozen errands. She’s actually participated. Wow!
You know, a few years ago, I suffered an intolerably antisocial roommate– a fate I wish on no man (not that I’m a gem). He’d been my best friend for years, but living with him became the fatal catalyst in our relationship. He simply didn’t care that his self-absorption stimulated ill will and conflict. I still love him dearly, but this was another difficult lesson that was punctuated by a profound sense of personal loss. I’ve resolved to never allow myself to feel like an outsider in my own home.
And the whole “kids” issue is another tough issue for me. Beyond the sharp opinions I’ve developed regarding relationships involving children while I was growing up are the grotesque failures earned in a previous relationship with a single mother. The compromises I made in this relationship were equal only to the suffering I endured. Oddly enough, I honestly mean nothing personal when I report that I’ve never been more disgusted, more selfish or self-destructive as I was during this relationship. And I still think of that child to this day.
With only that much said, I hope you can see, as a self-proclaimed bachelor with a distinct yellow streak, that it’s difficult for me to consider that I have, in fact, found great and unexpected peace in my role as a domesticated MILF-hunter. While I have no intention of “shoplifting the pootie,” I do hold my relationship with Kelsey’s mom as a secondary priority in relation to my less-tangible pursuits
