More on feeding a southern boy

This week, I was shopping the Safeway discount meat bin (If you don't know what this is, you should. Look for it. At Safeway -- Vons in some parts of the country, I guess -- they have these bins in the meat department where they toss soon to be expired meat. It's usually 30-50% off. Oh hells yes. I eat expired bologna.), and I saw a small container with two veal cube steaks. I've had bad luck cooking veal, but I decided to try it again.

When Roomie came home, he saw what I was cooking and told me he'd never eaten veal.

"That's 'cause you're a good person," I said.

He agreed.

I had on hand some breadsticks I'd made (they were supposed to be baguettes). They were no good for regular eatin, but they were perfectly cracker-ey for homemade bread crumbs. I had fresh mozzarella, a hunk of parm, eggs, pasta, and best yet I had everything I would need to make this Smitten Kitchen tomato sauce that I absolutely adore. (A note for my super foodie readers: The veal parm recipe also calls for fresh parsley and fresh basil, and while I had the parsley, I had no basil. I did have fresh tarragon on hand, and the tarragon substituted for the basil in a wholly surprising and totally transcendent way)

As we sat down for dinner, I realized Roomie didn't have a knife to cut the meat. Fortunately, his fork was more than sufficient to cut the veal into bite-sized pieces. After the first bite, he looked at me, wide-eyed. Seriously, if cows had blue eyes .... I almost started to think I should feel guilty for cooking some poor, tortured creature and making this sweet, animal-loving, doe-eyed hippie enjoy his (or her -- do they make veal out of young heifers?) dead body. I offered all I could come up with as a remittance, an apology for making Roommie realize how tasty animals can be when they're disallowed from ever feeling fresh air, from ever running, from ever getting the opportunity to be what they were born to be.

"I'm sorry I made that baby cow taste so delicious."

I think that's good enough.

Two vignettes

1.

Last night, I glanced at my phone and noticed a missed call from my Bestie. We've been trying to chat for a few days, but keep missing each other.

(It should be noted here that both Bestie and her mother, Itinerant Woman, are notorious Anglophiles -- especially on such an occasion that the Anglo is a goodlooking man. Bestie also so happens to have a mini wiener dog named Ralph.)

I had a dinner guest over, so I couldn't call back. I sent her a text (which was all true, by the way):

"Hi boo. I'd call you back but Roomie and I have an Englishman over for dinner. His name is Ralph. I'm sure you understand."

Her reply:

"Of course. Carry on."

2.

A friend of mine recently called me "demanding."

"You know I mean that with love, right?," she asked.

"I also demand love, so yes," I replied.

But when I got home, I told Roommie about it.

"Did I tell you Jules called me demanding? Do you think I'm demanding?"

He looked at me with some surprise.

"Of course. You didn't know that about yourself?"

It was a lot like a first date. I even shaved my legs.

One of the funny things about my moving plan is this: I agreed to move to Roomie's ancestral home without having met, or even spoken to, any of his family.

Not-a-one. Not even on the phone.

And I'll be inheriting a brood. There's dad, there's mom, there's stepmom, there are uncles and aunts, a few cousins and there's a 93-year-old matriarch. All within probably a 50-mile radius.

I'm excited about it, for the most part. So far, they've been terribly sweet. This is good for me, because in the past (long past) I had a boyfriend whose mom thought I was stealing away her baby. It was a nightmare. That's not the case here. They all seem to be (judging by Roomie's reports) genuinely delighted he's found a lady he likes enough to bring home, a lady who likes him enough she's agreed to cross the continent. Whenever he talks to his family back home, they always end the call with messages for me. "Tell Ells we said hi and can't wait to meet her!" Cute shit like that.

But I'm also kind of nervous. What if they don't like me? What if the tattoos are too much? What if they don't think I'm pretty enough for him? What if they judge me for being a wino? What if they hate my A-hole dog? I realize these are mostly asinine, insecure thoughts (with the exception of the dog concern. It's totally reasonable to think that she might cause problems), but I cain't hepp it. Fears are fears, you can try to reason with them, but sometimes it's hard to make them go away.

So when Roomie announced that one of his uncles was coming through town with his wife (not the uncle who works with my new friend. A different uncle.), I was both excited and nervous. I started getting ready hours before our date at a local brewpub. I tried on multiple outfits, checking with my girlfriend, Q.

"Is this cute?" I asked, spinning in front of her in a blue cotton summer dress.

"Yeah, it's cute," Q said.

"Is it too much? I think it's too much."

"It's not too much, it's cute."

It was like a first date.

See, Roomie and I never had a first date. In case y'all hadn't heard, I didn't know Roomie before me became my roommate. It wasn't until months later, after I shed a boyfriend (OK, he dumped me. But I think we all know that was HIS loss), after Roomie and I were totally comfortable living in a one-bathroom house together (if you catch my drift), that things got interesting. So I never had that "oh-my-god-is-this-the-right-outfit?-Do-I-look-too-fat-or-too-skanky?" thing with him.

But the universe won't let me get away with missing out on that stage. I'm going to have plenty of time to cash that anxiety in by meeting Roomie's mother as I pull up into her driveway ready to move in (Fortunately, Roomie and I have a very good feeling about getting along swimmingly with her. Seriously. And I don't get good feelings about anyone.). With my dog.

As we walked into the pub, Uncle was sitting at the table. I spotted Roomie's sparkly blue eyes across the room. As we walked up, he was sort of stuck in the corner, so I reached over and shook his hand. As we chose seats, Auntie returned from the bathroom. She gave Roomie a big hug and then turned to me.

"Hi, good to meet you," I said, putting out my hand.

She looked at my hand.

"Honey, if you're moving to South Carolina, you're going to have to get over shaking hands," she said as she folded me into a big hug.

Seems like a good sign to me.

The first 10

The first time I ran 10 miles, I cried.

I'd started running after I left a 5-year relationship. I was living with a good friend temporarily, and she ran, had in fact started running to treat her depression. So we'd get up in the mornings and go for runs, and spend the whole time talking and processing and working through all of the psychological garbage I'd collected over five years with a guy who I loved desperately despite the fact that he was a major alcoholic with a moderate cocaine and prescription drug problem who was sometimes verbally abusive. Oh, and he never wanted to have sex. Wondering why I left?

After awhile, another runner friend suggested I do a half marathon, 13.1 miles. I decided to go for it. I printed a training schedule off the internet and got to work. By this point, I had gotten into another relationship and fallen in love again. He was tall and skinny and funny, a former bike messenger and road bike racer. Sometimes he'd drink a Pabst before we ran, but then we'd head out together, and he was a slow loper of a runner, so I could keep up with him. We'd take my little dog out and run by the river and talk. He called me Sporty Spice.

But then he dumped me.

So I started running alone. Just me and my little dog. And it was good for her, and I felt good, and lost a little weight and even more inches despite my regular diet of carbs, cake, cheese and beer. I'd do several short runs a week then one increasingly long run on the weekend. I'd tried to get to 10 miles a couple of times, but kept getting held back by screwups. My hamstring would bother me, or I'd uknowingly pick a route with bodacious hills that I simply could not run up. I knew all I had to do in my training was get over that damn ten mile mark. As someone told me, "If you can run 10 miles, you can run 13."

As I was coming to the end of the trail, my breath started catching in my throat. At first, I thought something was wrong with me, that my lungs were seizing. Then I realized it was just the pride catching in my lungs. I didn't know until my eyes started to sting how glad I was that there wasn't a man with me. The rest of the day my body buzzed warmly, and I couldn't stop grinning. And I finished the half marathon. I ran the whole way -- I mean, other than when I was drinking gatorade or peeing. I understand that people pee and shit themselves in marathons in order to get good time, but that ain't me.