Quality Time

Mr. Wizard tripped and fell while leaving work Friday evening. He tripped over a cable in his office and fell across the corner of his desk, the corner hitting him in the chest, just off center. Nothing is broken, thankfully, but he's definitely banged up (he also banged his knee pretty good, but it's mostly the chest whack that's paining him).

All day Saturday I played Nurse Ratchett, keeping him comfortable, fetching stuff and waiting on him. He was even granted sole possession of the remote control for the TV! I was overly indulgent because, even though his injuries weren't serious enough to warrant a doctor visit, he was obviously in pain.

He's easily bored when he's chair-ridden, so I stayed inside to keep him company. But I have to say, it was nice to have this sit-down time to just talk, interrupted only by the occasional herd of cats galloping through the house (they like weekends when Steve's home all day; I think they just show off for him).

We spent most of the day talking about our plans for building the house and making reassessments of our finances, health and time, the three key ingredients for getting this house thing accomplished. I'd like to say we fine-tuned our construction plans, but we mostly discussed options and alternatives and new ideas. We're only going to do this once, so it's important that we do it right.

We didn't get a lot done, but it was a productive day nonetheless. And even though Mr. W was uncomfortable and sore, it was a good day. It's too bad that it took an injury to force us to sit down and re-evaluate. It makes me think that we should plan a monthly 'meeting' where we just put all our chores on hold to talk everything over and reassess our goals. With so many chores on our list, it's important to carve out the time to sit back and reflect once in a while.

We capped off the evening with a great dinner. Mr. W had brought back some lump crabmeat from his last foray to civilization, so I made crab cakes, aioli (too garlicky), fried eggplant (fresh from Pam's garden), and shitake quinoa.

I pan-fried the crab cakes in grapeseed oil, one of Steve's discoveries from Central Market. It's one of the few foods known that not only reduces the bad cholesterol (LDL), but raises the good cholesterol (HDL). Grapeseed oil contains a high level of antioxidants, including vitamin E, which makes it not only healthy, but very stable. It also has a high smoke point and a light neutral flavor that doesn't mask or clash with other foods. Saturday night was the first time we'd tried it at home and we were very pleased with the taste results. Hopefully we'll enjoy the health results as well.

Dessert was fresh mangos, yum. A perfect beige meal. We opened our last bottle of chardonnay and stayed up late (for us) for Saturday Night Live, something we haven't done since moving here.

Sunday was a bit more productive. Mr. Wizard was not as sore and we had our chores lined out. He stained the slab we poured last month for the hot tub (we're experimenting with colors) and I raked and hauled off dozens of wheelbarrow loads of cottonwood leaves from the west side of the house. Damn those cottonwoods! Love the shade but hate the mess! Since the west side is the back side where we spend very little time, it had gotten pretty deep and dense. I barely made a dent in it. Oh well, it's job security ... and the cats love it when I stir up the outside critters. Paco brought a half dozen grasshoppers and caterpillars in the house during the day. No lizards, thankfully.

Overall, it was a very good weekend in the desert.