Post-President’s Day Report

Best YouTube video of the week: Charlie Bit Me. My son and I had some time together this weekend; he was working on his big History Day project; I was tending house. We must have pulled up this video three times in the course of the weekend, and then spent the rest of the time trying to master that little boy’s British accent. Here’s the part that amazes me: despite the little brother’s clamping down on his older brother’s pointer finger—until it “really hurts, Charlie”—the older bro never slugs him, never pushes him.

My own brother learned to talk in England. He was born in Hunstanton during my father and mother’s first Air Force assignment overseas. Then, the three of them moved to El Paso, Texas, where I was born and where I learned to talk. My mother tells of bringing us out to public places and I would have this heavy Texas drawl while toddling around in diapers (the way I would say “play” in three long syllables, like Paula Dean) and my brother would have this proper Queen’s English accent, and the Texas folks found that just so funny. However charming, I promise you that if I had bit my older brother like that Charlie, he would have dropped his proper British manners and pushed me to the floor.

Best drink of the week: Sapphire Bombay Gin martini, Il Vesco Vino. Could it be that it was our first evening out in a month, my husband and me? That it was Valentine’s Day and we planned for a brief foray out in the cold for a martini and a few small bites—my settling on the cod fritters, he going for the seared tuna with capers? That I got to curl up with my book, John Gardner’s On Becoming A Novelist, with one of the four truffles my husband had bought me at Just Truffles? Because really, that martini sustained me all evening.

Best TV of the week: A River Runs Through It, replayed on TMC. I forgot how much I was taken with Brad Pitt in this, before the whole overexposed Aniston/Jolie affairs.

Best mail of the week: My son’s acceptance letter to one of the three high schools he’s waiting to hear from. Next two due up this Saturday.

Best meal of the week: Those braised short ribs. We made them Saturday, letting them stew in the oven crock all afternoon. A mom from my son’s hockey team said last night, “What were you guys cooking Saturday?” She had given my son a ride to practice that day. I told her short ribs. She said, “I could just smell the herbs and spices on your son when he came in the car. And then I’m sure I embarrassed him because I said to him, in front of all the other kids, ‘You smell luscious, T.’”