I am in denial that it is almost mid-January. My ostrich-sand approach thus far to pretend
I am still safe in 2008 has not been entirely successful, but sheesh, I'm just
not ready for 2009. Oh, I gave it the
ol' college try. I made resolutions, I
sighed over my extra holiday pounds, I made feeble overtures to turn over a new
leaf, get energized, approach my work et al with newfound enthusiasm and
drive. But the whole thing just made me
feel tired, not brave new world. I was
so insanely busy for so many months this fall/winter, I'm clinging to my
relatively quiet existence of plodding along.
The catch is that I'm not particularly good at plodding along. Don't get me wrong, I am tres excellent at
dithering about, aimlessly surfing the internet, procrastinating. But the protestant work ethic/guilt complex
doesn't let me really enjoy my sloth. I worry, I fret, I despair that I'm not doing. DK found me in
my closet yesterday morning muttering rather nasty things to my bottom and
tummy and I only began to feel better after changing out and reorganizing my
spices. I've comfort-cooked up a storm
(cassoulet and pop-overs? check.
artichoke lasagna? check. roast
chicken and chocolate bread pudding with challah? yes, ma'am.) To make things worse, DK is a sniffling,
snorting sickie who is similarly unmotivated to get out into the freezing
weather; so we've done a lot of football watching (him) and drinking seemingly
endless cups of tea (me) leafing through the newspaper (us). So basically, boooorrrinnnngg. [Note: DK disagrees with my assessment; he
thinks we're just having a nice quiet weekend and whoa, what is your problem,
girl?]
I admit, it could be worse. Yesterday,
I curled up on the couch with one of my favorite Christmas presents, a first
edition of Mastering the Joy of French Cooking and marveled at the amount of
butter called for by a spirited and informative Ms. Child (love) in the
"sauces" section (it helped that I was nibbling angelically on a
spinach-quinoa salad) and thought,
"You know, this is pretty nice."
And a jammy glass of pinot and steaming bowl of white bean, chicken and
fennel stew made watching the snowfall cozy indeed. And there is that little thing of Barcelona
to look forward to . . .
Wheeeee! If Spain isn't a cure
for the blahs, I don't know what is. We
went to Spain for our honeymoon (five years ago in May) and blissfully tooled
around most of Southern Spain. I've
always wanted to go back and see more of the North and, well, this is a little
embarrassing, but those On the Road Again episodes on PBS with Mario Batali, Gwyneth
Paltrow, Mark Bittman and Claudia I-can't-remember-her-last-name-but-totally-hot
pretty much tipped the scale. Have you
seen that show at all? (I know everyone loves
to snark on Gwyneth Paltrow, but I have been completely charmed and won't hear
a word otherwise). Plus, I dare you to
watch one episode and not to book a flight to jamon-land immediately.
After some debate re: Galicia v. Mediterranean coast, we decided to
rent a flat in Barcelona for ten nights and take some side trips up the
coast. We took the plunge on flights
last weekend, and after seemingly looking at every possible apartment available
online and plugging in numbers on the calculator, finally decided on one with a
balcony and nice big kitchen. I even bargained over the price, which is um, not my strong
point. As a lawyer, I can be pretty aggressive
(I mean, polite, but I'm pretty firm), but on my own, I'm pretty much
"just pay the nice lady what she's asking; I'm sure she's only asking
what's just and fair oh my god I can't have this conversation!" Ahem, anyway, we are booked and for low
season rates and 10% more off the top. I
cannot, cannot wait. February 28th,
baby.
January blahs be gone! Ho, ho,
ho.
