My mother used canned tomato with that, not soup. Still, not my favorite food memory.

Happy Birthday, Ginger!

Maidengurl, good wishes for your DH on job hunting. My your stress level decrease.

I went grocery shopping this morning at the Berkeley Bowl -- I love that place -- so our 'fridge is full of produce-y goodness.

Still can't eat that.

hot dogs and Fritos? Yum!

They are, but not every night. Or alternated with the aforementioned tuna casserole.

Variety is good.

I don't think I've ever had the goulash/slumgullion/magazine casserole concoction.

(No surprise here) But I wonder if the camels thrived or died out?

THey did in Australia of course. In fact, I went to a trivia night where one of the questions was 'What is Australia's tallest feral animal?', and the answer, of course, was camel.

ETA: ah, it seems daylight saving has started in USland.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM GOULASH!

It's, like, my ultimate comfort food.

few million people in the same state and mostly cool about it. Of course a couple days more of high temperatures and rain could harsh that mellow.

Laura, fingers crossed for continuing mellowness. You're being unbelievably good-natured about all this, too. I'd be a shrieking, frustrated mess by now, I think.

But then one of my all-time favorite meals is the magazine casserole thing my mom used to make, which is macaroni, ground beef, and Campbell's tomato soup, with bread crumbs on top. I have the taste buds of a 15th century peasant, apparently.

I think the Campbell's means you have the taste buds of a 20th century peasant. My mother's version had Campbell's vegetable soup, onion, green pepper and lots of Worchestershire.

one of the questions was 'What is Australia's tallest feral animal?', and the answer, of course, was camel.

I would have guessed 'human.'

I think the Campbell's means you have the taste buds of a 20th century peasant.

True.

I've split this into two parts, The Explanation and The Apology. The Explanation will iterate how I got the point I did this morning, and The Apology will seek to address my misdeed and seek pardon for it.

The Explanation

I’ve been with Susan for eight years now, and I’ve been married to her for six. The thing I learned early on in our relationship is that she can overreact emotionally when the events of life frustrate her well-structured plans. On our trip to Ireland we were on a train that arrived into Birmingham New Street; we missed our connection to Holyhead. Susan panicked. The travel plan was out of kilter; we were going to miss the ferry, and the vacation was ruined before it even began. I found an information kiosk and worked out that we could take another train and still make the connection further up the line. I hauled a panicked future wife and way too much baggage onto a Crewe-bound train with seconds to spare, angry that Susan could break down in a situation like this. On the local train she cried and thoroughly embarrassed us. I sometimes bring that incident up in the worst of my moments, but I’ve accepted that this is what she is, and I love her in spite of – and because of – this.

Susan has the ability to move through her worries. She’s stubborn and driven, and if there’s a wrong it’s Katie bar the door until there’s a solution. She’ll devour books on the subject until she’s an expert. She’ll come up with strong solutions that would put the eggheads at Rand to shame. But before then, she has to decide to stop moping about the problem and start solving it.

Annabel has been a challenge for her. She has no data reference point to work from with her, and the books are giving conflicting – and sometimes scary – answers. She’s never been a mother before. She doesn’t know how to be a mother. And she’s still learning. Thus, her grand insecurity – what if I’m doing this all wrong? – is driving her to worry. What if Annabel isn’t smart? What if she doesn’t read? What if she’s a cheerleader? Yes, Susan’s expectations for perfection in Annabel are bleeding through. She doesn’t know how to deal with imperfection, not in herself, not in others. Why does she hate George W. Bush? Because he epitomizes everything she despises – unread, more willing to listen to cronies than to experts – and everything she despises in herself – stubborn, smug.

And, you have to understand, I love Susan immensely. She’s intelligent, warm, silly, interesting, uber-geeky, and has big boobs. And I love Annabel, too, because I think she’s more like her mother than her father. I accept that they’re not perfect or as I’d like them to be. They are who they are, and only they can change who they are.

Anyone who hurts them will have to deal with me. (cont'd)