Dinner...the age old question. If only it had one answer...

...let's eat out!

Seriously, it can ruin my whole day if my first thought of the morning is, "What will I make for dinner tonight?" Therefore, I try not to think of it. But it's a question that must needs have an answer when there are male bodies in residence. Male bodies have male minds in which food plays front and center at least half of the time. Male bodies also have male stomachs which in my experience are rarely full. There's always room for a little smackerel of something. Sound familiar?

The question gets bigger as the day progresses. Thinking turns to pondering. Pondering turns to worry. Worry turns to fretting. Fretting turns to anxiety. By around 4 pm, if I haven't figured something out I actually start getting angry that it's always up to *me* to answer that question, "What's for dinner?" If someone were to ask me what I wanted to fix for dinner I would probably say, "Cold Cereal...or how about pudding and Popsicles? Toast? with cheese? Peaches?"

When faced with these answers the beloved male face(s) looks downcast and sorrowful. "No MEAT? No potatoes with gravy? No large burrito smothered in sauce with black beans and rice on the side and maybe several one homemade chocolate chip cookie for dessert?

Its not like I don't know how to cook, or that I'm not a good cook. I know how, and I'm a pretty good one. It's just that I've been doing the 'food thing' in my house for more than 30 years: shopping for food, buying food, putting the food away, getting the food out, deciding what to do with the food, cooking the food, cleaning up after the food, throwing food away...AND,eating too much food...

(I even have a sign above my kitchen doorway that I painted that says, "Go ahead, eat all you want, just try squeezing out the doorway.") Do you realize how much time is used in a day dealing with buying, preparing, eating, cleaning up after, and eliminating, food?
Okay...breathe. *sigh*

For the past year or so we've had an agreement, my beloved man and I, that when I come home from work on Fridays we 'go out' for dinner. It's been nice. I'm not faced with a monumental decision at 6 pm after being on my feet all day. What a relief! I *am* faced with a semi-monumental decision every other week though. We take turns choosing where to go. When faced with that decision a few weeks ago I just wanted to put my head in my hands and cry, "I don't want to choose! You choose!" Actually, I think I did do that. Not the tearful crying jut the frustrated don't-make-me-do-this 'moany-groan' whine. (Hormones) He looked at me in mild surprise and said, "But it's your turn." I think I may have gone into some kind of tirade like in the previous paragraphs detailing how many times I've *actually* been in charge of choosing what we're going to eat, and that he would have to choose every Friday for the next 1,000 years where and what we were going to eat in order to catch up to me. He may have smiled at that, hoping to disarm me so as not to have to deal with too many more 'words'. (He would rather be faced with the prospect of eating 3 family Thanksgiving dinners in one day than partaking of my full day's allowance of words.) I think he chose where to eat that night. (Smart man.) And since then, when it's been my turn to choose he asks me where, and if I have a place in mind, I tell him, but, more often than not, I give him that "please no" look and he drives us right to Paradise Bakery and it's all good.

Someone told me that a very long time ago we fought a war about this right to choose...I just didn't know so much of it was going to involve "What's for dinner?"