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| UK Holiday - 2008 |
Last night I came home from work and was very domesticated. Cooked a roast dinner. The night before I was also domesticated. And the night before. I think that is my limit because tonight I am not cooking a thing. I don't really like cooking unless it is a cake. Or biscuits.
Some people just love cooking. In particular, cooking dinner. Or having dinner parties. I can handle that if it is Christmas but that is about it. The last thing I want to do is spend an entire day preparing a meal that is eaten in a short time. Then the cleaning up. The word boring comes to mind.
I work with someone who loves cooking. Planning the meal. Preparing the ingredients (the more, the merrier). Then cooking it. Followed by eating. There are times where she will have 15 people over for lunch or dinner. My brother loves cooking dinner. Big juicy roasts. Weird vegetable concoctions. Giant vats of sloppy, creamy soup that are a mix of tinned and fresh ingredients.
However, despite my dislike for cooking I have made a decision to lift my game a bit and make the effort to be more organised about food. Plus a bit more diverse in what I dish up. Honestly, there is a limit to how often pasta can be the deal of the day. And I don't want the humble sausage to be a diet staple. I also need to set a good example to my son. To show him that cooking is a part of life and to also show him how to cook. Last night I was making gravy from scratch and he asked me how it was done. I started to explain the process to him and he zoned out. Said something about how he could "Google" it should he need to make gravy one day.
Although I don't particularly like cooking, I do believe it is important to know the basics of cooking. It's also important to make the effort to eat well and provide healthy food for family. It's all well and good to be able to go out and buy prepared food but it's not economical. Plus it loses its appeal very quickly. When we go overseas there is something nice about coming home and having a home cooked meal.
By the way, K does cook but his menu is extremely limited. This is a man who had tins of sausages and vegetables stacked high in the pantry and thought that to be the height of cuisine.
Baking cakes and biscuits don't come under the guise of cooking to me. I think that is because they are not part of "survival" in the scheme of things. One does not have to bake a cake, one wants to. You don't need a cake to provide sustenance, but you do need one to have with a nice cup of tea.
Tomorrow my son has exams. Because of that he has today off to study. I think he has only done an hour of study today. He's nervous but I told him that it was normal to be nervous. One thing I said to him that he can only do his best and that his exam results won't be the be all and end all of his success in life.
During the course of the conversation we got onto the topic of school reports. I dug up my old ones from high school. My results were very mixed. It depended on the teacher. One year I had top marks for English, the next year I failed. Same with Art and Maths. The only subject I consistently excelled in was Instrumental Drawing - which was the subject that would have led me into Architecture had I known how to go into that field.
My son noted how all the teachers hand wrote their reports. Now everything is done my computer. Lots of copy and paste, bits and bytes. A black dot midline somewhere on a chart that tells you how your child is going. After seeing my reports he took out his old ones from primary school. Looked at his projects, funny drawings and bad spelling. He thanked me for keeping all his stuff. There's a lot to be said for being sentimental. I also keep lots of his things because they are not mine to throw away. It's part of his life.
S started talking about things at school. He told me that a friend of his had started smoking a pipe. I did not laugh, but really, the sight of a sixteen year old puffing on a pipe is very funny. He smokes it behind the school. I said something about zoo breath and then asked if S had a try. He said he didn't and I believe him. If he had said yes I would have asked him what he thought of it. I am not sure what else I would say, maybe I would just say that perhaps it was better not to go down the track of smoking and cite a few reasons (bad breath, shit teeth, shit skin and possible cancer). But he knows that anyway.
He also told me that the same friend smokes weed once a month. Who knows if that is true, but it did lead me to the talk of whether or not S would smoke dope if the opportunity arose. He said he would probably try it because of peer pressure. I said that if he chooses to smoke dope, or do other drugs, it should not be because of peer pressure. I really wanted to say "don't fucking smoke dope, please, please just don't go there, you don't need it". But I didn't. He did rethink about the peer pressure thing and agreed with not doing things just because others are doing it. I told him that the best thing he can learn in life early is that it is okay to say no. It's not just okay, it's important to be strong and true to himself with what he chooses to do in life.
We chatted a while about the whole drug thing. In the end I said that only he can make the choice about what he does in life and not just in relation to drugs but everything. Part of me wanted to say "S, I would be devastated if you got into drugs" but he knows that anyway and I also want him to not feel he has to protect me and so not keep the dialogue open should he try.
The one thing he mentioned that it did make a difference having family members (my younger sister, my nephew, K's cousin's son) who had experienced negative drug use because he could see the consequences when things get out of hand.
This morning I wondered if I handled it all properly. Should I have asked if he would tell me if he tried drugs? Who knows.
As a parent you can only do your best and a bit more.
Then it is up to the child.
I just rang S at home to see how he was going with his studying. He said that he was fine. Then I asked him if he had eaten. He said that he had. Some kabana and a piece of chocolate cake.
See, cakes are important.
Ciao
LC