The Toasted Tomato

I am writing in bed to accommodate the snoozing puppy in my lap. Outside, the air is crisp and bracing, exactly the kind of Kentucky weather I long for — though I wouldn’t mind a little snow. The house is on its way to being cleaner than it has been in months. The decorations are down.

Though it doesn’t have the sexiest reputation, there is something exceptionally peaceful and hopeful about the month of January. I never look forward to it, but when I am in the midst of this time of year, I am reminded of how grounding it is. Simply, it is so refreshing to get to turn the page on a new year. You get to leave your failures and sadness behind and simply look forward to what’s to come.

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Just right now, and right out of the blue, my neighbor Pam dropped off a Christmas gift on my front step. When I opened the festive bag, I discovered an adorable stuffed turtle and a beautiful little book entitled, “Really Important Stuff My Dog has Taught Me.”

Thrilled and touched, I flipped through it briefly before deciding that I would read it together with William tonight. But it’s got me thinking about how much I have learned from Fitz in the past year and how much he’s changed our lives. And so, for this last column of the year (I’ll miss next week because I’ll be in Canada with my family), I will write once again about my beautiful baby-dog, Fitzgerald.

Right now, he is curled up beside me, occasionally putting his chin on my laptop for extra warmth. We are on the bed in the basement bedroom, where I have been frequently working over the past 11 months. If you don’t find us here, we are on the bed in the master bedroom.

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I’m not exactly sure how it happened. It wasn’t planned, I know that certain. I also know that I don’t know if I’ll know how to do it again. But somehow, some way, my Christmas shopping is done.

And, I’m not going to lie, it feels pretty bloody fantastic.

However, for the past 10 days (yep, I’ve been done for 10 days), I’ve had to keep this fact kind of under wraps. Oh, and speaking of that, my wrapping is done too.

Hate me? Of course, you do. As you trudge down aisles and despair over whether it’s a cop-out to get your dad socks again, you hate me. It’s OK, I get it. Why do you think I’ve been keeping it a secret?

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I was keenly aware while decorating for Christmas this year that Gabrielle, a soon-to-be college girl, won’t be here to help me in 2018. As such, I wanted us to really go out with a bang before our traditions dramatically change. That meant we had to get the biggest Christmas tree we’ve not only ever had, but seen.

Since Gabrielle was little, we have always had a live tree, which generally means picking up William’s dad’s pickup, heading to Lowe’s, choosing our specimen and returning home to wrestle it inside. But this year, we discovered that Owen’s Greenhouse delivers your Christmas tree for the fair price of 15 bones. And rather than go to the shop, they are happy to send you pictures of what trees would best suit your needs.

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So So here is the situation. It’s 9:15 a.m. on Tuesday. At 7 p.m. this Friday, I will be at a fancy-dancy event at which I will be wearing a gown. A gown that will look considerably better if I am considerably less weighty than I am now.

I realized this, of course, at approximately 7:42 a.m. two weeks ago. And, at that hour, I got to work being pretty well behaved in the eating and fitness departments. I hopped on the elliptical nearly every afternoon. I ate weird snacks like yogurt-covered raisins and pumpkin seeds and mini-oranges. And I lost a little bit of weight. Not enough, mind you, but enough to be on track to reach my goal weight in time for the fancy-dancy event this Friday.

I knew, of course, that Thanksgiving was coming. And I knew that Thanksgiving involves both food and eating. However, I told myself that being goal-weight ready in time for this event was akin to being well prepared for an exam. You don’t want to procrastinate until the last minute and realize you have so much studying to do, you can’t possibly ace the test. That’s a terrible feeling. And so would this be if I didn’t stick to my guns and continue to eat beef jerky instead of Triscuits and cheese melted for 11 seconds in the microwave so it gets all gooey and perfect.

So I was armed going into Thanksgiving last Thursday. I was strong and pumped.

Then my sister-in-law Teresa arrived at our house with a chocolate cheesecake.

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If you are traveling this Thanksgiving, boy, do I have the perfect early Christmas gift for you. Even if you aren’t traveling, but are just going across town, this is still a gift, though one that will take longer to enjoy — unless you need an excuse to keep sitting in your car instead of facing your in-laws (wait, this might be a bigger gift than I realized …).

Anyway, trust me when I tell you, this is a great thing that all (adults) can enjoy.

Ready?

Two words.

Dirty. John.

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Goal: To host a Chopped-style cooking competition/dinner party in which two teams (girls vs. boys) make dishes/drinks incorporating the above ingredients, which had been kept secret. We split into rotating teams of two and have three judges for each course. We allow 30 minutes each for cocktail and appetizer, 40 for main and 20 for dessert. We use anything in the kitchen, pantry and fridge we can find to help improve our dishes.

Ingredients:

Cocktail: St-Germain liqueur, lavender flowers

Appetizer: canned salmon, pimento peppers, Wasa crackers

Main: leeks, yogurt, pork chops, ramen

Dessert: filo pastry, goat cheese, bubblegum-flavored cotton candy

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The goal of the half hour was to find two good doggy toys at T.J. Maxx. Our friends, Sean and Hannah, were coming for the weekend with their two Boston Terriers and I wanted them to feel comfortable and happy in our home.

Except all at once and all of a sudden, there was a fall décor display at the entrance of the store. I was about to walk by it, I planned to walk by it, and then a shiny, silver pumpkin caught my eye.

In the world of fall home décor, this specimen was well bred: eye-catching, reasonably sized and it contained fall-smelling potpourri, which made it not only pretty but functional (in fact, necessary?).

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It took nearly 13 years of living together, but last weekend I finally asked my husband what he does for a living.

We were in Louisville for the evening and eating some pretty exquisite black bean cakes at The Mayan Café. We’d had a lovely afternoon, which had consisted of a nice lunch, a haircut for William and him indulging me by watching hours of HGTV in the hotel room. And then, all of a sudden, we were talking about ultrasounds. And how they are produced by using high-frequency sound waves to visualize soft tissue structures in the body in real time.

(By the way, the bulk of that last sentence? Yep, just stole it from Wikipedia. Sorry, not sorry.)

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Last Saturday, I stood in the store Ragstock in the middle of Ann Arbor, Mich. Surrounding me were vintage dresses, Wonder Woman costumes, an acid wash jean collection, T-shirts featuring everything from unicorns to dancing kittens, boy scout uniforms and, far in the back, a rack filled entirely with bowling shirts.

It was the kind of quirky that only certain stores in certain places can pull off. My step-daughter Gabrielle, of course, was in heaven, and searched vigorously for the perfect 1990s plaid button-up. Then she found some pins she had to have featuring quotes from The Princess Bride. She was beaming in the way only teenage girls shopping for clothes can.

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