Fri, 09 Jul 2010
Strategies for creating drain
File under: self-indulgent whining
I wrote a bit ago about joy minus drain. This morning, a friend put me through something that created a lot of drain.
He and I aren't going to see each other for a while. So in the morning, he arrived and was enthusiastic to hang out with me. Knowing how much I like the Smitten Kitchen lemon ricotta pancakes, he asks, "Can you find a recipe for blueberry ricotta pancakes?"
I find that recipe and print out a copy. (Actually two, by mistake. But that's okay.) I head toward the kitchen and, feeling more enthusiastic about the day, start working on the big pile of dishes that I left from last night. As I do that, he cooks. Showing forethought, he already has ricotta cheese to use for the recipe.
As usual (probably this isn't a good trait), I keep an eye on his cooking. Things seem to be going fine; he even successfully split the egg yolk from the whites! I do more dishes, and we talk about what we might do in this last day we'll see each other for a while.
I look back at his bowls, and I notice a few flecks of egg yolk in the whites. I sigh, knowing what he does not: you can't beat egg whites into stiff peaks if there's even a drop of yolk in them. I explain this to him, and he thinks it will be okay. They just won't be super stiff peaks.
There's something already draining about this. Something of a let-down. I guess I'd rather not be around to see this sort of imperfection during the process, even if the result will be good, because for the rest of the cooking period I'll be wondering if the result would be better if I had just done it. And you probably thought I wasn't a perfectionist.
But that's not the important bit. A moment later, he gets a phone call. During that period, I stretch out and relax on the couch. I figure we can get back to our work in the kitchen when we're together. After the phone call, I learn that he was scheduled to have lunch with a mutual friend at noon at Magic Carpet.
It's 11:45, and the Magic Carpet truck is a 20 minute walk away. The only sensible thing to do, if he's to have any chance of keeping his lunch plans, is to drop everything and run out the door.
Ugh. Utterly lame.
Any of the following thoughts might have popped into my head.
- In the future, I'll trust his enthusiasm a little less.
- If he had just used his brain he could have brought back breakfast, not ricotta cheese, and then we could have had a nice relaxed morning.
- I have seen this pattern before. I should know better.
As a consolation prize, he invites me! And I accept. And we hurry and put the pancake batter away in the fridge. He needs to bike there to make the time, and not having a bike, asks if he can borrow mine. Blake (who happens to be visiting) and I take a few minutes to get ready. After a few blocks, I reflect.
I'm hungry, and I don't even know what I want to get done today. Is hanging out at Magic Carpet with our mutual friend really the top thing on my list? I don't know, and I'm hungry. So I went home. Blake went on, which was fine with me, and presumably joined them at Magic Carpet. It is a tasty place, and it's on his way to a train station back to Swarthmore.
If I want to be in the business of patching over other people's failure to plan, I guess I could make a checklist of things to make sure.
Well, there it is. I'll try to use it going forward as a drain-avoidance tactic.
