don’t you hate being a grownup?

Well, it’s deja vu all over again in my lit­tle Lon­don house­hold: John has gone off to Iowa to help out his par­ents dur­ing a tru­ly awful time. And instead of sink­ing down and wor­ry­ing, dwelling on what can­not be changed, or any oth­er self-indul­gent thing, I must be… a grownup. Which means tak­ing Avery once more to the Hyde Park Win­ter Won­der­land and going on lots of sick-mak­ing rides, eat­ing the hot dog you know will give you indi­ges­tion, lis­ten­ing to her enthu­si­as­tic account of the BEST ride ever on Smokey, the whole nine yards. At least the carousel was love­ly, and so is she. Best to con­cen­trate on the positive.

As well as being forced to feign inter­est in things I could not be less inter­est­ed in (a third trip to see “Enchant­ed”, any­one) I’m forced to acknowl­edge that I am… in charge. I can­not sum­mon up any sig­nif­i­cant enthu­si­asm for this role! You’d think it would be kind of fun to be cap­tain of the ship, with no oth­er adult whose feel­ings need­ed to be tak­en into account before mak­ing deci­sions. Don’t feel like fix­ing din­ner? Throw some mac­a­roni and cheese into a stock­pot for your child and pour a cock­tail! Don’t feel like tak­ing a show­er? Nev­er mind, there’s no one to look at you! But alas, so far I am not feel­ing the joy. I’ll have to think of some strate­gies to buck up, be brave, sol­dier on. I hate sol­dier­ing on.

Isn’t it nasty, as well, when you think of pick­ing up the phone to vent to one of your best friends, only… the bad thing is hap­pen­ing to one of your best friends. John’s moth­er is always a per­fect sound­ing board for all sorts of news, good and bad, but right now the last thing in the world she needs is a whingey, com­plain­ing daugh­ter in law who can’t seem to pull her socks up, take her fin­ger out (I love these Eng­lish expres­sions) and be… a grownup. Thank­ful­ly I can ring up my own moth­er, a woman who wrote the book on offer­ing sympathy.

Let’s see, before I buck myself up, I think a lit­tle ener­getic whinge­ing might be just what the doc­tor ordered. First up, I hate to dri­ve in Lon­don! For­get the minor con­cern that I have no dri­ver’s license (except for the New York one with the real­ly ter­ri­ble pho­to­graph that car­ries pre­cise­ly no author­i­ty here in my adopt­ed land). John asked me to take him to Padding­ton to catch the Heathrow Express, and of course I was hap­py to do so. He loves to dri­ve in Lon­don, so “tak­ing him” meant sit­ting in the pas­sen­ger seat as he nego­ti­at­ed all the insane traf­fic laws and insane oth­er dri­vers. How icky to lit­er­al­ly be in the dri­ver’s seat on the way home! How many thou­sands of times have I sat in the pas­sen­ger seat while he purrs down the Bish­op’s Bridge Road and onto the round­about? And yet was I ABSOLUTE­LY sure which exit to take to get to Edg­ware Road? Of course not! That would be like being a grownup!

Still and all, I made it home and parked with about an inch and a half to spare. I am a BRIL­LIANT par­al­lel park­er, for which I ful­ly intend to pat myself on the back all after­noon. I remem­bered to lock the car. I had remem­bered my front-door key. Well done me. John’s been gone a whole half hour and I haven’t destroyed any­thing yet.

OK, sec­ond up for whinge­ing: Avery’s exam sched­ule. Some­how all the paper­work, all the bossy, peremp­to­ry and snooty let­ters from the var­i­ous schools, all the absorp­tion of Avery’s annoy­ance at exam prep, none of these things con­vinced me that Jan­u­ary 2008 would actu­al­ly arrive and the *&^% exams would real­ly turn up on the cal­en­dar page. Well, the oth­er shoe has dropped and here we are. I print­ed out a large cal­en­dar for just Jan­u­ary, wrote all the exam times and loca­tions, all the inter­view times and loca­tions, and taped it to the refrig­er­a­tor door. Ha! I will not be defeat­ed. Would you believe: each of the three exams has 1) a dif­fer­ent start time, 2) dif­fer­ent school sup­plies required, and 3) a dif­fer­ent pick­up time? If I don’t take her to the wrong school or try to pick her up from the wrong one at the wrong time it will be a mir­a­cle. How do peo­ple with more than one child ever man­age? Or peo­ple with a job, for that matter?

Sigh. Avery is, of course, her nor­mal intre­pid self, say­ing good­bye quite calm­ly to her father, much more con­cerned with what bev­er­age I had packed in her barn lunch for today than any pesky grownup con­cerns WE might have. More pow­er to her, I say. School starts day after tomor­row and I have announced quite cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly that bed­time tonight will NOT include any whinge­ing about jet­lag or any­thing else. I have cor­nered the mar­ket on whinge­ing and I’m not giv­ing up my spot for anyone.

What to cook for din­ner? Cer­tain­ly NOT the extreme­ly fash­ion­able, spicy and delec­table lunch I made ear­li­er in the week. Too fash­ion­able. I need com­fort food. But you should try it, espe­cial­ly if par­al­lel park­ing and school inter­views are not part of your January.

Spicy Seared Tuna with Wasabi Dressing
(serves two)

2 tuna steaks, the VERY best qual­i­ty you can get
2 tsps each: pre­pared wasabi, miso paste, lime juice, soy sauce
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Can you get pre­pared wasabi and miso paste where you live? I don’t know. But you can order them. Just fol­low the links.

Mix all the mari­nade ingre­di­ents togeth­er and pour over the tuna steaks on a large plate. Turn the steaks over to coat both sides. Mar­i­nate for at least an hour, or even overnight.

Heat a non­stick skil­let as hot as you can (with­in rea­son) and plop the tuna steaks into it, then pour the mari­nade over the top. Sear on one side for 1 minute, then turn and sear the oth­er side for 1 minute. Place on top of a sal­ad of rock­et, water­cress, avo­ca­do and halved baby toma­toes and top with a dress­ing of exact­ly the same pro­por­tions as the mari­nade, with a table­spoon of sun­flower, saf­flower or any oth­er mild oil added.

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Well, let’s see. What to accom­plish while John is away? Such scin­til­lat­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties as order­ing the autum­n’s pic­tures from iPho­to and get­ting up to date on my pho­to albums, find­ing an uphol­ster­er to repair Keechie’s dam­age to both the sofa and the liv­ing room bench (ouch), mak­ing sure Avery wash­es her hands every 42 sec­onds to avoid get­ting the mon­ster stom­ach virus that’s mak­ing its way across the UK. That would real­ly tear it, would­n’t it? No vom­it­ing dur­ing the exams, def­i­nite­ly not! Fin­gers crossed.

I’ve decid­ed the bet­ter part of val­our would be to walk to the barn to pick her up, instead of weav­ing my way uncer­tain­ly through the mine­field of Lon­don traf­fic one more time today. Besides, any­one who thinks I’m giv­ing up that park­ing spot can think again. And any extra good vibra­tions you had to send to Iowa would be much, much appreciated…