celery roots

Lovely parts of today: 

• successfully persuaded E to go to sleep again from 5:15 until 7am
• beautiful snow (on Christmas!  we got a lot of it, too.)
• m-i-l was able to visit and get home before snow got too bad, and she took soup and cookies with her.
• brother came for soup (he walked because he lives close-by now)
• the cornbread turned out perfectly -- best I've ever made (used the "Dairy Hollow House Skillet Sizzled Cornbread" recipe from Crescent Dragonwagon's The Cornbread Gospels.)
• good friend came for a long, relaxed visit

Difficult interlude:

Yeah, it was Christmas, but the morning chores (breakfast, clean-up, beds made, laundry in, dog fed) still had to get done, and I was racing to get them done and make the soup while E was having meltdowns about her new toys (they overwhelmed her).  So I got pissy at D for taking a break downstairs while I was racing around doing chores and trying to make soup. 

I said, "Later the soup will be able to sit on the stove and be done, but it doesn't just make itself.  There's a lot of chopping to do."

He got mad at me and said, "How can we do this differently so that you're not doing so much work?"

I didn't have an answer.  Soup is easy later because it just sits on the stove and gets better, and it's expandable if visitors drop by and decide they're hungry.  It seemed like a good choice all around -- even though it takes a lot of work up-front.  I was chopping onions -- feeling overwhelmed and almost a little bit martyr-like -- and he asked if he could chop them.  I said, "No, just let me do them.  Do you know where the celery is in the garden?"

"No."

"It's in a big pot near the strawberry tower.  It's leafy.  I need some of it for the soup.  Could you get some for me?"

A little while later he scaled a tall ladder to the top of our unfinished deck so that he could hold up a bunch of celery to the kitchen window (upper story of the house).  With such flourish he held it out for me to inspect and approve (in the middle of the pouring rain).  I was still chopping onions and kale, crying from the fumes, trying really hard to keep it together, wiping my hands so that I could put a melting-down daughter into her bedroom for a time-out...  and I see him hold up a big mass of dirty roots.  He had ripped out the precious celery -- roots and all.

In that moment, I just couldn't believe he did that.  I was too dumbfounded to be angry at him in a clear way.  Mostly, I was furious at myself for not doing the job in the first place, and my inner-martyr kept trying to flame up and burn the house down.  I wanted to strangle him for being such a dork and for making me so angry at myself.  And then I had a pile of filthy celery roots to separate from the leaves.

"I can't believe you did that.  I can't believe you did that."  I muttered that for about twenty minutes.  He felt really bad.  He kept saying, "I thought you wanted CELERY!"  Yes, I wanted celery, but celery grows above ground.  "See these stalks?  I want these leaves and these little stalks.  That's where the flavor is."  The celery in the garden is precious to me because it's the leafy, bittersweet kind that's perfect for savory winter cooking.  How could he not know that?  He couldn't find the big, thick grocery-store stalks that people dip into ranch dressing and thought they must be hiding in the dirt.

Even though my heart ached for him (I caught him being stupid about celery!  How embarrassing!  Mr. Brilliant Engineer failed the celery test.), I just couldn't believe he did that.  It took me an hour to come down and get my head and heart aligned again.  By then, the soup was simmering on the stove, and I was able to step away from the kitchen for a bit.

How stupid of me.  Why do I get so tangled up over petty things.  Why couldn't I just laugh?  I sort of can now...  not at him but at the silly situation.  It was just celery, after all (but precious to me...  I felt such joy when I found it growing again in the garden yesterday).  I woke up this morning, on my daughter's first aware and participatory Christmas, and was racing to get everything done so that I could sit back and enjoy the day later, but there was too much to do, and I was the only one doing all the chores.  And then when I finally asked for help, I got something bewildering and unhelpful.

I wish I could have been completely kind, humorous and loving in how I reacted.  I wish I was the sort of person who didn't need the beds made before I could relax (tangled sheets are a daily PTSD trigger for me...  I'm not obsessive-compulsive about everything in the house).  Yes, I wish my husband had a few vegetable and cooking brain cells, but he contributes way more productive brain cells than I do to the family so I have no right to complain (and he's a great dad, too).  I wish there had been no stress for my daughter's first aware and participatory Christmas.  I wish I could have been the loving, patient, laughing mom all day long.

The vegetable bean soup turned out great, though.  It's deep red from tomatoes and filled with greens (kale, collards, celery, parsley, and fresh basil) and tender white beans.  Christmas soup.  Hopefully, it will taste even better tomorrow.  Tomorrow is a new day.