The Cook Is ON STRIKE!

About four days ago, Ismail asked me to make MAH-SHEE (stuffed vegetables)
for dinner. I told him I would but wasn't promising anything for that day. The more
I thought about it though, the more my mouth would water. So yesterday I went to
the farmer's market and bought tomatoes, zucchini, bell peppers, onions, garlic,
and grape leaves. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

So because this is a somewhat convoluted & time-consuming recipe, I don't make it
very often. The problem is that I always seem to forget WHY I don't make it very
often. My late mother-in-law used to tell me to prepare the vegetables and stuff
them at night and put them in the fridge and then all I have to do in the morning is
make the tomato sauce and put them on the stove to cook. In theory, this is a great
time-saver. In practice, ehhhhhhh, not so much.

I got the wise idea to scrub two area rugs last night that were full of dirt, dust and
who knows what else the kids dropped or ground into them. Of course, one of
my (not so) current favorite TV shows (The Wire) was on last night, so I had to
catch it first. That went off at 1am but at least the kids were asleep and Mohamed
was out and said he'd be late. Why not? It'll only take an hour or so, right? Then
I can stuff the vegetables and be in bed by 3am.

Exactly how wrong CAN I be? Lemme tell ya. My husband got home around 2 and
I still had another 8 inches of rug left to scrub on the FIRST one while the SECOND
one sat soaking in the tub. (Let me go off on a quick tangent about that. In an effort
to save a little on the water bill, I decided to just recycle if you will. Randa had taken
a bath around midnight (she's a nightowl) and didn't pull the plug out. So I just folded
up the rug that was second in line for scrubbing and shoved it under the remnants
of her bubblebath. Yay....Now back to our regularly scheduled whine-fest.) Hubby
comes in and starts telling me all about his meeting with some guy he had to give
bad news to and I'm trying real hard to look interested and interject the "yeahs" and
"uh-huhs" in the appropriate places without allowing the donut glaze to form over my
eyeballs due to the complete and total disinterest in the guy, the meeting, or the
story which I'd already heard from beginning to end BEFORE he met with the guy.
I have this big squeegee thing on a broomstick to pull water off the floor and push
into the open drain in the bathroom floor and I use it to pull the soapy water off the
rugs I'm washing/rinsing. Well, I was using this thing and my husband decides mid-
sentence to go to the bathroom....WHILE I'm pulling this ton of water I've just dumped
all over this soapy rug in an effort to rinse it.........and he closes the door. But...the drain...
it's in the bathroom.....and now my....house....flooding.....HEY! I banged on the door
before he could proceed with any ...ahem!....business......and quickly shoved all the
water in with him and reclosed the door. There.....YOU fight the tidal wave, baby.
I've got furniture and major appliances out here. Anyway, he finished in there and
offered to help me. Instead of grabbing a scrub brush he grabbed the steel wool pot
scrubber off the back of the kitchen sink and began to scrub the grout in the tiles on
the floor around the toilet. (Cool. Thanks. NOT the help I was expecting but okay....)
It wasn't until I was done cleaning rugs and mopping up the floor and finishing up the
last of the supper dishes around 4am (so much for the 1 hour of scrubbing and 1 hour
of veggie stuffing I'd planned on) that I realized, "HEY! You used my steel wool POT
scrubber to scrub the floor around the toilet!!!!!"
hubby: "Well, I needed to get the cement off the tiles from when the plumber was here
last week."
me: "But I keep a steel wool scrubber in the bathroom closet FOR use in the bath-
room...and in fact, there are TWO of them because of the LAST time you decided
to help me in the bathroom and stole the KITCHEN scrubber and cleaned under
the sink."
hubby: "How about "Thank you, Dear?"
me: "Thank you, Dear....but can I have it back now that you're done with the toilet so
I can clean your favorite coffee mug?????"
hubby: "Why do I bother to help you?"
me: "Beats me."

Oh, and what's the point of all this??? Well, since I didn't get in bed until 5 this morning,
I didn't have time to stuff the veggies last night and I ended up doing it all this afternoon.
My legs and feet are swollen from standing for 4 hours but it DAMN sure turned out good.
They'd better remember the taste, too, Baby! Because I'm not making it again for at
least another year!