A household moment

[pameladean]

I am making a tofu scramble for Raphael and me, for supper. Tofu browned in a non-stick skillet, onions, broccoli, sweet yellow pepper, mushrooms fried in oil in another skillet, soy sauce, hot sauce. It's all ready. The first set of toast pops up. I open the cupboard. No plates. They are all downstairs in the dishwasher.

I rush downstairs, and almost collide with David, who has a light overshirt and a going-outside bag and is pacing around the kitchen, obviously waiting for Lydy. He points a finger at me. "You are a Pamela."

"I am, too," I say, dodge around him, and start taking plates out of the dishwasher. I explain the situation as Lydy comes out of her bedroom. I straighten up with a huge pile of plates. "There, do you think that's enough for two of us to eat dinner off of?"

"I suppose," said David, "if it's just the one course."

I make a kissy noise at him, but he has already vanished, in that way that you know means he is thinking that sometimes the problem with having multiple sweeties is that they talk to one another and instead of just waiting for one you have to wait for both of them even if only one is coming with you. So he doesn't hear me. But Lydy, following him through the door to the dining room, makes a kissy sound back. Then she calls, "Oh, no, wait, that's wrong."

We both laugh. I take my plates upstairs.

Comments

[snippy]

What a charming domestic scene. It warms my heart!

[pameladean]

It warms mine to know that I can put such a thing up in public and get a response like that rather than a lot of shocked mutterings. (I used to get shocked mutterings on a couple of mainstream-heavy newsgroups.)

Pamela

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

*preen* *beam* (With apologies to snippy for possibly stealing her response.) We're obviously more enlightened.

Wild tangent: How come the LJ spellchecker doesn't recognize LJ tags, such as LJ user, and marks it as a potential typo? How stupid is that!

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Just another example of why I'm not poly. I already call my kids by each others' names and sometimes by my brothers' names (even the brother who is no longer alive)and my niece's name, and I call the cats "honey" and sometimes by the kids' names, and my brain can't even process what I might do with more than one sweetie. (I've come perilously close more than once to calling my husband of 20+ years by my first husband's name.)

[pameladean]

I do things like that too -- I have told a black cat in caressing tones, "YOU are an ORANGE cat" with no irony intended, and although I used to have one endearment per sweetie and stick to them, I am much more likely now to use them indiscriminately. Only there are things I don't call David because he would laugh at me.

When I was helping Eric pack he called to me at one point, "You know, Nancy, it's actually not a problem -- " and had to stop because I was shrieking with laughter. Nancy is his previous red-headed Minnesota sweetie, from ten years ago.

I don't confuse people with one another when I am really paying attention, however, so it seems to work out all right.

Pamela

[llaregyb.livejournal.com]

I'm not precisely envious, but that's beautiful.

(I really admire your books. I hope you don't mind me reading your journal.)

[pameladean]

Oh, sure, I go "awww" at a lot of situations I wouldn't want to be in, but that seem right in their context.

You are very welcome; if I didn't want random interested people reading my journal I'd set up some filters.

Pamela

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

This is very lovely. Thank you.

[pameladean]

My pleasure. Your family has provided me with a lot of similar reactions, I'm just a bad commentator.

Pamela

[diony.livejournal.com]

That is an exceedingly happy story.