Bing!

Many years ago, shortly after D and I were married, I used to get furious, inconsolable even, if I screwed up dinner in some irreparable way. Too much work would go into it for me to take it well if something went terribly wrong. Or if it came out horrible for some unknown reason. But my anger about messing up always made the rest of the evening much worse than it needed to be.

At the time, Taco Bell had these advertisements where they would just ring a bell--bing! We ended up making this our escape plan--if dinner ever went so wrong that it seemed unrecoverable, there was no need to get upset at all. I could simply declare 'bing!' and the meal would be tossed, forgotten, and we'd head out to Taco Bell guilt free.

Having the escape plan was brilliant. Since I always knew it was an option, I never ended up worrying about messing up anymore. And, in fact, I think in about thirteen years I've only had to resort to the escape plan twice. One of them right now...

D is off picking up a pizza (we still say 'bing!' but we don't go to Taco Bell anymore). The plan was salmon for dinner tonight, a spinach casserole, and mushroom risotto. Well, the spinach casserole turned out looking gross. (I'll eat it happily for lunch over the next couple days, but I knew it would be asking way too much of my boys here.) I completely forgot about cooking the risotto. And when I took the salmon out of the fridge it smelled nasty.

Funny thing is, E and I had walked over to pick out some fantastic desserts from a local gourmet market. I thought that would pair beautifully with the lovely meal I'd planned. :) So now we're indulging on all fronts! The best pizza in town, and the following three desserts: E will have cheesecake, D will have chocolate mousse torte, and I will be having a chocolate raspberry truffle cheesecake. Everything's coming up roses. :)

I still want to write about today's worship--especially now that it's happened. Plus this afternoon the three of us led the worship service at the chapel of the nearby retirement home. That was a great experience. I had E (who's about to enter third grade) read the scripture that I'd preached on a few weeks ago. He did an amazing job. The residents actually applauded him after he finished reading. How sweet is that?

Finally, I'll share this fun little tidbit from E. I was lamenting that as we stood in line at the gourmet market, a man reached through the line and took the last smoked mozzarella I'd planned to take as soon as I reached that point in the line. E said to me, "Mom, you should be grateful for what God gives you."

"You're right, E. Thank you. It's good to be reminded of that."

"Then take your revenge on the one who God gives what you wanted."

My boy.

PS How do get the smell of fish off your hands????