Another weekend bites the dust.

I’m happy to say that as far as I know no one was poisoned as a result of my cooking on Saturday night. My cousin, her husband and their two kids came to visit, I fed them and we all appeared to have survived. I made sautéed chicken cutlets with a lime sauce, curried braised cauliflower with tomatoes and a spiced rice pilaf. Oh and a mixed green salad with pears, cranberries, blue cheese and candied sesame encrusted walnuts with a strawberry balsamic and walnut oil vinaigrette. And to save me some peace of mind I made the side dishes before they arrived and reheated them – and had all my fixin’s for the chicken prepped, measured and ready to go in glass ramekins so that I could cook quickly but not erratically (as per my usual). And despite being impressive cooks in their own right, they seemed to enjoy the meal. When paired with the lovely wine they brought and the company of the kids, we had a nice evening.

Yesterday afternoon I had a business meeting. And not the dirty diaper, need a cuddle, peek-a-boo kind of business. An acquaintance of mine is opening her own service business and has contracted me to do some public relations and advertising work for her. I’ll be working on content for the production and distribution of media kits for the next month and a half – with the expert assistance of Mr. Mark of course. Especially since I am so addle brained of late that I can’t open the refrigerator without staring into it and blankly thinking “Now what in hell was it that I needed in here?” before realizing that I wanted to take something out of the oven. Anyway, I am both excited and worried about the task at hand. Excited to be using my brain and my education and to be earning some money, but worried about the client’s expectations, my lack of practice and the difficulties of managing the workload while caring for Noah. I’m sure you’ll get more details as the project develops – so don’t hold your breath.

Ms. Tracey came to visit Noah last night, and oh yeah- she saw us too. After Noah nestled into bed, Tracey left and we sunk down into the couch and breathed HBO for two hours. Oh, 6FU – how unfair of you to get so good right before you leave me! Also this weekend we Netflixed the documentary “Born Into Brothels” – about a woman teaching photography to the children of sex workers in Calcutta. It was beautiful, sweet, touching and sad and I totally recommend it. (UPDATE: I just found out it's premiering on HBO tomorrow - Tuesday, August 16th, 2005 at 7 p.m. Watch it if you can.)

A busy week lies ahead. Today Noah and I have lunch with Susan and her daughter Francesca. She’s that neighborhood mom with whom I’m trying to forge a friendship and this is our first invite to her home. I’m excited to see the house because I feel like you can tell so much about a person by seeing their home and I feel like I still know this woman so very little that I’m still feeling a bit awkward. I believe another woman and her son will be attending too. I hope we have a good time because I really would like to have other mothers and children to spend time with during the weekdays. Later this afternoon Mark’s Dad and his wife are coming to visit and tomorrow we head out to Qtown to spend the day with my mom. Wednesday we’ll go to the pool and I’ll need to get some work (!!!) done. And then on Thursday we head back out on the QTown express to see my Dad and Oma and to pick up my visiting ex-stepsister Cathy and her daughter Madeline from the ABE airport. Have I mentioned that I really would like to master the process of beaming from place to place? Even though I’m looking forward to spending time with my parents the idea of driving back and forth and back and forth this week has me a bit edgy. Plus the unforgiving heat and price of gas are good enough reasons not to go out. Maybe I can learn that “Bewitched” nose twitch.