For a few minutes this morning, I thought I was going to have to make an impromptu trip to Denver.
Tara has been away visiting family in Nevada and Arizona. Her flight from Las Vegas to Denver landed at 9:03 a.m. and I assumed all was well, until I received a text from her at 10:10.
[EXPLETIVE] hell. Have been walking the parking lot for half an hour and can’t find the truck.
Do you know how hard it is to concentrate on work when worst-case scenarios like stolen vehicles in towns six hours away start crowding the space inside your head?! I started plotting a way to get her back home, and neither option — having her rent a car and drive the 387.1 miles to Rapid City, or having me make a double-that roundtrip to pick her up and bring her back — were especially appealing. Also, perversely, I had a fleeting thought about how this might be a good thing because it would give Tara an excuse to buy a newer pickup like she’s been wanting to do.
Clearly, I am insane.
But not as insane as my wife, because after texting her a number she could call for help locating a misplaced vehicle in the DIA economy lot, she sheepishly replied, Guess it would help if I was in the right [EXPLETIVE] lot.
Tara loves those fucking EXPLETIVES, can you tell?
Anyway. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and resisted the urge to tease her mercilessly (for now, anyway). She’s been gone six days and I kinda just miss her. Besides, I once couldn’t find my car in a parking garage, so I’m well aware of how unfunny the situation is in the moment. Though, to my credit, I was at least in the correct garage! And I can’t really blame Tara, because I once spent 30 minutes searching an entire mall parking lot — in the pouring rain, at night, during an excruciatingly bad blind date with a woman I had zero desire of ever seeing again — for a car that, whoops, she realized long after we’d gotten soaked to the bone, was actually parked in a different lot.
The devil’s in the pesky little details.
In any case, Tara proceeded to the correct parking lot, found her truck, and is currently on the road headed home. ETA 8:30-ish, which means — glances at watch — any stalkers still have a few hours to come creep on me. Best make hay while the sun shines!
Speaking of stalkers, most of my free time alone was spent watching You. It’s a Lifetime-turned-Netflix psychological thriller series that sort of reminds me of Dexter. If Dexter were a millennial and his victims only kinda deserved to die. I binged my way through Season 1 and started in on Season 2, but my glowing reviews have inspired Tara to check it out, so I’m a-gonna hold off on any more episodes for now.
I also did some cooking. I’ve mentioned before how Tara’s out-of-town trips give me an opportunity to eat things she doesn’t care for. Normally, six dinners by myself would mean six from-scratch meals, but it’s hard to cook for one, so half those nights were devoted to leftovers. Which is nice, because that allowed me to kick back more.
One of the dishes I made were these Greek Lemon Potatoes that claimed to be “life-changing.” This food writer went on and on about how “very memorable” and “amazing” they were, so I was understandably intrigued. And because Tara doesn’t like potatoes, this was the perfect time to roast up a batch. I fully expected to be blown away based on the hyperbole…but sadly, I was not. The secret ingredient, mustard, dominated the dish — and I love mustard! It just didn’t really complement this particular recipe.
Another night, I did a Creamy Chicken Wild Rice Soup in the crockpot. Tara is fond of neither wild rice nor chicken cooked in crockpots, so again, I seized the opportunity. I added mushrooms, because why wouldn’t you?, and used half-and-half instead of heavy cream.
I was much more impressed with how this one turned out, though I probably should have added a little more liquid to compensate for the extra ingredient (and the fact that mushrooms tend to absorb liquid). Still, I liked it!
Gotta run. I actually have an after-hours telephone interview for a work story tonight. Not the first interview I’ve done in my pajamas, though it’s been a minute.
Mark My Words 
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