Eating vs. dining

As I mentioned yesterday, dinner at our house is often pretty weird. I hardly ever cook anymore. Since I'm working downtown and never get home before 7:00 p.m., and sometimes much later, Bob has become my personal chef. He calls me around 4:00 or so and asks me, "What should I cook you for dinner?" It's usually a piece of frozen fish or shrimp in sauce, baked in the oven, and some kind of vegetable, either creamed spinach, asparagus or brocolli. Sometimes he makes me an omelette; last night it was Eggs Benedict and fresh cauliflower. I usually eat about half of whatever he makes me, and bring the other half to work for lunch the next day.

He did sit down with me and eat last night, but most nights he either cooks an entirely separate dinner for himself, or just has a sandwich or something. Yesterday afternoon when he called and asked if I would like Eggs Benedict for dinner, I told him that he didn't have to go to all that trouble, and he said no, he wanted to, because it would probably be the only good dinner I would have until Tuesday night--he's going out of town for the weekend and won't be back until sometime Tuesday.

I asked him what he thought I'd be eating over the weekend, and he said, "I shudder to think." Years ago, when he would go out of town, I would use it as an excuse to stock up on frozen Stouffer's entrees at the supermarket, and eat those for a week. Lately I'm more likely to eat out every night--maybe Chili's one night, pick up a burrito bol at Chipotlé one night, maybe get Chinese at the grocery store counter. And then there are the nights that I have wine coolers and ice cream . . .

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