Sunday lunch with my mother-in-law

On Friday, B asked what I thought about inviting his mom over for lunch one Sunday since we hadn't seen her in ages. I kind of agreed that, yes, it would be nice to see her but I was really busy and it was actually quite a lot of work for me to organize a lunch so it would have to be when I had some free time, but its true that since Ella and I were leaving for the US at the beginning of December we would have to do it now or put it off til January... Bon, bref, I tried to say no without saying no. He heard "Absolutely, why not this Sunday?" And so, Saturday morning before he walked out the door for work, he left some cash on the table and said it was for groceries, he called his mom and she could come to lunch on Sunday. And she said that she would be happy just to eat eggs because she was just coming to see Ella and I shouldn't make a fuss. Right. I'm old enough to know that when your mother-in-law says don't make a fuss over me, it means 4-courses and the good china.

I would have liked to have been able to shout a bit but its true that I didn't say "no" so I put the cash in my purse and kept my mouth shut. I won't lie to you and say that I didn't think about using the money to go back to the Maria Luisa sale. I did. But I really do have too many shoes. I don't have enough love to go around to all of them. They are like little abused foster kids, being shoved, unloved, into my cupboard, only allowed out in the daylight once a month.

As evidenced by the stack of dishes in our sink- this is after the dishwasher was already loaded up once- I managed a dinner nice enough to get a compliment out of her. Wild Mushroom Soup. Roast Pork with Prunes, Shallots, and Chanterelles. Endive Salad with Pear. Raspberry Tart (from the shop. since real French ladies don't bake cake I knew that I could give it a miss as well). It all went really nicely actually, although I did get slightly irritated with B this morning.

I was in the bath*- natch- and of course, Ella insisted on coming in with me so it ended up taking ages before we were both clean, dry and dressed. When I came out of the bath at 11:15 (B had invited his mother for noon and she is always right on time, no retard de politesse de 15 minutes) I expected that he would be dressed and the living room would be straighted up and he would be ready to go to the market for the last minute things. Instead, he was lounging in his robe, eating what I imagine was his 7th yogurt of the morning, watching Top Gear Extra, not a care in the world. Considering that it was his mother that was coming to dinner, I don't think I was out of line telling him to get his lazy ass off the goddamn sofa and into some pants ASAP, punctuated by a few slammed cupboard doors. But honestly, it was his mother. I hate when he does shit like that and I have to start nagging him to do his "chores"- as if I'm his mother.

Maybe to make up for that, or maybe just because he really is a fantastic husband 95% of the time, he cleaned up all the mess once she had gone and is even in the kitchen right now (at 10:45pm) scrubbing those pots that were sitting in the sink. He is totally forgiven- but now I feel like I owe him. God, scrubbing pots at 11 at night? He's a saint!

* As I was laying in the bath this morning, and no doubt linked to the fact that I had all sorts of cooking stuff going through my head in order to organize my morning, I started thinking about how one time I heard someone say that they didn't like baths because its like sitting in dirt soup. And its just stuck in my head. Probably every other time I take a bath I ask myself if it isn't maybe totally disgusting to be laying there IN DIRT SOUP, rather than totally relaxing and decadent. Dirt Soup. Thats so gross.