{"id":21912,"date":"2015-05-21T00:01:59","date_gmt":"2015-05-21T07:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=21912"},"modified":"2015-05-21T00:01:59","modified_gmt":"2015-05-21T07:01:59","slug":"confessions-of-a-so-so-wife-the-night-i-forgot-to-make-dinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/confessions-of-a-so-so-wife-the-night-i-forgot-to-make-dinner\/","title":{"rendered":"Confessions of a So-So Wife: The Night I Forgot to Make Dinner"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jon<\/a>
When the kids were older,\u00a0Jon and I traveled\u00a0to Thailand, where he took\u00a0a class in Thai cooking\u00a0and\u00a0I went shopping. Photo by Jon Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall, The Oakland Tribune, June 14, 1987<\/em><\/p>\n

It was going to be the dinner hour of my dreams, the married life I had imagined for myself as a girl back in suburban Detroit.<\/p>\n

The table would be set, the chicken roasted to golden perfection. The children, fresh-scrubbed, would welcome their daddy home from work with sweet-smelling hugs.<\/p>\n

Maybe I would even put candles and a clean tablecloth on the table.<\/p>\n

Jon had taken a job. A real job. No more working out of the corner of Christina’s bedroom. From now on, he would be writing programs for a Marin software company.<\/p>\n

This was Jon’s first day on the new job. He was out of bed at 6:45 a.m. and on the road by 8. He wouldn’t be home till nearly 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

A long day. When he arrived home, I resolved, dinner would be waiting, a bottle of wine uncorked and breathing, a blush of lipstick on his wife’s lips.<\/p>\n

But I forgot.<\/p>\n

Jon had done the shopping on Sunday. The chicken, the broccoli, the potatoes and the wine were ready. All I had to do was cook.<\/p>\n

But I forgot.<\/p>\n

I remembered my usual Monday chores. I took Peter to play at Dan’s in Berkeley. I dropped Christina at Lindsay’s in San Leandro, fifteen miles to the south. I stopped at the bank and the shoe store. I picked both kids up. I even remembered to be home in time for dinner, which Jon always had ready at 6 sharp.<\/p>\n

A Capital Offense?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Roh Ki Hwa of Seoul, Korea, was an hour late making lunch for her husband at a company picnic last month. She had forgotten about daylight savings time.<\/p>\n

Hwa hanged herself.<\/p>\n

Could I do less?<\/p>\n

Hwa had forgotten lunch. I had missed dinner. Hwa had an excuse, a time switch. My only excuse was three brain-numbing trips between Berkeley and San Leandro.<\/p>\n

But someone had to make dinner at our house that night.<\/p>\n

\"Jon<\/a>
Jon baked salmon for my birthday dinner. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Last Minute Dinner Prep<\/h5>\n

Dutifully, I put aside my guilt and popped a videotape into the VCR for my two sweaty children. They had to be out of the way if my dream dinner was to be ready by 6:45.<\/p>\n

The telephone rang. It was Jon, calling from the office. “How’s dinner going?”<\/p>\n

I had cooked dinner maybe a dozen times in our 10 years of marriage. Jon thought I might need coaching.<\/p>\n

“I forgot.”<\/p>\n

“You forgot?”<\/p>\n

“Maybe it was a Freudian slip,” I suggested. “Fear of cooking or something.”<\/p>\n

“Barbara,” was all he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s OK,” I said rashly. “It’ll be ready.”<\/p>\n

Frantically, I cut the roasting chicken into broiler-size pieces. It would cook faster that way. Too late for baked potatoes. I put water on for bow tie noodles.<\/p>\n

There was no time for the lipstick, let alone the clean tablecloth and candles.<\/p>\n

I Used to be a Good Cook, Honest<\/h5>\n

In my single woman days, I used to be a pretty good cook. I made an out-of-this-world apple kuchen, a divine wiener schnitzel.<\/p>\n

But Jon only recalls the meal I made on our first date — raw shrimp seared in Bermuda onion and lemon juice, accompanied by alfalfa sprouts dressed with sesame seed oil.<\/p>\n

My friend Joan, also a single woman, had given me the recipe.<\/p>\n

Joan assured me that my date, who I hoped would be falling in love with me that evening, would be deeply impressed by my creativity.<\/p>\n

Jon barely ate his dinner. Months later, he confided that it gave him heartburn.<\/p>\n

I have since lost touch with Joan. I wonder if she is still single.<\/p>\n

A Liberated Man — Who Cooks<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Soon after our wedding, Jon took over the cooking and grocery shopping. He was, after all, a liberated man married to a liberated woman.<\/p>\n

At first, I hovered about the kitchen, making sure he didn’t scorch the new cookware.<\/p>\n

Then I realized that Jon wanted — not to help with the cooking — but to be in charge of it. If I didn’t leave him alone, he might quit cooking altogether.<\/p>\n

He didn’t scorch the cookware.<\/p>\n

That was 10 years ago. Now, with Jon working full time and my working part time, it made sense for me to cook again.<\/p>\n

The Monday after the forgotten chicken, Jon left spaghetti for me to cook. Pretty simple. So simple, in fact, we have had spaghetti every Monday for weeks.<\/p>\n

Last Monday, I finally got it right.<\/p>\n

Jon’s\u00a0So-So Wife<\/h5>\n

When Jon arrived home the night of the forgotten dinner, the kids were bathed and in their pajamas. The candles were not on the table, but dinner was.<\/p>\n

“This is wonderful,” Jon said. “A nice dinner, a really nice dinner.”<\/p>\n

No matter that the phone rang twice as we ate and that the children, in their clean pajamas, had escaped to the yard to make mud pies.<\/p>\n

This was as close as I was going to get to the dinner of my girlish dreams.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 1987, The Oakland Tribune<\/a>. Reprinted by permission<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

More Jon stories at “My Computer is Dead, Long Live My Omputer”<\/a> and “For Wetter or Drier, I’m Married to California.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Jon<\/a><\/p>\n

It would be the dinner of my dreams, the married life I’d imagined as a girl back in Detroit. The table would be set, the chicken roasted to a golden brown. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[34,1466,1032,29,1467,689,81,82,1468,1469],"class_list":["post-21912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-changing-family","tag-dont-miss","tag-feminist","tag-housework","tag-jon","tag-korean","tag-marriage","tag-oakland-tribune","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-the-good-wife","tag-two-career-couples"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}