I visited Meredith Hirsch Salon last Monday and got my hair cut. I also bought some yummy-smelling product. Yay! I haven’t had a pro hair cut in several years; lately I’ve just been hacking it off with kitchen shears when it gets too ratty looking. Meredith knows my style and gave me your basic wash-and-go cut, and I love it. It feels great, and all that left-over blonde is now gone. This is the first time my hair’s been entirely its natural color in a loooong time.

Chloe and Christina were out yesterday, cleaning and organizing the barn and the Princess house for their upcoming bash. It’ll be a doozy: two kegs, grills, three or four live bands, and a giant bonfire. Mark your calendar because it’s next Saturday here at the farm.

Today I need to finish the EBOC newsletter, and tomorrow I’ll be working on prairieagcoop.com. Gotta make some money because we have a $1,000 balloon payment due May 1st and Brett’s truck just shit the bed and needs fixed. Gack.

Brett’s out mowing the lawn right now; we went to town this morning and bought new blades for the mower. Last year’s blades were well and truly hashed.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home. “For lunch,” I said, “and to get some toilet paper.” I asked Brett what he wanted for lunch and he couldn’t tell me, only that he didn’t want anything I suggested. It’s so frustruating. I DON’T EAT MEAT, so it’s really fucking hard for me to suggest something he might want! I finally told him to go pick out a TV dinner if he was going to be that way. I also said I’d preferred it back in the day when he ate what I cooked and complimented me on it; now he complains about ‘vegetarian food’ and swears he needs ‘more than that’.

He seems to think in order to be happy he has to eat bar food: nasty meat, fried side dishes – high in calories and fat and devoid of significant nutrition. When I buy the kinds of things he says he wants to eat, it’s all basically pre-prepared crap and expensive steaks, and it costs just as much as eating out. He used to like my cooking, but now apparently he wants meat and potatoes, which leaves me preparing meat, a starch, and a vegetable, and eating only side dishes myself. I can’t eat like that – and to be honest, neither can he. (He’s still convinced I’m the only one who has gained a bunch of fat since we’ve been together. It’s as if the beer belly is invisible to him or something. Not that he’s fat, but he will be in a few short years if he doesn’t pay attention!)

My plan has always been to make an effort to serve clean, light meals at home, and let him eat whatever shit he wants to eat for lunch. (In a typical week, Brett has Logli’s pizza and cheeseburgers, George’s, and McDonald’s for lunch.) He used to like that plan, but lately he wants steak and potatoes on the table when he gets home, and while he doesn’t really complain or whine overtly he gets the point across that he doesn’t want stir-fry or soup and salad.

It’s not like I always make bland or fat-free vegetarian food, either. There’s more fat calories in spinach enchiladas suizas with rice and beans than there is in a porterhouse and baked potato with sour cream; he’s just got this idea in his head that he’s a “meat and potatoes” guy.

I’m somewhat at a loss what to do. I can’t afford to eat what he wants – I’m overweight as it is, and I’m also not at all interested in cooking two seperate meals each time I step into the kitchen. Most homemade vegetarian cooking is heavy on veggie prep and on individual dishes, and adding another dish or two is just out of the question.

Today, for instance, I’m going to make cream of cauliflower soup and spinach salad for lunch, and he’s indicated he’s probably going to go to the Ba-tavern for a tenderloin and fries.

I’m going to have to have a serious discussion with him about this because it’s getting a little too complicated. He deserves to be served food he likes, but I also deserve the same. And we both deserve to eat better food – no one can really survive eating out all the damn time.

So enough venting, I’m off to finish that newsletter. TTFN!