Sunday dinner with Brandon

The other day Nastia tells me she has invited Brandon over for swimming on Saturday and dinner on Sunday. Saturday's swimming never happens for a few reasons. Of course one of them I blame on Brandon not wanting to come over, right or wrong. Sunday, Nastia is working from 9-5. She plans to make chicken parm for him. It's easy to make, but it just takes time. Nastia arrives home at 5:40, I tell her she has to start making dinner for her 7:30 sit down time. I'm figuring better to be early then late.I start Nastia cleaning the chicken while I get other things ready. She cuts into the chicken with a dull knife I'd forgotten to sharpen first. I clean the first breast showing her how to do it and how I want the meat to be cut into smaller pieces.She does her best to clean the chicken and only destroys a little bit of the breast. She cut the chicken up into smaller pieces and then I wack the meat with a small cast iron frying pan to flatten it, having lost my mallett several weeks ago. The handle fell apart at the mallett. That mallett might have been older then our marriage, but just like Charlie Watts and Ed Asner, nothing is forever. I enjoy smacking the chicken with the frying pan for some reason. I have set up the stations for the chicken, while Nastia is drying off the chicken.The three stations Flour, egg/milk and bread crumbs/grated cheese. I start to show her how it's done when she reminds me I'd shown her how to do it before. She dives into it using her hands. I don't like fat fingers(flour,bread and egg mixture sticking to your fingers) so I'd use a fork. After a few moments I notice she she's packing the flour on the chicken and I see the bread crumbs are wet. I remind her a dusting of flour is all that is needed and to let the egg drip off the chicken before dipping it in the bread crumbs. I took two videos of her fight against the frying pan. I'll try to post it. The only problem she has in her duel with the frying pan is her arms are just too short. She gets all of the chicken into the butter and oil without an incident. The Chicken finishes cooking and Teri comes home from Costco. I go out to help leaving Nastia to get a pan and some macaroni together. She chooses small elbows. In my non italian house growing up this would have been fine.Even now I see nothing wrong with it, I'd eat it. Teri for better or worse has a handbook that say when each macaroni can and should be used. I've never seen the book, but I do know the basic and small elbows are not for dinner. The are ok in pasta salad and the likes. When Teri see the elbows she says they are not eaten for dinner in this way. I'm thinking I did warn Nastia. Poor Nastia puts up a good fight, but she is mommy overwhelmed rather quickly. Nastia's second choose is cavatoppi, a curlie macaroni that I buy in bulk from work. It comes in two five pound bags. For 89 cents a pound it's a deal. I usually seperate it into single pound bags then save the bags to reuse. I've only done one of the bags and we've run out. Nastia likes the taste of this brand so I ripe open the five pound bag pour most likely over two pounds of pasta into the zip lock and give it to her. She runs off, I pour macaronis into the other bags, dropping a piece or two here and there that later I will step on and crush. I seal the macaroni against the outside world to stay fresh and put it all back in it's box. Around this time Nastia tells me she is going to have fish for dinner. After cooking the chicken with her somehow it seems so wrong and I tell her that. I don't completely understand why I feel this way, so I can't explain it to her. I'm even angry about it. I talk to Teri and she is unfazed, so I go to Nastia and tell her it is ok for her to have fish, her mother agrees with her, not me. She end up eating chicken. Back upstairs I'm drinking a lemonade with raspberry vodka I poured. Yes I want to do this as much as Brandon, but I don't have to do it sober. To my surprise Nastia takes my cup and say I need some of that. I guess I'm not the only one. THe chicken goes into the oven. Nastia takes a little more of my drink. Brandon shows up and dinner is only fifteen minutes late, he is on time. We sit down to a tasty chicken parm dinner. Dinner is relaxed, I'm pleasant and everything I told Nastia I would be. I'm also on my second raspberry vodka and lemonade. Brandon goes for seconds of the chicken parm as do I. Nastia who doesn't like chicken does not.Asked why she made chicken parm, her reply is..and let's all say this together..."Because Brandon likes it." I start to clean up. I've become a person who can't sit at a table and talk. I leave that to Teri. Despite what she says Teri is good at small talk and maybe she really does enjoy it. She is getting to know Brandon and I'll do clean up. The mess is not a bad one considering what was cooked. Dinner and clean up are finished around 9:30 I believe. By now I'm drinking water to avoid a hang over (I'm not that big of a drinker any more. Usually one or two bottles of beer or one tall mixed drink, tonight it was two tall mixed drinks) Nastia walks Brandon to his car and Teri and I settle in for a little TV. Brandon leaving after dinner is the exact opposite of what Matt would do. He'd hang out with Elena until 11:30 or so before he went home. You know I'm just saying, not passing judgement (I know you really don't believe me) OK so I am. I like that Matt is comfortable enough to stay after dinner, but I also like that I can watch some TV after the big event. So... you know, I guess... I want it both ways, or maybe I just need to finish working on Elena's room (I didn't just say that now did I?) so I can finish the attic so they can go up there and watch TV. Couldn't I just keep my mouth shut. /