Another rundown entry. Since last entry, my wife's birthday has come around. We celebrated the two of us alone on the day itself, preparing her favourite baked pasta dish. I was only able to give her half of the gifts I bought for her, because I am an idiot and always order them too close to the birthday date (I am still waiting for one, believe it or not). I gave her the third and final Sandman collection and some witchy earrings shaped like snakes. They look good on her. As a man, I am always terrified of buying my wife jewelry because I know it's an extremely personal thing for women; I seem to have been lucky so far, not straying too far from her taste. The next weekend we had a proper birthday party at our place with 6-7 of her colleagues, which gave me an excuse for practicing my cooking. There were two non-militant vegans in the crowd so I had to work my way around that without resorting to abominations like "vegan cheese" and the like; it is a tad annoying but also makes for an interesting challenge. Made sea asparagus bhajis because they were appreciated last time we had them over; then a pumpkin and chestnut pasta, with guanciale and dried ricotta for the non-vegans; and I baked a soft apricot tart (not vegan but whatever, bought them some vegan brownies from the bakery because I don't particularly enjoy making desserts). My wife also made an aubergine parmigiana and knocked it out of the park, threatening my own cooking with fierce competition (if I'm being honest, hers was the best dish of the evening). It weighed a massive 4.5 kilos and had four layers - an absolute unit of a parmigiana. We had the leftovers for dinner the next day. Since parmigiana is not vegan (eggs, cheese) I made ratatouille for the vegans - my first time - and even got a nice compliment for it (one of them asked whether I had ever taken professional cooking lessons :' ). It was a very pleasant evening - or night, rather, seeing how it went on until 3-4am. Around 2am I even got to do something I never have a chance to do: cook spaghetti aglio olio e peperoncino, which is the quintessential dish drunken italians share in their kitchens when it's very late.
Meanwhile, my wife has been placed on sick leave by our doctor, because the stress was exacerbating some of her chronic conditions (minor healthwise, but annoying and crippling when flaring up nevertheless). She's already feeling better and has another week of leave left. It has been great having her around all day everyday and I am happier for it - I would nominate this period for "Best Period of the Year" if we had such awards. It has felt like every day is a Friday if I think about it, which - I remind you - is the best day of the week (admittedly that's in part because we have been smoking a little weed everyday to celebrate; that's going to stop soon though, because I don't want us to become potheads)(also, less constrained sexy times). All the boring chores become better when she's with me. For instance, I have been insisting she accompanies me for the weekly shopping even if she does not particularly like it - but I like holding her hand on the way over to the supermarket, showing her curious products, complaining about the rearranging of the shelves, trying to make her laugh with some silly jokes.
Some days ago I thought about calling my closest uncle, R., since I hadn't heard from him in a while (this is my effort to have less regrets in the future). The next day he called me instead, which was a nice synchronicity; he was elated when I told him about it. My uncle has a handicapped daughter (complications during delivery) who is now a teenager. She is lively and has a hearty laugh but has a number of health conditions, and more often than not our phone conversations revolve around the treatments she is doing or the surgeries they have scheduled for her. She has another major surgery coming soon (I added the date to my calendar so I can remember to call him afterwards). My uncle loves his daughter deeply and his entire life revolves around her; not once has he expressed any regrets about her condition - not even fatigue. It's beautiful, but also heartbreaking and extremely unfair to him. See, my uncle was for the longest time a forever bachelor type, before he settled down at a late age; but he loves kids in the purest manner and was the ideal uncle to me, my brother and all my cousins on that side of the family growing up. He let it shine through that he was genuinely enjoying spending time with us; it was clear he would have been a great father. If my brother decides to have kids, I want to be like uncle R. to them, because I feel like I need to return the favour to someone. I regard therefore as one of the greatest cosmical injustices the fact that he was deprived of the experience of a full fatherhood. It makes me angry with the invisible forces of the universe that he will never teach his daughter how to ride a bike, will never take her shopping for the first time, will never see her flourish as a person. It is not fair. He of all people did not deserve this.
Tonight is Friday, so we are eating fish. I am making squid ink spaghetti on a bed of courgette puree, topped with tuna tartare. If it comes out nice, I might share the recipe. Things I've bought from the market today: fiordilatte, ricotta, sundried tomato pesto, olive oil from Crete (it smells fantastic), tuna, bread, onions, heritage tomatoes, speck, provolone cheese. I think I will give myself a budget going forward because I can see my market spending spiralling if I am given carte blanche. There is not really anything else I like spending money on though: I don't wear fancy clothes, I don't play games, I don't have expensive hobbies, I don't care for expensive holidays. If in the rest of my life I have enough income to buy all the food I want and the occasional cooking utensil, I will be happy.
This does not really belong to a diary, but some days ago I saw a couple of positive news in the papers and made a point of sharing them in this entry so I don't look like I'm all gloom and doom. The first one is that the EU has blocked the aquisition of eTraveli (swedish) by Booking (american) - a sign that even though the anti-trust is dead in the US, it is still alive in Europe (for now). The second is that greeks have started openly protesting the encroaching privatisation of their beaches. The movement started in Paros, which is relevant to me because I have friends that used to live there until very recently and they had told me of the situation in the island. Basically the greeks living there are like second-rate citizens, since everything and everyone is catering to rich tourists first and foremost. The article says that the movement is spreading; hopefully it reaches Italy as well.
The weather is consistently bad - grey throughout and rainy most of the time. We are becoming like the irish, in the sense that whenever there is a break from the bad weather (a sunny spell, no matter how brief) we have to go out and enjoy it, even if it's just going for a walk. I did not use to be like this and am fine with gloomy weather generally speaking (perfect for reading), but this summer has broken something in me I think.