Food

When it's breakfast time, lunch time, tea time, dinner time, snack time, or midnight snack time, Julie and I have a routine that you could set to the tune of any tango.

I'm in a black suit with a red rose in my mouth. She's in a red dress built for a woman who has recently swallowed a medium watermelon.

"What do you want to eat?" We're locked together; I move forward, she moves back, three steps, two to the side. One, two, three, tan-go.

"What do we have?" I guide her to an open position and we move one, two, three, and I snap her back to me on tan-go.

"What do you want?" I spin her on her heels, dip her.

"What do we have?" Unable to pull her up from the dip, I slowly lower her to the floor.

It continues, her sitting, me standing and rubbing my lower back.

"We have ham and scalloped potatoes."
"Yucky."
"Pasta and salad."
"Bleh."
"Piz--"
"Don't say pizza."

And on and on. I don't know if it's true about all pregnant women, but Julie faces the daily conundrum of wanting food but not wanting any particular food. Scratch that: I face the conundrum.

Better are the days when I can get her to utter a food, a single food she feels like eating. "I want something with fish and green beans."

Now, it's important to note that our house does not contain fish or green beans. A general rule of thumb, I have learned, is that the demands she makes on Target List Day will be different from the demands at eating time. But that's okay, because I have programmed into my phone the numbers of every food delivery and carry-out location in the city.

But sometimes, sometimes she comes home in the middle of food preparation. "Ham and scalloped potatoes? Oh."

"Shh. Sit." I guide her to the couch, put in some awful chick movie like The Holiday or Maid in Manhattan. Moments later I set a plate on her lap.

"This actually looks really good." And I remember that she doesn't even know what she does and does not want. And that, ladies and gentlemen, that's pregnancy.

Postscript:

While typing this, Julie called me. I am picking her up in an hour, taking her to a doctor's appointment. "I have a favor to ask of you, besides the picking me up and taking me to the doctor favor."

"Okay."

"I wasn't really in the mood for the tuna sandwich and chips, so could you pick me up food on your way?"

"I am writing a blog post about this exact thing."

"Great..."

And I kid you not, it started again.

"What do you want?"

"What's easy for you?" One, two, phone tan-go.

"Nothing's easy. What do you want?"

"Um..."

We did finally work it out. And yes, I thanked her for the postscript.