Cooking with Sam n' Ella
A Funny Story
Chapter 1.   You Say You Want a Resolution
Chapter 2.   Sounds Like A Plan
Chapter 3.   Breakfast In Bed
Chapter 4.   Look For A Book
Chapter 5.   Last Lunch
Chapter 6.   Stocking Up
Chapter 7.   Opa!
Chapter 8.   Ready…Set… 
Chapter 9.   Building Friendships
Chapter 10.  Work That Body
Chapter 11.  On The Air
Chapter 12.  Sweet Dreams Are Made of These    
Chapter 13.  Crunch Time
Chapter 14.  Walkin’, Yes Indeed, We’re Walkin    
Chapter 15.  Recipe for Success
Chapter 16.  Free Day 
Chapter 17.  Weigh To Go
Chapter 18.  Shop Til You Drop
Chapter 19.  La Cena…the dinner
Chapter 20.  Uncharted Territory
Chapter 21.  A Real Dollhouse
Chapter 22.  Pack Your Bags
Chapter 23.  On the Road Again
Chapter 24.  Going to Graceland
Chapter 25.  Family Reunion
Chapter 26.  On The Air…Again! 
Chapter 27.  What’s A Muffuletta?
Chapter 28.  Dream A Little Dream Of Me
Chapter 29.  In Dog We Trust
Chapter 30.  We’re Going the Wrong Way
Chapter 31.  Texas and Taos
Chapter 32.  Mucho Margaritas
Chapter 33.  Up, Up and Away
Chapter 34.  The Magnificent Micelis
Chapter 35.  Discovering Taos
Chapter 36.  Eating in Paradise
Chapter 37.  Pinch Me
Chapter 38.  Heading Home
Chapter 39.  Sweet Home Chicago
Chapter 40.  All Together Now
Chapter 41.  That’s A Wrap
 Chapter 1.    You Say You Want a Resolution

    New Year’s Eve again. Wasn’t it just New Year’s last week? The older I get…the faster they come. I feel like a runaway train going downhill – building up speed – each signpost another year – but they’re coming so fast I can’t read them anymore.
    This year, like countless years before, I find myself celebrating with my neighbors. I feel blessed to have neighbors with whom I haven’t been involved in a lawsuit yet and I enjoy spending time.  I’m in the kitchen with “the wives”, mixing Manhattans and watching “the husbands” – mine excluded – drool over the newest addition to the ‘hood’. Sheila.
      “Where did she say her husband is?” Deb is 5’7”, like myself, but I could snap her wrist like a chicken bone. Not that I would. Height is the only physical characteristic we share. She is about 107 pounds, soaking wet. She’s a marathoner and when she’s not training for one she’s still on the run. A volunteer at every organization known to man. But still not charitable enough to let our new “hot” neighbor capture all her husband’s attention.
         “He’s home sick.” At least I think that’s what Sheila told me. Had I known her husband wouldn’t be joining her, I would have either not invited her or grabbed someone in off the street. When you’re having a “couples” party, single doesn’t work. Even if I have to pair a seven year old who has behavioral problems with an eighty-five year old with gas and ill-fitting dentures, I do it. Sheila coming alone was a bomb that was dropped on my doorstep when she arrived.
         “Yeah, sick of watching his wife act like a tramp.” Kris…you gotta love her. She, on the other hand, is nothing like Deb. Five foot ten and a powerhouse. She could be a truck driver. She’s got a mouth and an attitude to match. But also happily married to her life’s partner. They hunt together and go to rodeos and all that other macho stuff. My husband, Sam has always felt she has more testosterone than he does.
         “Come on you guys… be nice. Claws in.”
         “You’re right I’ll save my claws for later when I get home so I can scratch my husband’s eyes out.”
         “Well listen to you Mother Teresa. I think the only reason you’re being so charitable is because your husband is the only one who’s immune to her Wylie Coyote ways.”
         It’s true. These are my best friends because they know me and still love me. I can be as catty as the rest, but it just so happens I have a fantastically devoted husband whose eyes have never wandered and so in that respect I have nothing to worry about.
         “O.K. you’ve got me. But we can’t hate her for having the body of a goddess.”
         “Yes we can.”
         “True, but I’d rather get to know her better and then find something else to hate about her.”
         “Fair enough. Why did you invite her anyway?”
         “They’re new to the neighborhood… I was being neighborly. Neighborhood! Neighborly!”
        Blank stares.
         “I felt sorry for them being all alone on New Years. What can I say, my mother raised me badly.”
         “I’ll say. Did you see that?”
         “What?”
         “Rick just grabbed her ass.”
         “He did not.”
         “Maybe he was just rubbing her back. He does that, you know. He’s a touchy-feely kind of guy.”
         “What’s that supposed to mean?”
         “Come on, Deb, this is us… this is Rick. This is how it is.”
         “Deb, he rubs my back for God’s sake and I’m more a food goddess than a sex goddess. He doesn’t mean anything by it. He just needs to make a physical connection when he talks to people.”
         “When he talks to women, you mean.”
         Hmmm. When I thought about it I realized she was right. He didn’t seem to need that ‘connection’ when he talked to my husband, Sam or to Kris’ husband, Tom. Though Tom would probably kill him on the spot. That beer-drinking, Bambi-killing, homophobe. Not that I didn’t love these men. In fact Tom’s hunting prowess came in handy last fall when Sam was visiting his parents and there was a spider so large I could feel its breath and see its heartbeat. Tom came over within thirty seconds and killed it with his bare hands. Yuk! And he had the body to prove it was a clean kill. My husband, on the other hand is just a hair less scared of spiders than I… though he won’t admit it. When he gets a spider it’s in stages… not like Tom’s quick kill.
         First, when he answers my distress call he always shows up sans Kleenex. This I know he does on purpose so he can get his first look at the sucker without any promise of a ‘kill’. He either walks in and says “no problem”, grabs a Kleenex, kills it and pops it in the toilet… or walks in and says” Holy shit” and then starts collecting an arsenal of killing instruments. Brooms, vacuum cleaners, wet paper towels.  The broom is for medium sized spiders. He swipes it onto the floor and then steps on it. He will have left the room after the first sighting to put on shoes for this maneuver. The vacuum is for the quicker variety that might be able to scramble away when knocked to the floor and be lost forever. Then this leads to him having to take me out to dinner and possibly a movie until the memory of a large, quick, slightly pissed off spider retreats into the part of my memory that’s not easily retrieved. The wet paper towel is reserved for the super scary and usually hairy spider. This is when he doesn’t even want to make contact with the thing with either of the former two implements. The problem with this form of spidercide is it’s the least successful. When he misses this one and God forbid… loses it… that room goes into lock down. We pump the oxygen out and the Black Flag cloud goes in.
         This may sound a little over the top, but the point is at least my husband is on the same page as I am. He understands the threat a spider poses and is there for me. He gets the toilet thing too which Tom failed to comprehend in his spider kill. It could look dead, even be separated from some of its limbs and still be alive. Then you’ve got a spider with an attitude and a mission. So the rule in our house is flush them all.
         But back to the issue at hand. Even with my husband’s ineptitude at saving me from big, hairy, fast spiders… I’d still take him any day over a husband who is an excellent marksman in the arachnid arena but feels the need to touch everything female.
         “God, I wish Tom was more like Sam.”
         “Honey, everybody wishes their husband was more like Sam.”
       I did win the jackpot in the Love Lottery. Kaching!
         Pan over to the kitchen where my devoted husband, Sam was cooking his heart out. Now of course this is every woman’s dream is to have a husband who cooks. I suppose it’s every husband’s dream too, now that women work as much or more than men and don’t have time to create the homemade meals of the fifties that our sweet mothers did.
       Sam and I both cook our hearts out. In fact we met and fell in love in cooking school. It’s a tender, touching story that takes place in a strip club. It was the first year that the cooking school was in existence. They were a little behind in the building of the ultra- modern, state of the art facility and so they rented kitchen space from a … you guessed it, well actually I just told you that much… strip club. No one was using the kitchen anyway. I mean who in their right mind would go to a strip club and eat? I could further ask who in their right mind would go to a strip club… but don’t get me started.
         So there was an under-used kitchen. Our class happened to be an all- male class except for yours truly, so I could really have had my pick of the class. I was a hot little number back then. We’d be in the middle of stirring a fabulous roux or simmering a sumptuous stock and the music would start in the club. The stripper music… and the entire class would run out of the kitchen to watch Ivana or Bambi or whatever the dish du jour was and leave me stirring all by myself. I’ll admit I went out and watched a couple of times just in case the chef thing didn’t pan out and I wanted to be able to know how to pick up dollar bills with all my various body parts.
     As I found myself stirring these cooking school concoctions, I found that I wasn’t alone. Sam was more interested in cooking than stripping. We also found there was more stirring than just soup… and the rest is history. Truly history! We have since then fallen in love, gotten married, had two wonderful kids, written a myriad of cook books and currently have the top syndicated cooking show on radio today. O.K. the only syndicated cooking show on radio today.
     You guessed it we’re Sam n’ Ella. You’ve heard of us, right? Cooking with Sam n’ Ella. Every Saturday morning across the nation. And our top five books. Cooking with Sam n’ Ella. Eating with Sam n’ Ella. Surviving a Party with Sam n’ Ella. Celebrating with Sam n’ Ella and our newest…What’s up with Sam n’ Ella? We have had a pretty amazing life and relationship. One our friends have always envied. Especially now.
     “Rick is still groping her back. Sam, do you have that cyanide- grinder handy? I think Rick needs a little extra spice in his life.”
     “Now look at my husband… he’s drooling. That’s disgusting.”
     “Come on Kris I think that’s just his drink. See he just missed his mouth that’s all.”
     “Thanks, I feel better.”
     How come men don’t drool when they look at us?”
     “They do. Remember that Thanksgiving when we brought those cookies to the old people’s home? Plenty of guys were drooling.”
     “Yeah, the women too.”
     “I’m serious. Sam what’s Shelia got that we ain’t got?”
    “Oh, no you don’t. I won’t be pulled down that gopher hole.”
     “What? I’m merely asking you an observational question. What’s so fricking fabulous about Miss Sheila?”
     “You’re the one who invited her, not me.”
     “Beside the point.”
     “O.K. from where I stand I can’t see anything fabulous about her. She has no character lines on her face like the rest of you gorgeous women I see before me, which leads me to believe she has no character whatsoever. Between her hair, her nails and her flawless skin I’d peg her at least 25 hours per week maintaining that brassy, blond youthful look. And the boobs probably have to be reinflated on a yearly basis. She looks expensive and boring as hell to me.”
     “Don’t you just love him?”
    “Good answer husbandotron. Where do you replace his batteries?”
    “What can I say; I’m in love with Ella.”
     Eye rolling from the girlfriends. It’s true Sam only has eyes for me. But look at that body. I’d love men to look at me that way and not only when I was walking up to the table with a steaming plate of homemade pasta.
     “Now girls, why don’t you smooth down your hackles, pull in your claws and invite our other guests over to the dining room for a midnight champagne toast and what may prove to be the best feast of 2006?”
Midnight Menu
New Year’s 2006

Champagne with pomegranate puree ice cubes
Escargot En Croute with Arugula crème
Micro greens with Buffala Mozzarella, heirloom tomatoes and pesto
Braised Lamb Shank with Sam’s Mushroom Extravaganza
Risotto with sun-dried tomatoes and peas
Tres Leches Cake with Bittersweet Chocolate Drizzles
Assorted French Cheeses
Ports and Sherries


     Pretty Fabulous menu…no? I swear they get better every year, but as my memory fades a little more each year, who really knows. When we moved into the ‘hood’ years ago, we were unanimously elected to do the New Year’s feast. Come to think of it I’m not sure we were there for the vote but C’est La Vie.
      I’ve never been much for going out on New Years. Sam calls it Amateur’s Night and it’s so true. Eons ago I remember going to a party and watching people succumb one by one to the ravages of alcohol poisoning. Nobody was eating, they were just drinking like there was no tomorrow. People puking in planters, sleeping with people they hadn’t even come to the party with, denting cars, antagonizing small animals. It was ugly. But, it was on that evening or technically very early the next morning that I decided Sam was the man I would eventually convince that he wanted to marry me.
     It was about three in the morning at that hellacious party I have fore with described. I went out, O.K. stumbled out to my car…what was I thinking? It wouldn’t start. I’d left the lights on…this was back in the day before cars spoke to you to tell you you’d left your lights on. Someone up there must like me cause there I was freezing with a dead car which I had no business driving. I went back into the house and called Sam, because this was also in the days before cell phones. I knew Sam would be home because he was supposed to come to the party with me but woke up sick. So calling him served a multiple of purposes. First, I could make sure he was really home and hadn’t blown me off for a better New Year’s date. Second, I could see what kind of a knight in shining armor he was… me being the tipsy damsel in distress and all.
     He came right over pajamas tucked into his boots. Good sign. A man has to be pretty comfortable in his manhood to be seen in public in his pajamas. Though there is a fine line between this and a ‘bubba’ wife-beating, white-trash kind of a guy who only wears pajamas. Sam is of the comfortable-in-his-manhood variety.
    Well, he came prepared and took over immediately. Lifted the hood, located the battery, hooked her up and wham! I was running. Then came, as Oprah would say, the ‘aha’ moment. There he is looking through the windshield at me in the driver’s seat with a very satisfied look on his face. The ‘I’m your knight-in-shining-armor-you’re my damsel out of distress look’ and Wham! He slams down the hood of my car. Problem is he hadn’t taken down the stick thingy that was keeping the hood up in the first place, so all he really managed to do was fold my hood in half…completely in half. I could have been a member of AAA for the rest of my life for what it cost to repair that thing. But, I realized, through my laughter and eventual hysterical tears, that this semi-inept knight in tarnished armor would make me happy and keep me laughing for the rest of my life. So far so good.
     We have been together every New Year’s since. And for probably the last dozen or so with the people I now found surrounding the table, minus a few that have moved, a few vacationing in somewhere warm and tropical and plus Sheila.
     Another tradition besides just wining and dining these select few on New Year’s is that after the feeding frenzy we all go around the table and tell our most intimate secret…            
     Our New Year’s resolution.
      This may not seem like such a big deal, but it is. First of all, we see each other every day so there’s no getting away with anything in these here parts. I remember one year Rick’s resolution was to give up smoking. All was going well and good, according to Rick and Deb until we caught him smoking outside as he was bringing out the garbage, not two weeks into the New Year. He was busted before he’d even taken off his coat. A phone call telling her to look out a certain window was all it took. And she didn’t bust him… he confessed before he took off his coat. She didn’t accuse she opened the door to the confessional.
     This is what a lot of couples today don’t understand. You can’t attack because then you’ve backed someone into a corner and then you’ve put them immediately on the defensive. You never start with ‘you’ as I’ve just done, you start with I. Such as… in Deb’s case.
     “I’m having such a hard time keeping my New Year’s Resolution…I must have the backbone of a worm.”
     To which Rick responded, “No, I am too, Honey… in fact I was just out back having a smoke.”
     Then he sees the look in her eyes and I believe he could actually read ‘Gotcha” in her pupils. He might as well be down at the local police precinct…
” We’ve got ourselves a bonafide confession…That’ll be a wrap.”
     But you see he can’t get mad at her cause he gave it up. She did not attack with, “Were you smoking out there?” Because if she had he would have responded from the defensive saying something stupid like,” No, why are you always accusing me?” And then my friend has to not only claw his way back from the cheating on his New Year’s resolution, but also the lying to your wife ‘thang.’ Nasty… nasty stuff. Because us wives always make the leap…
     “If you can lie to me about smoking then who knows what else you could lie to me about. And there’s the looking through bank records for the past decade, cell phone bills, wire taps. It gets messy.
     So suffice it to say, these ‘resolutions were taken very seriously. And no generalizations either.
     I’m going to be a better person.
     I’m going to work harder.
     I’m going to be nicer.
     These are too ambiguous and can leave too much room for debate as to whether a resolution is being upheld. Because my ‘nice may not necessarily be your ‘nice.
      Deb goes first. I think she always has. She likes to get things over with. We’re sitting around the dining room table. Dishes cleared, Sam hates a messy table. All that’s left are the cordial glasses, bottles with a few dregs still undrunk, and a couple of ashtrays with still smoldering cigars.
     “I’m going to slow down.”
 Buzzer sound coming from at least two of us
     “Too ambiguous. We need specifics.”
     “Um, excuse me… what are we doing?” Sheila just has the look of someone who’s gone through life asking questions… a lot of questions.
     Both Tom and Rick trip over each others mouths trying to answer her first. They were also nice enough to flank her at either side of the table so she wouldn’t get left out of the conversation, seeing as she was husbandless and all. I have a feeling she gets left out of conversations a lot. This seating arrangement has obviously not gone unnoticed by their wives, my best friends, who have been shooting little ‘I’ll get you my pretty… and your little dog too’ evil eyes at me all night. Just wait till I call my mother tomorrow. I’m going to give her what for. She was always inviting the strays of the neighborhood over for holidays so they wouldn’t feel left out and now look at me I’ve turned into my Mother. I’m going to sue her for giving me too much character.
     “We do this every year, Sheila. We go around the table and declare to the world our resolutions. This way we have witnesses to help us uphold them.”
     “Does it work? I mean do you keep your resolutions all year?”
     Let’s see, last year I believe I kept mine until June 15th.”
     “Well, yeah. Kris’ resolution was to not shave her legs or armpits anymore.”
     “Oh.”
     “It was more complicated than that. I was revolting against male oppression in our society. Deciding for women what is or isn’t appealing, all according to male hormonal imbalances. I was making a stand.”
    “So what happened?”
     “Oh, I’ll tell you what happened. Her thirty year class reunion. That’s what happened.”
     “That and it was just getting gross.”
     “I thought it was kinda sexy.”
     “Tom, you just liked the back to nature Tarzana thing… like I’d become more in touch with my inner hunter.
     “He probably thinks elk urine is sexy.”
     “Doesn’t everybody?”
     “Can we move on please? I believe I had the floor or the table.”
     “That’s right; my wife was trying to hurry us up back to her resolution of slowing down.”
     “That’s right. I’m going to give up certain activities…”
     Snickers all around… and I’m not talking the chocolate and nut kind.
    “Are you giving up your marathons, triathlons, running group, book group, volunteer work, gardening…”
     “Don’t forget daycare at the homeless shelter. And the dog walking.”
     Deb is definitely a ‘doaholic’.
     “O.K. maybe it’s not so much giving up activities as slowing down to enjoy them more.”
     “I knew it was too good to be true.”
     “Oh please, Rick, you’re hardly a neglected husband.”
     “Sometimes a man likes to come home and find his wife waiting there for him with a nice hot dinner.”
     “I’m sorry you seem to have arrived on the planet a few decades too late, next contestant.”
     “Is that really too much to ask?”
Catatonic stares all around the room.
     “O.K., I guess it is.”
     “I don’t think it is.” Sheila all of the sudden has an opinion and not a popular one to boot. I am now sure the other two women at the table will never consider me a friend again.
     “I have dinner ready for Trevor every night he comes home.”
     So the faceless man has a name… Trevor.
     “Did you make dinner for him tonight before you came over?”
     “Kris can be such a busybody… I just love her.
     “Well, no… he’s out of town.”
     “Oh, I thought you said he was sick.”
     “Um, he is sick. He’s out of town on business and um, he’s sick… poor guy.”
    “Yeah, I’ll just bet’”
     I give Kris the evil eye back that’s she’s been giving me all night.
     “Kris, why don’t you go next?”
     “I’m going to be less cynical.”
     Buzzer sounds all around the room.
     “You’ve already broken your resolution.”
     “No I have not. Remember, these don’t go into affect until January 2nd.
     She did have a point. One of our little rules we made up years ago, is that no one can be responsible enough to uphold their resolutions on January first, with a hangover and all. This way it also enables us to ‘go all out’ before we ‘give it up’. You know, smoke like a fiend until you feel like puking. Makes the first two weeks of nicotine withdrawal easier. Or in Kris’ case, be the cynical bitch to our new friend, Sheila, who is definitely lying to us about something. We, the people who saved her from a lonely, obviously very lonely New Years. I’m not giving up bitchy cynicism… at least not this year. Kris has got a way nastier habit than I do any day.
     “Really you guys. I’m going to start taking people at their word and believe in my fellow man… and woman.”
     “God bless us everyone.”
     “Well, if my wife is going to start taking people at their word… I guess I’m going to take up lying.”
   “Very funny, but I don’t believe you can resolve to do something you’ve already mastered.”
     “Touché.”
     “I’m not sure I’m following you guys very well.”
     What is it about gorgeous blond women with great figures acting stupid, no wait being stupid, that is so fabulously endearing? You want to hate them and you just can’t. I find myself wanting to protect them. I can only imagine what it makes the men in the room want to do. My husband excluded of course. At least I hope.
     “Sheila, we’re a tough group to come into without scorecards. We’ve known each other so long… a lot goes unspoken.”
     “Oh, that it did.”
    “Hush up, I believe we were about to hear from Tom.”
     “Alright. Now I’ve given this year a lot of thought. I know I’ve picked some resolutions in the past that have raised eyebrows as to their serious nature and all.”
     No, Tom, I think knowing the stats of the entire American and National league made you a better person.”
     “He was the only one to keep his resolution that year.”
    “Anyway, no laughing… I want to stop being a beer-drinkin- bubba and learn a little something about wines. We’re always getting together and I’m always toting my Bud Lite along and guess I’m ready to join you vinophiles.”
   “ Ooh, very impressive… not really a word, but do go on.”
     “I know Kris hates the look of walking in here with … her on one arm and a six-pack on the other… so I’m going to go to some wine-tastings, pay more attention to the swill that goes around this table … who knows, maybe next year I’ll give up t-shirts.”
     “Say, it isn’t so.”
     “Be still my heart.”
     “Honey, that’s one of the sweetest resolutions you’ve ever made. Definitely the most selfless.”
     “Selfless my ass. He’s just resolved to empty our wine cellar.”
     “Oh please, Sam, I think our little Tom is finally growing up.”
     “You’re right. In fact, in celebration of this most auspicious occasion, I have a fabulous little Italian I’ve been saving. Ella, clean glasses all around while I get it out of the cellar.”
     “Ella, you stay put, it’s my resolution. I know where you keep the glasses.”
     “My, my, my will wonders never cease.”
     “He’s definitely putting the pressure on the rest of you.”
Poor Tom walks into the room glasses in hand, to hysterical fits of laughter.
     “What in tarnation is so funny?”
     “Tom, those are white wine glasses.”
     “You mean you use different glasses for different colors? This is going to be harder than I thought.”
     Glasses and wine all around. We continue the resolution rounds.
     “I may as well go. I know you’ve all heard it before but this time I mean it.”
     “Déjà vu coming at you.”
     “Wait, hear him out.”
     “I know the patches didn’t work. I think it only doubled my nicotine intake. Eating carrots didn’t work as you all know.”
     “No, but you did look like you’d just gotten back from a Caribbean cruise for awhile.”
     “I thought he looked more like an Oompa Loompa.”
     “This time I’m going to get hypnotized.”
     “Where are you going to find a Hypnotist?”
     “Already got one. My Doctor recommended one and I have an appointment First thing on the 2nd.”
     “Honey, that’s great. I’m so impressed you did all that ahead of time and on your own. Maybe after a few weeks you’ll want to start running with me and we could play tennis and…”
     “Slow down ol’ girl. Don’t forget your own resolution.”
     “Right. Right. I am slowing down and enjoying this moment. And I know you’ll even beat your own record this year.”
     “What record is that?”
     “How long he can keep his resolution”
     “Oh, you mean quitting smoking.”
     “No I’m keeping a resolution not to smoke… I’m no quitter.”
     “There’s a difference?”
     “Oh yeah, Rick’s Dad was Military. He didn’t raise no quitter.”
     “Oh, well what’s the longest you ever made it?”
     “May twenty-third.”
     “Yeah, he did pretty well that year. But then his Dad died.”
     “On May twenty-third, right?”
     “You’d think so wouldn’t you? No that was the day my Mother moved in with us.”
     “Not only did it end his resolution… it almost ended our marriage.”
     “Oh, Rick’s Mom is an angel.”
     “You didn’t have to live with her.”
     “She came over here all the time. We thought she was delightful.”
     “She loved you guys too. Why can’t you guys be more like Sam and Ella?” She drove me crazy.”
     “That’s what mother-in-laws are for. By the way, how is the old girl?”
     “She’s having the time of her life. She’s got at least three boyfriends at the retirement village…”
     “…that she’ll admit to.”
     “Good for her.”
     “O.K. Let’s move on here. I think I’m fading. What time is it anyway?”
     ”Now, now… let’s not be clock watchers. I’ll go next and leave my lovely wife to put a close to all this. As you know, none of us have shared our resolutions with anyone before this moment...”
     “Sam, you’re beginning to scare me.”
     “No, it’s not meant to scare. Warn perhaps.”
     “Sam!”
     “Warn was a bad word choice. Prepare.”
     “Can we move on here? I need a cigarette.”
     “And a beer.”
     “Lord help us.”
     “O.K. My resolution this year is to do more traveling.”
     “That’s it. I love traveling. Have you forgotten our West Coast wine tour last October? Or our trip through Mexico with the boys?”
     “Abroad. I want to travel more abroad. Europe. Africa. Asia. You know… the other continents.”
 “Golly, that sounds fun.”
     Did I really hear a forty something year old woman say ‘golly’? Everybody’s eyes are on me. Waiting for my reaction.
     “Wait there’s more. We already have a trip planned and booked to spend six weeks in Italy beginning in April.”
     All eyes go from Sam to me.
     “And exactly how are you proposing we get there?”
     All eyes leave me and go back to Sam.
     “We’ll fly of course. Otherwise it would take six weeks just in travel time.”
     All eyes back on me. Except Sheila… she doesn’t know where to look.
     “I see. “
     “Oh honey it’s going to be great. We fly into the south of Italy, blah, blah blah blah…”
     I can no longer hear the words he’s saying my mind can only see thick, black smoke pouring out of the engine that is still attached to the plane. The other one having fallen off just prior to the explosion. I can hear crying, screaming passengers. Hail Marys. Praise Allahs. Oy veys. I am no longer safely sitting at my blessedly wingless dining room table… I’m on that plane and I can feel my heart racing and my palms sweating. I don’t fly. I mean I REALLY don’t fly.
     I never liked to fly and finally years ago Sam convinced me we had to take a trip to London. Without the kids. What was I thinking? They could have been orphaned. When I got back from the flight from hell, not London. Never made it across the ocean, the kids assured me they would have been perfectly happy being raised by Gramma and Grampa. Nice! Don’t you just love boys? My Mother assured me it was just because they’re so well adjusted. “Irregardless” as my Grampa used to say…I haven’t flown since. How can my husband’s dream be my nightmare?
     “Ella? Ella? What do you think?”
     I’m not sure he really wants to know what I think. First and foremost I’m thinking about the plane crashing, the screaming, you know the ‘death’ scenario. Second I’m thinking what a jerk to bring this up now in front of all our friends so I can’t get all hysterical and psycho on him. Third I’m thinking he’s pretty smart springing this on me in front of our friends so I can’t get all hysterical and psycho on him. Forth is that I’m forty-five … what am I waiting for? I guess it’s better to die after having eaten authentic Italian food than not. Lastly, I’m thinking there’s always drugs and alcohol… I’ll fly over the ocean like a rock star. Totally oblivious.
      “So, what do you think?”
     “O.K. I’ll join you. It’s a good resolution. But if our plane crashes before I get to Italy and I miss all that good food… I’m going to kill you.”
     “That’s the spirit.”
     “But if the plane crashes… how are you going to…”
     Six simultaneous voices…”Sheila.”


     End of Chapter One!


     What? I can end Chapter one there. I mean it was over. Everybody helped put the leftovers away and went home. We ate our dinner, did our resolutions, end of story! Oh, that’s right. I forgot to include mine. Very clever… thought I had you.
     So I’ve had some very lofty, altruistic goals in the past. In fact I’m the Mother Teresa of resolutions. Let’s see last year I made a resolution to donate ten percent of my earnings to charity. You should have seen Sam’s face when I dropped that bomb. Not that he’s not a giving soul. He just doesn’t like to put an actual dollar amount to his generosity. Ten bucks here… twenty there. Nothing of real substance. Then he got into the real nitty-gritty. Was it ten percent of what I made or what we made? After all we are in business together and all our accounts are together… so in the end my resolution became his too.
     So I can’t complain too much about the traveling thing. It may be his resolution but I almost think I’ll enjoy 95 percent of it. The part where I’m paying attention to the laws of gravity and not trying to defy the laws of nature.
     So here it is. My most self serving, self absorbed, vain resolution of my life.
      I want to lose fifty pounds.
     That was my resolution and it came out before I could even stop the words. I had come into the New Year’s festivities with a resolution having to do with something about cooking at the homeless shelter or, I don’t even remember anymore. All I know is seeing Sheila in that adorable dress, with that adorable body and all the husbands, except seemingly mine, adoring her. Heck, I was adoring her. Sam had to be taken by her… if not he’s not being true to his testosterone.
     I don’t know exactly know why or the exact moment it happened, but I wanted Sheila’s body. Not the way the guys did, of course. And I thought why can’t I have it. God knows Deb doesn’t have the curves and Kris has more of a guy’s body style. (Forgive me Kris). But I stood there watching Sheila and realized that I had the same equipment she did. Just more of it. A protective layer over it, if you will. I’m in my forties, I’m not quite dead yet and I’m tired of wearing long, flowy, moo-moo things. Before I knew what I was saying, I’d resolved to weigh what I did when we got married.
     One hundred thirty five pounds.
     Sam did say a few things but kept digging a larger and larger hole.
     “Are you sure that’s what you want? I love you the way you are.”
     “Which is…”
     “Which is…
     “Careful Sam, men have died going down the road you’re about to…”
     “Hush up Rick. This is my wife. She’s fine the way she is.”
     Fine…hmmm
     “She’s healthy.”
     Healthy. I think I saw everybody at the table wince when they heard that one.
     “What I mean is Ella looks great for a woman her age.”
     Ouch!
     “Sam, I love you and Ella too much to let this continue. I think it’s time to clear the glasses off the table.
     “Thank-you Kris. You’ve probably helped save my perfect marriage.”
     “What did I say?”
     “For such a wonderful husband, sometimes it seems you’re missing some critical part.”
    “Such as…”
     “A brain… no I’m kidding. Sam, the fact that I would have to mention this at all is proof that you’re a sweet, simple man with no ulterior motive or hidden agenda.”
     “What am I not getting?”
     “I’ll tell you what you’re not getting.”
     “Tom!”
     “Wait a minute, we forgot Sheila. I know it’s your first New Years with us but feel free to join in our good intentions that will be but a memory in the coming weeks.”
     “Skeptic.”
     “Actually, you have all got me thinking.”
     Thank God something did. Did I just say that? No I just thought that. See when there’s not food in front of me I’m not as quick to open my mouth.”
     “I’m not exactly sure how to word it but this year I guess I’d like to work on having relationships with friends like you all seem to have. You know friends who really care about each other and don’t judge each other on just what they see.”
     The proverbial pin dropped and we could all hear it.
     Ouch! Hardly a look could pass between me and my friends at the table… at least my female friends because at that moment we were all about two inches tall.
     “That was worded perfectly, my dear and I think I speak for the entire table when I say you are well on your way because you can count all of us as your true friends… don’t you agree girls?”
     Sam can ‘sometimes’ say the sweetest things.
     “Here, here!”

Sam N’ Ella’s Recipe for a Happier Life…

MIX:  with friends often. Throw a dinner party. If cooking isn’t your thing…yet, make it a potluck. It’s not what you serve that matters, but the fact that you provide a place for you and your friends to “kick back”.

 

 
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