Beef Sortaganoff and I am woman, hear me roar!

The night before my husband’s surgery, I barely slept. There’s just something about general anesthesia that spooks me, and combined with my recent paranoia and urge to buy life insurance, the little whisper in my head was saying, “This is it. This is what you were afraid of; it’s the end of the life you’ve built.” The guilt of knowing I’ve been building my house on the sand, together with the guilt of having spent a good part of the evening dealing with an emergency from a client that needed to be resolved before I took two days off was a recipe for a sleepless night. Then the surgery; along with repentance, prayer, and an overwhelming gratitude that God granted us more time – along with a resolve to keep my eyes on the eternal and not waste any more of my life. So I very cheerfully brought him home and fetched and stepped and I was especially glad to, considering all he does for me. That was part of my fear, actually; he’s taken such good care of me over the years that I feel quite dependent sometimes. As it happens, yesterday disabused me of my worries about my perceived helplessness.

I had taken out meat for dinner, expecting to make stuffed pork chops. (He’s always starving after surgery for some reason, and though we start light with soup and scrambled eggs, by evening he’s more than ready for solid food.) Unfortunately, at dinnertime I realized that I’d taken out a beef eye of round, not pork. That’s really tough meat, and there wasn’t anything else in the house. We’re flat broke; in fact, today is payday, so a trip to the store was out of the question. No time to marinate it or slow cook it. I ended up slicing it, pounding the crap out of it, and inventing Beef Sortaganoff.  (Added: when you pound meat, make sure to wear an apron or a towel or you’ll look like you’ve recently left a crime scene.)

I had some cream of mushroom soup, a can of beef onion gravy, and about 3/4 of a cup of sour cream. So I fried the pounded beef in a little oil, added the soup and gravy, and let it simmer while I cooked penne pasta (the only kind in the house.) Mix the liquid with the drained, cooked pasta, stir in the sour cream at the last minute, and there you have it – Beef Sortaganoff. Not too much like the real thing, but very edible, not to mention economical. Given our recent economizing and my dislike for spam, maybe I should keep the recipe in mind. It was much better than Hamburger Helper and we practically lived off of that stuff in the 90s.

So from the other side of the bed (the side of his good arm), I put one knee on the bed and leaned over to hand him his dinner. Crack! the base of the bed snapped and the mattress sagged into the drawers below. We got one of these about 18 months ago. I know, friends don’t let friends buy particle board… but we also didn’t know if we’d like the style, and didn’t want to invest a lot of money into it unless we were sure. Later on we’re going to use this as a pattern to build one of wood, although we’ll be adding another layer of drawers to it. But I digress.

I was in a panic, and began to wonder which one of our men friends I could call on for help. Then I remembered… am I not the woman who, at 19 years old and armed only with some borrowed tools and a Chilton’s manual, replaced the starter, alternator, distributor and head gasket on my Pinto? Why, yes, I am. Did I not wield a chainsaw to great effect in the weeks after Katrina? Why, yes. I did. I decided to fix the bed on my own. Well, not entirely on my own; my daughter was ready and willing to help. We’re Curtis women. Isn’t our family motto “try hard things”? We can do this. Right?

Kris was dispatched to the couch, and Susanna and I rooted through his power tools and scrap lumber. We figured out how to use the chop saw, and proceeded, all digits intact, to clear the area and disassemble the bed. (Hey, that gun’s loaded, okay? Mind how you handle it. Yes, that one too.) Aside from some issues with the drill (WHY does it keep going backward!? Oh, that button.) and outright missing the blocks of wood (I didn’t say any profanities but I was thinking them REAL loud) we were screwing to the inside of the particle board frame several times, we did just fine.

The Curtis Women – Victorious! We are women, hear us ROAR! If we could make that Tim Allen noise, we would have. So while I have been cared for and loved, I don’t really think I’ve become that dependent. I’m still creative, ambitious, and not too prideful to ask for help when necessary. When I need to get something done, I still can. What a blessing the reminder has been!

Now back to our regularly scheduled stepping and fetching.

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Photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar