Meggy Crocker

So on Saturday, I was chatting with my friend, Nick, who was busy playing Daddy out in Catskill, NY. Nick asked me what I was doing with my day, and I told him, "Well, Saturday is my day to clean the apartment. And there's laundry to do. And I'm gonna bake some cookies." And Nick asked, "Ummm...are you wearing an apron?"
Domestic bliss is killing me! Okay, that's extreme, certainly. But when did my life become so regular? Saturday is cleaning day, Sunday is banana pancake NFL day, Tuesday is my grocery shopping day, ...I'm freakin' Betty Crocker here! I make Alex breakfast before he heads out to the office, I make dinner when he comes home, the bed is always made, the litter box is always scooped, I even bought one of those blue tablets you stick in the toilet tank to keep it nice and clean. WHO AM I?? When did my life become so stable? Oh wait, I know the answer to that one: 3 weeks ago when I arrived in Vegas.
Stability is something I both yearn for and despise. As an actor, there's been very little stability on the job front. Rarely can I look ahead 6 months and tell you what I'll be doing or where I'll be doing it. And sometimes, this drives me nuts! All I want is to know what's ahead, to know how I'm gonna pay rent, to know that I will in fact be acting again! But then, put me in a good, stable environment for 3 weeks and I'm ready to tear my hair out! Okay, I'm exaggerating. I'm actually kind of enjoying my domesticity. I feel kind of grown-up. Like I could throw a dinner party that wouldn't result in someone hugging the toilet and food fights breaking out in the kitchen. Which is nice, as I've had to clean food stains from walls on more occasions than I'd like to admit and trust me, it's a bitch getting mustard and cranberry sauce off of white paint. Yes, I'm a grown-up, with my dishwasher and the rent paid on time and the ability to recall how I got home from the bar (these days, it's generally as the designated driver: my sobriety has been a sweet deal for my drunken friends!). And it's nice to feel somewhat grounded, it's nice to sleep in clean sheets, it's nice to live with Alex full-time again. But this whole Betty Crocker thing is freaking me out! I made dozens of cookies on Saturday: chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, oatmeal chocolate chip, flourless peanut butter. I had flour on my nose and butter on my elbows (I dare this desert to dry me out with my butter balm!), I didn't have a mixer so I worked myself into a sweat creaming together the butter and sugar so my cookies would be light and crispy...
I would have made a killing at a church bake sale! But no, there was no financial impetus for my cookie-making. Yesterday was our last Sunday drive to Primm (you can read about Primm in the entry "Are You Ready for Some Football?"), as the independent sports book there has been taken over by Lucky's, which has books all over Vegas, meaning there's no reason for Alex to drive the 42 miles south to make his Sunday morning deals. Alex wanted to bring the people there something to say thanks for the relationship they'd developed over the years. The sports book manager is a pastry chef and many times would give Alex cookies when he came in, so Alex said he was gonna buy a tray of cookies to bring them. Oh, don't do that, I said, I'll bake some. You don't have to do that, he said, I'll just buy some at the supermarket. No no, I said, store-bought just isn't as good as homemade. He agreed, and I bought me a 5-pound sack o' flour and enough butter to kill a cow. This cookie-making thing was all me, and it's all about me being domesticized. (Well...I really really like cookies. And...I like cookie dough even more.) And my cookies were a big hit! In fact, we got a $400 comp for dinner out there tomorrow night (Alex needs to go cash out his winning tickets so we get one more drive). And I got big thumbs up both at Primm and at the Wynn (just trying to keep them from barring Alex, as there aren't many places left in town where he's allowed to bet). Yes, my cookies are rockin'. But is this what my life has become? Am I now the Domestic Diva? I can brighten your whites and keep your colors from fading! I can get your chrome to sparkle like new! I can color-code your closet! SAVE ME FROM MYSELF!!!