I have begun a project which entails me living on my own for days at a time. This may not seem very challenging, but I've grown accustomed to having charming husband around on a constant basis. We both work from home, so we're always tripping over each other and whoever's not trying to work is making so much noise the other person can't think. We happen to like it this way. 

Alas, he is now working in Seattle for several months, and this means, given the distance between here and there, that he'll only be home on weekends. While I realize that many people go for long periods without seeing their significant others for a variety of more pressing reasons, this is different. You have to know this much: we are madly in love and the mere thought of being away from each other for a night is unbearable. (Do you like how I just put us in a special class while managing to denigrate the relationships of countless others? We're special all right.)

So yes, people do this all the time, for much longer periods, and I figure if they can do it for long periods, I can do it for five days at a time. I am, after all, chronologically a grown up.

Unfortunately, there are a few things I am unable to manage on my own. I've come to rely upon charming husband for certain tasks, being rather the lazy sort that I am. When I have a bottle of wine to open, I hand it to him, and he opens it. This morning I was reminded of my limitations, which came as quite a shock, since I like to think I have none.

(Are you thinking I'm starting to drink wine early in the morning and proceeding throughout the day?) 

I decided that I would set a precedent for responsible behavior and undertake the task of feeding myself as if I matter. I have a reputation for forgetting to eat, and then, at the last minute, deciding any old thing will do, such as popcorn. Yesterday I stopped at Taco Bell. Can  you believe it? That can't possibly be good for me. Fortunately I had a board dinner to attend last night and there were scads of vegetables, so I was in luck. I decided that today I would make a stew, and last night I stopped at the store to pick up a few things. I found six dollar wine on sale for three dollars. Who can pass that up? I mean, it's not like I'm going to drink it or anything. But there's nothing like a red wine, good or not, for dealing with the fond after the meat has browned. (I don't always take care of myself well, but I can cook. We take turns around here. We're enlightened and all that.) 

This morning while browning the meat I cut up some vegetables in nice big chunks to match the meat. Then I tackled the wine bottle. You would think, for that price, they'd just put a screw top on it and forget about it. But no. The thing has a cork. I used to use, back in the days when I did my own wine decanting, a simple handheld corkscrew which would invariably get me a mutilated cork, but access to the wine. I'm not that big a wine drinker so it was never really an issue, and I have strainers to strain out the cork that gets into the wine. Really. This is how I cook. Stop shaking your head -- I never said I was perfect.

But my reliable corkscrew, which is simply a corkscrew and not much else, is nowhere to be found. This is probably because charming husband has his own versions of corkscrews. I found one, a lethal looking contraption, and put it over the top of the bottle and then . . . nothing. There must be a trick to these things that I'm unaware of. I could not figure it out. 

I looked around a bit more, and found some sort of vacuum pump corkscrew still in its original case. This looked promising. I wondered why it was still in the original case, and then realized it was still taped shut. How could this be? And yet, it had been opened -- one of the little rubber tops for opened bottles was gone. Charming husband is probably so fond of his exquisite corkscrew that he tapes it back up when he's done. It looked as if it would know what to do all by itself, without needing any help from me.

I opened it, put the thing around the top of the bottle, and then became my normal clueless self.    

What the? I'm sure it's simple and easy and any five-year old could figure it out, though I hope five-year olds aren't figuring it out in order to drink wine. But I am technologically challenged at times, and I can't see how things work. I can see how people work quite well, but things? Not so much. I gave up on the wine, and substituted other liquids, none of them of the spirit variety. I am well accustomed to substitutions. 

When charming husband is home on the weekend I shall have him open the wine, then stick one of those rubber thingies in the top of it. Those I can figure out all by myself. I'll be set for week two.