Everything can have drama if it's done right. Even a pancake.

Was it a sign of Creeping Decrepitude?

The shellfish thing is very scary. You have to know the people you buy from and exactly where their wholesalers are getting the fish from.

Life itself is the proper binge.

I admired the English immensely for all that they had endured, and they were certainly honorable, and stopped their cars for pedestrians, and called you “sir” and “madam,” and so on. But after a week there, I began to feel wild. It was those ruddy English faces, so held in by duty, the sense of “what is done” and “what is not done,” and always swigging tea and chirping, that made me want to scream like a hyena

Remember, 'No one's more important than people'! In other words, friendship is the most important thing--not career or housework, or one's fatigue--and it needs to be tended and nurtured.

Cooking well doesn't mean cooking fancy.