Off the Menu Read Online Free PDF Page B

declares.
    “She’s waiting for The One. As well she should,” Lacey says.
    “But she better not be
too
picky, or she will be alone forever,” Patrick says.
    Oy. “
She
is right here, and
she
would prefer you not talk about her as if
she
were not present.” It was more than a little irking to watch Patrick win over my girlfriends. I knew that after he left I would be attacked for saying snippy things about him and be told that, generally, I was too hard on him. Patrick had an amazing ability to seduce everyone in my life, so unless I was going to make all of my friends and family members come hang out with me at work to witness the consistent insanity and occasional cruelty that he possessed, I was destined to have everyone in my private life love him.
    Ever since that night, he has looked forward to the EDestiny freebie events and checking out my possible future lovers with a vengeance. The girls and I got bored with the game nearly a year ago, shifting our monthly evenings to focus almost exclusively on catching up with the antics of whatever current batch of Unreal Housewives are facing divorce, bankruptcy, wardrobe malfunction, or the release of an auto-tuned dance single. But every two or three months, Patrick will remind me that “the game is afoot!” and I have to suffer his opinions of the profiles the Destinometer sends my way.
    But last night, this profile, this RJ … something just struck me about it.
    Forty-nine. So, age-appropriate. Lives in Chicago, geographically desirable. Six feet tall, so I presume, you know, legs. Not that one should have to ask net or gross with suchthings, but history makes us wise. Likes all the things I like. No picture, so probably a troll. Minimal info, so perhaps not so good with words, could be looking for a green-card marriage. Then again, could already be married. Probably ultra-conservative Tea Party Republican. Or just a liar, plenty of those out there in cyberspace. Most definitely not my soul mate.
    But despite the litany in my head, and the instinct to just log out and go to bed, I do something I have not done on this site, not ever.
    I click the “Invite Destiny” button, which sends this mysterious RJ a preset list of three questions that I picked so long ago I don’t even remember what they are.
    From the other room I hear Dumpling flop off his perch on the couch and come clicking purposefully down the hall to find me. He licks my ankle and then sneezes three times in quick succession, which is his sign that he needs to go out. I look at the screen.
    “Congratulations! You have initiated contact with RJ from Chicago! Good luck, and remember, your Destiny is right here!”
    My stomach turns over, and I close the computer quickly.
    “C’mon, Mister Man, you know
you
are my real soul mate. Let’s go out.”
    As much as I love Dumpling, I always do remember Maria’s sage, if scatological advice. “The man in your life, ’e should not require you pick up ’is poop, hmm? A dog, that is a good frrrriend, a
companero
. But not a man. You get a rrrrreal man, and then ’e picks up the poop.”
    I clip on Dumpling’s leash, and grab a blue bag and some treats from the bowl by the door. And before I get completely out the door, a brief thought flits through my brain.
    I wonder if RJ likes dogs?

3

    T hat’s a wrap, people. Thank you all. We’ll do it again next week.” Bob, director extraordinaire of both
Feast
and
Academy
finally gets the ending he wants for the “Win Over Your In-Laws” brunch episode of
Feast
, the third show we’ve shot today. We do anywhere from three to five half-hour shows on a shooting day, three days a week, shooting the entire seasons of both shows for the following year in a whirlwind five months at a frenetic pace and with minimal sleep. The shows are not scripted, but rather lightly outlined. Patrick is a natural, so as long as he knows his talking points, he can work off the cuff. We generally tend to do four recipes per