Dearest Rachel –
Not ever being one to enjoy grilling myself – as you might remember, or not, since I don’t think your dad was into it either, thereby precluding you from recognizing the practice as a requisite of manhood – I don’t understand why Logan got such a bee in his bonnet about getting one for his birthday a month or so ago. But now that he has it, at his request, I get that he would want to put it through its paces. I may prefer a restaurant to a home-cooked meal – especially when it means I have to do the cooking – but I won’t turn down the offer from someone else who wants to prepare it.
It does feel a little weird to let someone do so in my own home, essentially at their own expense, but it’s not as if there hasn’t been a fair amount of give-and-take on this matter. It’s not meant to be a quid pro quo, but Logan has been included with Daniel and me to this restaurant or that often enough that any effort he goes through could be perceived as giving back to the household, and I will accept it as such without trying to assist him overmuch. Too many cooks, after all.
I will say that he does have a tendency to get a little ambitious, though; maybe too much so. Although at the same time, given some of my own experiments, I have no real right to judge. Mine tend to challenge the limits of taste – which is the sine qua non when it comes to food – whereas his attempted preparation yesterday more ran up against physics and possibly chemistry. Taste wasn’t a problem for him so much as cohesion was, and when things fell apart, it wasn’t the only thing to do so.
For the past week, he’s been wanting to make hamburgers, which sounds like a fairly straightforward thing to make on a grill. Except that it’s no secret (least of all to you) that Daniel just doesn’t like hamburgers. So what Logan got into his mind to do was to created meatloaf patties and grill them up; in theory, the texture and the flavor would be different enough that Daniel would find it palatable, especially when encased in a pretzel bun. Honestly, it sounded like a idea worth pursuing, even if I made it clear that I wasn’t going to get involved in the process. This was Logan’s idea, after all; he should be allowed to bring it to fruition on his own.
The problem is – and you might be able to see it coming – that meatloaf, with the various items of filler included in it, is not the same as ground meat by itself. As a result, it doesn’t hold itself together nearly as well as solid meat, especially on a gridiron grill. In retrospect, he was lucky to bring it back into the kitchen to put onto our largest pan (to simulate a flat-top grill) without it all falling apart.
As it was, the patties he’d so carefully formed did not hold together very well. I managed to flip them with some level of success, but trying to get most of one onto a bun proved to be too much; it fell to crumbles onto the plate. The result had to be eaten mostly with a fork; and, having loaded my bun with a layer of blue cheese, it was slightly unpleasant to be eating a sandwich that was more cheese than meat.
Needless to say, Logan was a bit frustrated by the results of his handicraft, and upon sitting down to try to eat his portion of what he’d assembled, he appeared to fixate on the fact that Daniel was filling the silence with a podcast he’d queued up to listen to while Logan was outside grilling (and later working side by side with me in the kitchen).
“Can you turn that off, please?” he asked Daniel. From my position at the opposite end of the dining room table, I might argue that he was a little brusque with his request, but he did say ‘please.’ For whatever reason, Daniel made a motion as if he’d heard, but didn’t follow through. I was actually surprised; I know that he enjoys these things, but I thought he’d learned to dial those things back for his friend’s while in his presence. I don’t know how long it was – in the moment, it actually seemed to take quite a few moments, but once in motion, it didn’t seem as if it had been long enough to merit the reaction – but after enough time without compliance, Logan stomped upstairs to get away from the sound of whatever Daniel was (still) listening to.
For his part, Daniel was almost nonplussed, and slightly offended himself. “Why do I have to walk on eggshells in my own house?” he asked, almost plaintively. I pointed out that Logan had been polite in asking – which Daniel contested, focusing on his tone rather than the words he used – before realizing that the flare-up may not necessarily have had to do with Daniel as such at all.
You might remember how, when Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey comes home from the worst day of his life at the Building & Loan, his daughter is practicing her piano like the good student that she is. But so frustrated and upset as he is, the music that she’s making just digs under his skin that much deeper, and he snaps at her, earning himself a rebuke from his beloved wife, and ultimately causing him to storm off into the blizzard that begins the events of It’s a Wonderful Life (despite taking place at the end of a long series of flashbacks that make up the bulk of the plot). I suggested to Daniel that this may have been part of the current situation; while Logan has no great love for the things Daniel listens to (any more than I do, and probably less), his ire may have had more to do with his state of mind prompted by the collapse of the meal he’d tried so hard to prepare. He’d actually gone so far as to stalk off without touching his dinner.
Upon seeing that, Daniel proceeded to shut off the video straightaway. At this point, I called up to Logan to remind him about his untouched plate, prompting him to come down (after being reassured that there was to be no more podcasting). Anime was switched on, and harmony was restored between the boys for the time being.
By the time the night was over, and Logan went off to his room, everything seemed perfectly normal. It’s not like this couldn’t happen again, but I’m hoping that Daniel knows a little better about what to listen to around his friend – and more to the point, what not to, and when. It’s a thing that everyone has to learn, to regulate themselves for others’ sake, and neurodivergence isn’t a “get out of jail free” card – especially now, when it often appears that everyone is neurodivergent in one way or another. To borrow from the oratory of a century or so past, everybody is swinging their fists around so wildly, it’s a wonder more noses haven’t been bloodied here.
That being said, I’d ask for your eye upon us, and the occasional nudge to behave (I think he would listen to you better than to me, although he does alright with sufficient explanation). Oh, and wish us well, as we’ll obviously in need of it.
