The D-List

According to family lore, after my great-grandmother's second husband died, a roll of toilet paper was found among his personal items. On this roll he had written a list of grievances against my great-grandmother. During their short marriage he must have used the list as a coping mechanism. "Too much salt in the soup" still gets a laugh at family dinners, but what always stuck with me about the story is the methodical record-keeping. I am compulsive about making to-do lists, packing lists, shopping lists, on stickies and notepads and Word docs, but mine were always ephemeral. Unlike friends who record books they've read or places they've gone I have never documented anything consistently over time. So I was pretty impressed when I read about Jenny Rosenstrach who has been recording her family dinner in a notebook every night since 1998. This somewhat philosophical venture has since become a blog where parents can find dinner ideas and recipes. It also serves as another blog-into-book deal and I wouldn't be surprised if a movie is in the works. That seems like reason enough to start some sort of daily undertaking. Like my friend Molly's haiku-a-day project. I liked this one about raspberries.