We’re having friends over for dinner tonight. Because I’m working until 5pm today, I cooked the main dish (the filling for Korean beef tacos) overnight in the crockpot. This morning I shredded the meat, strained the broth, and packed the meat and liquid into the refrigerator. Eli is home from school for a week, and I can imagine him rummaging through the fridge in my absence, finding cooked shredded beef, and sampling. And there would go dinner.

He’s still asleep. Soon I’m off for the day, so I’m left him a communiqué, taped to the Pyrex measure containing the broth to be boiled down later.

About me Lydia once said to Jimmy, “It’s so cute how mom leaves these little scrap notes everywhere.”  Any paper bag, junk mail envelope, promotional note pad, newspaper or magazine page margin, notice from school, a stray and linty post-it note, or an old greeting or business card: these are writable surfaces and a good place for me to leave a list, note to self, or note to you.