I swore to God and to Nilsa Marquez when I was fifteen that I would never be one of those women who didn’t care if they had a bra on or not, would go out of the house with no makeup and if they owned an iron, didn’t use it. This morning I put on a pair of jeans I had cut into shorts with my kitchen scissors a few days ago, because it was too hot to wear long pants. In a sweat, I had whipped them off, laid them on the counter over Ferdie’s packed lunch and eyeballed the slash across. I put my sweatshirt on over my pajama top–more than enough to cover up my hardly noticeable and braless boobs, wound my hair up, stuck a pencil in there to keep it up and went out to walk the dog. I don’t care.
Basically, when you’re fifteen, busy as you might be, you have too much time on your hands.
In fact, if you have a fifteen year old in the house, put them in charge of dinner. I’ll bet that school band members will come over on a Tuesday and serenade the family for the appetizer hour. There will be name cards at each place on the table and homemade cloth napkins wrapped with recycled and painted paper towel tubes.   In case you don’t have a teenage crafter cook at home: think grilled meats with nothing more than a squeeze of lemon and a drizzle of olive oil when they’re done, pastas with pesto, or quick sauteed vegetables with garlic and fresh herbs, rice and beans with a smashed avocado and a salad and bowls of summer berries. I made a pesto as soon as I got home from the grocery store–3 cups of fresh basil leaves, a handful of parmesan, a smashed garlic clove, a handful of pine nuts, and a good spill of good olive oil–all ground up in the food processor in about 2 minutes with salt and pepper. On the side, a salad of grated raw beet, grated apple and a little minced shallot with a mustard vinaigrette, and steamed string beans with olive oil and salt. I do care; I do, I do, I do.