Full Moon

I'm not sure it's a full moon today, but it could have been. Either that or there's something funky with karma going on. Uneventful awakening, but glad I did, given the alternative. I had a nice breakfast with Joe while reading the idiotic stories that make up the news these days, and I'm not even talking about politics. It was then my intention to read my lesson for tonight's class. Well, I couldn't find my notebook - it's large and impossible to hide, but I apparently did. Then Joe wanted to see my Kindle - could I find it . . . no. Somewhere there's a brain that fits inside my head, but it's missing also.

I finished reading through the 5th crusade when a friend in need called. She has suffered a family tragedy and needed help. She and I went grocery shopping and while she organized her list, I volunteered to buy us something to drink. Now, I gave up diet sodas and artificial sweeteners on the cruise. I still don't know why. I do know, however, that I crave something sweet mid-day and rather than a diet Dr Pepper, I'm choosing chocolate and candy. II was already feeling a little nauseous because the only thing that got me through the crusades was a pack of peanut butter Girl Scout cookies. I got her a hot chocolate, and I got a milkshake. Nothing artificial about that.

So then, we went to her house where our friend Barb met us. It was Barb's and my task to make two recipes so Patty could finish up some other work. Barb is a master cooker; I'm a slug. We laid out the ingredients for the crockpot beef and everything went fairly smoothly til Barb broke (temporarily) the pepper grinder and the peppercorns went everywhere. Have you ever tried to vacuum them. If you can get them picked up, the vacuum grinds them and spits them out the back as ground pepper, which means you have to start over. It was perpetual motion because those that didn't get ground up went flying everywhere. Do you remember the old videos of a room full of mousetraps with ping pong balls on them, and you trigger one and they all go? Well, it works with peppercorns as well. So there we were, Barb and I trying to clean while keeping it from Patty so she wouldn't worry. OK, the beef is ready and we put it in a plastic bag in the fridge. Only to find out in a bit that it's leaked all over the eggs in the refrigerator. And, these are pasteurized eggs to prevent salmonella. Nothing we can't fix.

Then, we move on to an extraordinary dessert. It requires beating egg whites into stiff peaks. Do you think two women with master's degrees could get the beaters into the hand mixer? How about separating the yolks and whites? Not easy. We finally finish up by pouring the batter into a flat jelly roll pan and down my pant leg. Not to worry, I have to go to church in about 45 minutes, but Baxter (the dog) licks it off my leg so I'm good to go.

Barb runs me home while the cake is baking for ten minutes and I rush into the house to fix Joe something to eat before I go to church. My dog attempts further cleaning efforts on my pant leg while I fix Joe a dragon roll. I just hate those little packages of soy sauce. They just won't open and they're slippery. I finally get it open, so I think, and pour it on the dragon bites. What I don't immediately recognize is that it's spraying my shirt in the process in quite an artistic design. Urghhh. I'm trying to get to the church on time. So, I peel off my light pink shirt and begin to spray it. The spray bottle isn't working, and I'm really quite frustrated as I toss the bottle in the garbage. It's at that point I realize that it's a bottle of Febreeze, not the OxyClean bottle.

Well, the story is nearing it's end. I go to my class at church and when we finish it's hailing. San Antonio is in a drought and it decides to pelt us with hail as well.

All I can say is I wouldn't trade my friends for anything. The sisterhood simply can't be replaced. I know if something were to befall me tomorrow, my girlfriends would be there, no matter what was happening in their lives. I am blessed.