A post in which I finalize some things, and curse the rain

Rain, rain, rain. For days. Endlessly. I feel like I could do a Herman Melville wave chapter on rain. I woke up this morning to rain, drank my coffee on the porch looking at the rain, ran errands today in the rain, and drove home in a particularly nasty cold blowy rain.

I was het up this morning. In a stressed-out mood that I just couldn’t seem to shake. I always work myself up to a trauma when I’m cooking for the LOCK camp out, and usually things are going better than they have this year. But I don’t usually wake up still stressed about it. I was so tired when I went to bed last night that I slept straight through until 6:15am. I don’t even think I turned over. But I woke up still fretting. I told myself that it would be fine, and that I needed to lay this down, but no dice. I’m glad I finish the cooking tonight.

I was pretty discouraged, so I sent Jason some flowers to cheer me up. He had never had anyone send him flowers before, and I decided it was high time someone did. He called me later, and was pretty happy about it.

Work was fairly uneventful today, except for the damp trip to the attorney’s office. I finished the last of the paperwork on my re-finance on the house today, so only a week for the bank to process and then I’m supposed to get my money. Naïve me, I believed that I would get a check today because the mortgage lady at the bank said I would get it “at closing”. Again, I’ve waited this long, another week won’t kill me.

When I got off today, all I could think about was sandwiches. I had one from the cafeteria here at work a week or so ago, and it was so good I’ve been craving another one ever since. Steve here makes this really great basil mayonnaise that is absolutely scrummy, and I haven’t been able to find a reasonable facsimile. Also, it was on marble rye bread, and when I’m at the store I feel like I have to buy bread with more fiber in it. What I would really like to have is one of those wonderful subs from the Red Barn (a sandwich shop that used to be here), but sadly they have been out of business for a long time. Tonight I compromised by going by Blimpie on the way home. They used to have the best Philly Steak sub I have ever eaten. They did the beef with onions in the crock pot, so it was all tender, juicy, and unimaginably delicious. I haven’t gone in since I stopped eating meat because I was afraid of the temptation. They also used to use real bread, not those tasteless matchstick baguettes that Subway uses. It was a measure of my sandwich lust that I got out again in the yucky, cold, drippy mess to get it after cursing the weather all the way from work.

The crock pot was not in evidence, which was fine. They had a sandwich on the menu that approximated the one I had at work as far as ingredients go, although of course they didn’t have the special mayo. But Blimpie has gone over to the dark Subway side as far as bread goes. At this point though, I didn’t care. I got a foot long super veggie with three (count ‘em three) decadent cheeses and the works, along with a cup of broccoli cheese soup that was, as promised, wonderful. The guy working there was a sweetheart. He’s Indian, and a vegetarian as well. He has never eaten meat in his life. We commiserated a bit about being veggie here, and I think I disappointed him by ordering the soup even though it had some chicken stock in it.

Then all I wanted to do was get home. I had decided to come home through town, fearing the highway and the Greenvillian Water Madness. Unfortunately, this was the decision favored by all the white-knucklers today. I went into downtown going 25 miles per hour. I ended up behind one on Augusta Road futzing along at 20. I was losing my mind, and just laying on the horn. I hardly ever do that, but I was just out of patience. I'm quite sure I racked up some time in purgatory today, if there is such (I know that sloth is a sin - is undue impatience haste?) (wait, I guess that would come under wrath). I was ravenous for this sandwich (so yeah, gluttony too *sigh*), and I had a pie to bake tonight as well (the last one – yay!).

But, as usual, the sandwich wasn’t as good as the one I had before. I still scarfed it down because I was just perishing for it by the time I got home. The soup was thick, creamy, and gorgeous. I wished I had gotten a larger soup and a smaller sandwich. Dinner dutifully and quickly dispatched (I’m an ardent member of the clean plate club); I started working on my pie. Since my experimental crust from last weekend didn’t pass muster (to me anyway), I dug out an old peach cobbler recipe my friend Bernadette had sent me many years ago. Her crust for this cobbler was wonderful, tender and buttery, but Bernadette is much better at pastry than I am. I put the crust together (it took some persuasion, but I got it to hold together eventually) and stuck it in the fridge to chill while I got my apples ready. I ran out of brandy, so I supplemented with some praline liqueur as well. Then I get this big lump of cold pie crust out of the fridge and realize that I have no way to roll it out (I don't own a rolling pin, being crust-phobic). You can’t pat out real pie crust, so I got out a jar of okra and rolled it out as best I could. I’m sure I overworked the pastry and it will be tough as shoe leather. But I put it all together and stuck it in the oven with great relief. The pie has three-quarters of a pound of butter in it. How bad can it be, right?

I cleaned up some, but stopped to call my mother. I needed moral support. Mom is a cook too, so she knows how it is when things don’t go right. When I was appropriately soothed we made plans for Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, my phone was beeping. I figured it was Jason trying to call, but I just couldn’t seem to get off the call with Mom.

When I eventually called Jason back, he didn’t answer. I returned to cleaning up the kitchen. When the phone rang, I assumed it was Jason, but it was actually Michael. I was chatting with him when the phone beeped again, but I was getting all the poop (well some of it, anyway) on his new beau. Plus he almost never calls me. Plus he didn’t talk about work the whole time, which was lovely.

While I was on the phone with Michael, I pulled my pie out of the oven. It is gorgeous. It really looks like an illustration in a cookbook or something. My topping rose up in pillowy, perfectly browned tufts over those beautiful apples. Too bad that bottom crust is going to be so tough. I’ll have to warn people with dentures to proceed with caution, and put a knife on the table. But it does at least look good.

Eventually, I did call Jason back, and we had a nice conversation about our day, his flowers, and dinner tomorrow night. I’m looking forward to it.

I finished cleaning up the kitchen and went to bed, turning on the TV to drown out the noise of the wet nastiness still splatting all over my bedroom windows.