A post in which I have a service date*

When I woke up this morning, I decided not to do much of anything today except get ready for tonight. I had done nothing but get my menu approved this week, and had planned on having a lot more done by now.

First things first, though, I had a buddy come by for a bit. That taken care of, I cleaned up and went to the grocery store. I had enough butter in the fridge to lay out for my cake this morning, but only two eggs. I laid out the rest of them when I got home to warm up. I put away the groceries, ate a bite of lunch, and cleaned up the kitchen, then started baking.

I had decided that it was stupid not to take pound cake for dessert tonight, since I had been relieved of low-cal protocol, and since I know pound cake is her favorite. I whooped it up and got it in the oven, but then realized when I pulled it out that I had used the wrong pound cake pan. I used my fancy one again, and it is just not big enough for a full-size pound cake. It's great for Aunt Ruby's, which is smaller, but those fancy ones are basically sold to use mixes in. Those "pound cake" mixes they sell at Williams and Sonoma are supposed to be pound cake, but of course are really just mix cakes. So my cake cooked out over the top of the pan, all down in the oven (fortunately I had a cookie sheet down) and was lopsided. I will never use that pan again. I'm taking it to Goodwill on Monday. Done. The cake will taste fine, I'm sure, it just looks messed up.

Next I was to put my quiche in the oven, and discovered I had forgotten to get pie crusts at the store. I use only Marie Callender's because they are the best, and of course the BiLo near my house doesn't carry them, so I had to drive all the way back across town to Publix. Grrr. By the time I got home and got my quiches put together and in the oven, it was time to get ready to go.

I decided to just shower and stuff while the quiche baked and then pack up when they were done, but it was going to be a close thing. We weren't having quiche tonight, but Lady Beth had told me several times it was one of her favorites, so I decided to take one up to leave for her breakfast tomorrow. I'm also going to slice the pound cake and leave it in the freezer for her. It freezes beautifully, and you can just take out a piece at a time and thaw it.

My quiche came out looking pretty good, although I cracked both of the crusts. I just picked out the prettiest one to take, and left the other one at the house for me (you get two crusts, and it's no more trouble to make one than to make two, so I just made two so I'd have something to eat on this week). I got all the lists checked and checked again, and started loading the car.

When I went outside, I saw my old neighbors, Christa and Ryan, and spoke to them. They were over working on the house next door (which they still own, and are renting) in preparation for putting it back on the market. The ballerinas have moved out, having been offered contracts to dance on the road.

When I got to Spartanburg, I realized I had forgotten the salad dressing (it wasn't on a list), but I was doing fine on time, miraculously, so I stopped and got some.

Lady Beth greeted me nicely, and left me to get my stuff unpacked while she finished up some things she was doing to her bedroom. When we were both at a stopping place, we went to smoke and talk for a while, and then I started on dinner.

Dinner turned out great! We started out with a simple green salad. Then I did Allison's faboo scampi, cheese grits, and then used the pan drippings from the shrimp (rich with butter and Hungarian paprika) to make a cream sauce to go over top of all. That is a great recipe and it turned out extraordinarily well. Lady Beth was very pleased.

We ate dinner, still conversing easily about the life, different scenes, philosophies about kinkiness, etc. The one sticky part came when she asked me about my Great Truth from the week after the Atlanta trip. It's not something I'm really comfortable talking about anyway, and to be asked about it while I had a pan of shrimp scampi and a pot of cheese grits going at the same time was challenging, to say the least. But I got through it, and it was fine. I wondered later if she did that on purpose, so I would have a distraction while I was talking about it, but I'm not sure.

After supper, we cleaned up the kitchen together, which was odd to me, but Lynn had warned me ahead of time that she would insist on helping. It's part of that Virgo thing - no one can do it right except for us - which I understand.

We spent the rest of the evening talking, and just getting to know each other one on one. It was lovely. She is a very kind woman, and very easy to talk to. We took a break for pound cake (she told me she wouldn't have been tempted to dessert at all if it hadn't been her favorite - we were both so full from dinner), and it was a good pound cake. Excellent crust, flavor, and texture. I let go of the fact that it didn't look perfect. We sliced the rest and put it in her freezer.

After some more talking, we were both yawning. It had been a very good evening, but we were both ready to turn in. As I was leaving, I found the money she had put in my basket for the food. Sigh. And I had thought I was so slick and doing so well at avoiding the Sordid Subject of Coin. But that's Lady Beth for you. She told me it was the best shrimp and grits she had ever eaten! I took that as a great compliment - I am such a compliment whore when it comes to my cooking. That little compliment had me glowing all the way back to Greenville. Loveliness.

So we are going to play at some point. I am really looking forward to that. But I have to do a homework email first, listing what I have and have not done, what I would like to try, what scares me, etc. I'm pretty stoked about setting up a play date with Lady Beth. Wow.