November 14, 2003
Dear Everyone:
I’m writing this on Friday because I’m home on vacation today. A few weeks ago, I took a look at the calendar and realized that the end of the year was approaching quickly (“Days in calendar are closer than they appear”). I still had four days of vacation that had not been scheduled, much less taken. If there were five days, I might have been tempted to just take a week off and relax. Maybe get ready for the Holidays and all.
But with only four days, I decided instead to sprinkle them around between last week and Christmas week, which is the end of the year for me. So I picked a Monday here, (as long as it didn’t precede a Training Tuesday) a Friday there. And today happened to be one of those Fridays. And since I didn’t have to go to work this morning, I allowed myself to just crash last night. No “getting ready for work tomorrow” chores.
So here I am. Downstairs in the kitchen, I have a vat of stock simmering on the stove. Eventually, it will become a vat of Chicken Bisque. When it ultimately cools, it will be ladled into freezer bags. Once thawed, each individually-sized portion can be heated up for soup, or served over rice as Chicken ala King, or put into a pie crust and baked for a chicken pot pie.
It’s all part of that “storing nuts for winter” syndrome that comes over me in autumn. A few weeks ago, when we were in the middle of a heat wave, Chicken Bisque was the farthest thing from my mind. Excuse me while I go stir the pot a bit.
In other news…
I forgot to mention last week what an adventure I
had at “Jeannie’s” place on
Halloween.
I got there a little after
And there were three pumpkins on the front porch, but none carved into Jack-O’-Lanterns yet. Then I tried the porch light. Dead. Everyone knows that if the porch light’s not on, you don’t ring the doorbell and yell, “Trick or Treat!” Conversely, no porch light, no Trick-or-Treaters.
So I went to the garage in search of the 6-foot aluminum ladder. Technically, the ladder is mine, since I bought it. But since I moved to my current home, there’s no place to store it, so it lives in “Jeannie’s” garage. I found the ladder immediately as it was standing straight up in the very middle of the garage. Getting to it was a different matter.
It was surrounded by a sea of large garbage bags filled with old clothing. It really did look like a mountain rising up from the garbage bags. I pulled some away until I could reach the ladder and lift it up and out. I also found an abandoned lamp that still had a light bulb in its socket. It was a 3-way bulb. But I had a snowball’s chance in hell of finding where, if anywhere, “Jeannie” keeps spare light bulbs.
And it was getting dark outside. Trick-or-Treaters would soon be approaching. I had to act fast.
I wrestled the ladder out to the front porch and used the light switch to confirm that yes, the porch light was still dead. Then I climbed the ladder to remove the dead bulb. It broke off in my hand. The metal part was still screwed into the socket.
If I had no chance of finding a spare light bulb in “Jeannie’s” house, I had even less of a chance of finding a pair of needlenose pliers to remove the metal part of the broken bulb. However, thanks to “Alice’s” Christmas present from two years ago, I was prepared. There was a very fine “many tools in one” in my purse. (This is one of the reasons my purse weighs seven pounds. I weighed it. Seven pounds.)
I got the “all-in-one” tool out of my purse, put the 3-way light bulb from the garage in my jacket pocket and climbed the ladder. As I was reaching up to grasp the metal part of the broken light bulb, still screwed into the light socket, with my metal tool, standing on the metal ladder, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to shut the light switch off first. After all, charred remains, not a good “treat” for young kiddies.
After switching off the light, I attempted to coax what was left of the light bulb to turn in the socket. It was about this time that I heard a car pulling into the driveway. No, it wasn’t “Jeannie”. It was her next door neighbors. Thinking I was “Jeannie”, the neighbor asked if he could offer any help. Did I need a flashlight?
Well, yes, by then it was so dark I couldn’t see what I was doing. So I went back to my purse and got my flashlight. (Seven pounds, I’m not kidding.) With the flashlight’s help, I finally got a good enough grip on light bulb leftovers to start unscrewing the last of the light bulb. Once it was out, I screwed in the “new” light bulb, hoping that it, too, was not a dud. But if it was, I was betting that the neighbors would be able to provide the loan of a good bulb. The neighbor helpfully flipped the switch while I was still up on the ladder and, voila! There was light.
By the time I had replaced the tools in my
seven-pound purse, “Jeannie” arrived home.
Her job that day was supposed to finish by
In the meantime, I found a broom in the garage and
swept all the broken glass off the front porch.
Trick-or-Treaters aren’t supposed to go barefoot, but this is
Love, as always,
Pete
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