Valentine's Lunch

          I've been feeling kind of glum lately, since Friday, as a matter of fact.

          "Why's that, Peg?" you ask.

          Because Friday is when I usually start my letter blog and I had nothing. Zip, zilch, nada, diddly-squat, a big fat zero — nothing to write about this week!

          "Wanna go to the Wyalusing Hotel for lunch tomorrow?" Mike asked me.

           'Tomorrow' would be Saturday and since I wasn't writing anything, I said, "Sure." I thought a ride-about might just be the thing I needed. Get some road pictures... "Since we're going out, can we go to Tunkhannock?" I asked.

          "What for?"

          "The Wal Mart over there sells a flavor of cat food I can't get at the Wal Mart in Sayre..."

          "Peg, that's a terrible reason!" you say.

          I know, right! Especially since I didn't need cat food. But I had another reason to go to Tunkhannock. "While we're over there we could stop at Karen's Thrift. Joanie wants a Daniel Plan video and I can see if they got any new exercise videos in."

          "What's the Daniel Plan?" you ask.

          It's a diet and exercise program developed by Pastor Rick Warren. He needed to lose some weight and was inspired by Daniel of the Bible. If eating veggies was good enough for Daniel, it was good enough for him. And he did lose weight. But the diet is pretty much like any other healthy eating program. I picked up the DVD because it had an exercise video and I thought I could use it in my class.

 

           Mike thought about it for a moment. "I could use some vitamin D-3."

          He gets tired of sitting around the house all the time so I suspect a ride-about was just the thing he needed too.

          Saturday morning we get up, have breakfast, feed the critters, and head out by 9 for our shopping trip.

          It was cold and we'd had a dusting of snow overnight.

         

          The whole way into Tunkhannock I didn't take any pictures worth anything. We're sitting at a red light, waiting for traffic to clear. Our lane had a dedicated right-turn signal light. You know how I know? Cause there was a sign right next to it that said Right Turn. "Can you make a right turn on red?" Mike asked.

          "I guess," I told him. "There's not any sign that says NO TURN ON RED."

          Traffic stopped but before Mike could go the electronic sign turned to this symbol.

            It obviously means No Right Turn but we couldn't figure out why. No one was moving. Then the straight through traffic got the green light and we were still sitting there. We should have gotten a green to go too.

          "Can I go?" Mike asked.

          "I don't know. I've never seen anything like this before."

          Mike looked to see there was no one coming and made his right hand turn. Just as soon as you make the turn, maybe two car lengths away, is a set of railroad tracks.

          "Look at this," Mike said flatly as he stopped the Jeep.

          The bells of the crossing were dinging, the lights were flashing, the gates were coming down, and a train engine blew his horn.

          "Huh," I grunted and snapped a picture. "I guess that's what that sign was all about."

...          Although this train was headed toward Wyalusing, I didn't know where it would stop. One thing is for sure. The boxcars it was pulling...

...weren't the same as the covered hoppers that line the tracks of our little town.

          On the way home, I complained to Mike about what was on my mind. "I don't have anything to write about this week!"

          "You don't have to write a letter this week," he said trying to fix my problem. It wasn't really the help I was looking for.

          We were quiet a moment. "I guess I could write about the book I just read..." but he didn't have anything to say about that.

          "What book did you just read?" you ask.

          I'm so glad you asked! I just finished Mead Mountain by B.K. Dell. I'll tell you what! It was so good that I devoured it in just a few sittings. I'd read until my eyes were so tired I couldn't read anymore, then I'd read some more! I had no idea what the book was about when I opened it up, but Joanie, one of the ladies in my exercise class, handed it to me to read. "It's good," was all she said. There's one thing I knew for sure. If Joanie was recommending it, it wouldn't be filled with shamefully explicit, gratuitous sex scenes.

          From the first page this book grabbed me. A pastor, Riley Ellison, walks into a strip bar and solicits Poison, one of the dancers. Oh, sure, I think. Another preacher falls. But I didn't stop reading. In the next scene the pastor has called a press conference and told the reporters that in two weeks time he would ask Mead Mountain to crumble "...because with the faith of a mustard seed, you can move mountains." Along the way, we meet several interesting characters. It had me turning pages long after I should have gone to sleep.

          "Peg! Don't keep us in suspense! Did the mountain crumble?" you ask.

          I'm not going to tell you because it's about more than that. If I give you the short answer, you'll miss the whole back-story, and I wouldn't want that for you.

          It's been on my mind and in my heart to write a story about Kat, our daughter who died almost three years ago now. It's rattling around in my head, percolating in the corners, simmering on the back burner, but it isn't done yet. Every once in a while a part of what I want to say will pop to the surface of my mind where it'll bob around for a while until I look at it and mull it over, before letting it sink back down beneath the turbulent waters of that memory.

          Maybe now is the time, I mused when I realized I didn't have anything to write about this week. No. I'm afraid.

          "Peg, what are you afraid of?" you ask.

          No. You don't get to ask any questions on this one. But I will write it — someday. I have to. Instead, I download my camera and look at the pictures I took this past week hoping for inspiration.

          And I see these pictures....

          I went out into the cat room to feed the cats their breakfast on Thursday morning and look at this mess!

          "What is it?" you wonder.

          It's tufts and tufts of cat fur! All over the place! Someone got into a row during the night and I didn't hear a thing. And that's unusual because cat fights are notorious for being full of banshee type screams and thumps and bumps as the loser tries to flee.

          This gray and white one is Jerry and he's not one of mine but he spends many a cold night in the warmth and shelter of the feral cat room. We don't heat the cat room but even on the coldest nights the temperature (where the thermometer is mounted on the wall) hasn't fallen below 30 degrees.

          Jerry doesn't want anyone to touch him. Mike did pet him once, just for a second, before Jerry took off. Mostly I respect his right to not be touched and I tend to just ignore him as I go about the business of getting the cats fed.

          "Who was he fighting with?" you wonder.

          I don't know the answer. Our Spitfire tends to be just that — a little spitfire and I've seen him pick on a couple of the other cats. Then there's Mr. Mister, another tom that isn't mine.

          "Mr. Mister's been down here a few times," Rosie told me. "He'll fight with Gene Wilder so Lamar'll chase him off because Gene lives here, he doesn't." Gene Wilder is one of their feral outside cats and he's got long wild hair. Now you know how he got his name. Even though Gene would never go inside the Kipp's house, not even on the coldest nights with a special invitation, but he'll come up on their back porch.

         

          I go past the pictures of the cat room and come to pictures that remind me of another story I wanted to tell you.

          I love to feed the birds. I've got a seed feeder and a suet feeder off my kitchen window but it's been weeks and weeks and the birds haven't found them yet. I decided to hang one outside the feral cat room, under the awning, where I've had feeders in the years past. I've got a couple of very expensive feeders that aren't worth a hoot. The rain gets in and clumps the seeds in the bottom and they mold in the summer. But I put seeds in one and hung it out anyway.

          Some of the best feeders I've ever had are just the plain old cheap cedar ones from Wal Mart, but near the end of last winter I'd found a six dollar bird feeder at Dollar General. I bought it, brought it home, and filled it with seeds. It wasn't up very long before the glue dried and one or two of the sideboards fell off. With nothing to hold the seeds in, I stopped using it and it hung out, empty, all summer long.

          "Why didn't you throw it away?" you wonder.

          It had glass panels in it that I thought I might take out before I threw it away. I never got around to it.

          The birds hit the new feeder in the old place pretty hard and when it was time to fill it, I was disgusted to see wet seeds in the bottom that the birds couldn't get to.

          The bird feeder with the broken base came to mind. If only I could fix it, I thought and my mind played around with little nails or glue options until I went out to get it and realized I hadn't saved the pieces that had fallen off.

          Sigh.

          I was walking back in the house, through the pantry, when I spy an old aluminum pie plate with small air holes in the bottom. Perfect! I thought. The rain can drain out. I took the bird feeder to the kitchen counter and broke off the remaining sides. Then I found a small screw and Mike's Dewalt screw gun. I lined everything up and slowly put the screw in. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself until the screw tore through the aluminum pie plate.

          Dang! Now I'll have to go find a washer. Yeah, that'll be a job!

          I was contemplating going out into the cold garage and digging through cold metal things to find a washer of some size for the bottom of my feeder when my eyes fell on the pieces of wood I'd broken off the feeder.

          Hey! That'd work! I started the screw through the piece of wood like I've seen Mike do a thousand times, repositioned the pie plate and attached it using my makeshift washer.

          The birds love this feeder.

  

          On through my pictures I sorted. I thought I didn't have anything to write about! How could I forget! We had our Valentine's Lunch with the Kipps on Thursday and I'd had Rosie's Valentine's gift made for a month!

          "What did you make her?" you ask.

          I made a glass box. I won't call it a pencil holder because you could use it for any number of things. Paintbrushes, makeup brushes, paper clips, or even a small plant if you wanted.

          Rosie likes it.

          I gave her a heart too. A green one because green is her favorite color.

          "What did you have for lunch?" you wonder.

          We had Spanakopita, a Greek spinach pie. It's a dish the Kipp's vegetarian daughter makes. Marla was home over Christmas and made an extra one for Rosie's freezer. "I love it," Rosie told me. "But we don't want to eat it six nights in a row."

          I'm happy to help eat it because who doesn't like phyllo (or fillo) dough brushed with butter and baked up nice and crisp? The filling is spinach and feta cheese. It's really yummy.

          "Oh no!" I exclaimed and jumped up from the table. "I forgot to get a picture of our lunch!" Besides Spanakopita we had Rosie's three-bean salad, which I love, ham, and banana bread. It was all so very good.

          I made dessert. I made a coconut cream pie. It was kind of a last minute deal. Not that I hadn't known for two weeks that we were going to have lunch with the Kipps, but I'd been planning something else.

          "Rosie, I'm making a goodie box to send to my mom, so I'm just going to make a tray of that stuff to bring for dessert," I told her.

          "That's fine," Rosie said.

          Early in the week a No Fuss Pie Crust came up in my newsfeed on FaceBook. It was a simple recipe with no rolling required and when I saw it I thought of Rosie.

          "My mother made the best pie crusts, so tender and flaky," Rosie told me once. "I just can't seem to roll one out without having it fall apart on me."

          If this is a good crust, it would fix Rosie's problem and maybe it's something she could use, I thought.

          I spent all day Wednesday baking. I made two Pumpkin Rolls, Coffee Cake, Dream Bars, and Conge Bars to send to my mother. Momma doesn't need a lot of any one thing so I made half pans of the Coffee Cake and Dream Bars. It wasn't until Wednesday afternoon that I decided to make the Coconut Cream Pie.

          This crust can be made with any oil, even butter, it said. I love butter so I went with butter. I mixed it and pressed it into the pie plate per the instructions. The coconut cream is cooked on the stove then you have to pour it into the baked piecrust, which meant I had to blind bake it. I looked online for tips and found this one.

          To keep your crust from shrinking or puffing up, instead of docking, line your piecrust with aluminum foil and fill 2/3 with sugar. Sugar is heavy and baking doesn't harm it. Just cool and you can still use the sugar in any recipe.

          Docking, by the way, is the term used for poking holes in the crust before you blind bake it.

          So that's what I did and everything seemed to come out fine. However, it didn't stop me from issuing a warning when I showed up at the Kipps with a tray of goodies and the pie for dessert. "I've never tried this recipe before," I warned. "So there aren't any guarantees. We might have to scoop the pudding out of the crust and just eat that."

          After we'd eaten, Lamar passed me the pie and a server. I tried to cut the crust with the pie server, but it was tough! "Lamar, can I have a knife please?"

          "The server has a serrated edge on it for cutting," he said.

          "I know, I tried, but I have to press so hard it hurts my hand."

          "All right," he said and dug in the drawer for a knife. "How about this one?" he asked pulling out a knife with a sheath on it. "I don't even know where this one came from. I never saw it before."

          I laughed. "It's fine."

          I only cut half the pie, it was all I had in me to do that, and I put a piece on everyone's plate. "Holy cow!" Mike said. "I need a chainsaw to cut this crust!"

          "I know, right!" I exclaimed as I tried to push my fork through it. I gave up and used the knife I'd cut the pie with.

          "It's good," Rosie said. "It has a good flavor; it's just a little thick."

          I cut another bite and looked over at Lamar. He had his own way of dealing with a tough crust.

          Despite the fact that you needed a chainsaw to cut the crust into bite-size pieces, everyone ate it anyway!

          Rosie sent me home with the leftover three-bean salad and a mini loaf of the banana bread. Friday I packed Momma's goodie box and there was enough room in there for the mini loaf of banana bread. I know Momma likes banana bread and Rosie makes the best banana bread, I thought and packed it.

          We'd had snow again so Mike drove me to town to mail Momma's box.

          This is a picture of the train bridge over the Wyalusing Creek.

            And this is our creek. Everything above the beaver dam is white.

          I picked up Rosie for exercise class on Friday night.

          "Rosie, you know that mini loaf of banana bread you sent home with me?" I asked.

          "Yeah," Rose warily replied.

          "I sent it to my mom. She loves banana bread and your bread is so good. I hope you don't mind."

          Rosie laughed. "Not at all. In fact, tell her if she likes it, I'd be happy to bake it for her anytime she wants — as long as you're sending her a box."

          Momma should get her goodie box tomorrow so for now, we'll not know the answer to that.

          But one thing I do know for sure.

          It's time to call this one done.