Miscellanea

[honeywine01]

• I am heartbroken. I lifted the lid on my Brown Betty to make a pot of chai this afternoon only to find that the inside rim of the pot had somehow been shattered. I can't even imagine how. The lid of the pot was fine. The only things stored in the cupboard above where she sits are soft and lightweight. Not to mention that I have no memory of something falling out of the cupboard and hitting her. I haven't owned her long, but she was one of my favorite teapots, given to me by
  cosmicweb, and one of the very few in my collection I considered an actual working teapot. Min had heard me talking one time about not having room to collect any more teapots, but I'd make an exception for a real Brown Betty. I was thrilled and surprised when I received her.
• I have to go through my pantry thoroughly. Some nasty little buggers hitched a ride home in, I think, a box of pancake mix. Now I'm finding them in everything from a box of cornbread mix to an opened box of Carr's Whole Wheat Crackers. I believe they are Flat Grain Beetles. Teeny little things. My framer's eye says they're probably not much more than 1/16th of an inch long. I'm just glad that I already store a good portion of my pantry items in airtight containers (had an infestation of meal moths years ago that started that habit).
• Truly some of the most awkward moments of all time. You're on vacation with your husband. Your vitamin E suppositories have gotten a little soft so you sneak them into the nearest fridge to firm up a bit before bedtime. That fridge just happens to belong to your old boyfriend---and isn't it just weird enough to be having sex with your husband in your old boyfriend's house to begin with? You think the old boyfriend has gone to bed, and you quietly head to the kitchen. Guess who's standing in the kitchen when you step through the doorway? Guess who shows no signs of vacating the kitchen any time soon, who is standing right in front of the fridge so there's no way you're going to be able to discreetly grab those foil covered magic bullets, and who decides to engage you in some rather deep conversation while you try to both keep the suppositories from melting and him from deciding to ask about what you've got in your hand.
• It gets better from there. The next morning, as you're packing your things to leave you don't even notice that the remaining suppositories are no longer on the bedside table where you'd left them. Later in the day, in your comfy little camp 40 minutes drive from the old boyfriend's house, you're looking for them to pop them in the cooler to stay firm. That's when your husband tells you that he'd put them back in the fridge that morning. Of course, you're the one that has to call the old boyfriend to ask that he please bring them when he comes out to camp. And, as he doesn't voluntarily produce them, you have to ask for them before bed time. Very, very awkward. I think next year we must either decline staying at Rudy's or forego sex for the weekend.
• There were equally as awkward non-sexually charged moments, too---maybe even downright weird moments. Weird like I now own some of Rudy's ex's clothes. A pair of slacks that I'd be okay running around the house in, anyway. The dress was just too, too blech. It reminded me of the house dresses my grandmothers used to wear. I stuck my foot solidly in my mouth by commenting, "good heavens, did she always dress so frumpy?".  The odd little shrug and just slightly wounded look in his eye told me, for whatever reason, that was not the right thing to say.
• While we were packing up our gear to head home on Sunday Campground coordinator Dani brought us a jar of strawberry jam. It was a thank you gift, she said, for "taking such good care of me", and told us it had been made by another camper right during Farmfest. I was amused when I looked more closely at the label this morning.  I had originally thought it was simply labled "strawberry jam from Farmfest". It was, however, much more appropriately labled "strawberry jammin' at Farmfest". Too cute.
• Speaking of food, the babyback ribs that I pre-smoked and packed for Farmfest turned out incredible. So incredible that, as I write, our smoker is filled with four more slabs getting the same treatment.
• Our tomatoes are going gangbusters. I'm picking a couple dozen tiny little White Currants every day or so, and we've gotten 7 good sized tomatoes off the big plant, including not just a Siamese twin tomato, but a Siamese triplet, too. It was three tomatoes that had grown together as one. I've never seen anything like it. I just know that the dozens of fruit left on that plant are all going to come ripe at once. I won't have to worry about buying tomatoes to can. I'll have plenty.