Sadly, the bed can't guarantee a good night's sleep. I was fine until about six a.m. and then this and that began to hurt and I began to toss and turn and...well, you know the drill. James awoke minutes before the alarm, so that night was shot.

Today was the day we were supposed to provide the centerpiece luncheon at Hair Day: James had planned to make teriyaki chicken. Then his revised May work schedule came out. Joy, he had to work today. However, his hours were from noon to nine, and he did want a haircut, so we had to hustle. This means we split up like a couple of pool balls at the Farmer's Market; James picked up the veggies and the chicken salad, and I snagged some goat cheese, some cookies for dessert, and finally some beef tortellini for supper tomorrow (I wanted beef ravioli, but they were out).

We bought breakfast (ah, I see Burger King has gotten wise and is not offering its oatmeal pre-mixed anymore) and then proceeded on one of my favorite rides, from Barrett Parkway to Macland Road through Villa Rica Road. It was in the 60s with a nice breeze, with the scent of greenery thick in the air. I'm not certain what grows at this time of year, but there is a particular spicy odor associated with groves of trees, not minty or "greeny," but unmistakably pungent. (Not to mention, judging by the way my eyes are itching now, something else I'm allergic to...so what else is new?)

We were able to spend at least a good hour talking with everyone before we were on the road again. James dropped me off and went to work, I put the produce away, wrote out the penalty check to the State of Georgia, and headed off to the post office. (I mailed in our Georgia tax payment on time, but TurboTax had the wrong PO box number on the paperwork. The post awful returned our tax payment. When I mailed it in with a copy of the incorrect PO box number and the returned envelope, they assessed us a penalty anyway. Phooey. Don't have time to mess with it.) On the way home I stopped at Kroger because James had forgotten to tell me he needed pudding and I needed bread. I lucked out and found some pork roast on the hot bar, and also got something to make sauce to go on the tortellini.

With everything stuffed into the insulated bag, I made a quick stop at Barnes & Noble, and noticed that there weren't five books out I wanted. There were six. Sigh. So I bought Victoria Thompson's newest in paperback and then headed home.

Spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the spare bedroom, which has been disordered since we had the new bed installed. I took the memory-foam pad that we had on the old mattress and put it on the futon; I'll put the egg-crate foam on the sofa-bed in my craft room. It's a bit neater in the spare room now, but won't be completely cleared for a couple of weeks. Also did some vacuuming, pulled out the hose and gave the front porch a good washing down (even though Alex had used the leaf blower on it), and copied things off the DVR, including Len Goodman's Titanic special, the special about the Seattle World's Fair, the Lipizzaner episode of Nature, some short clips, and finally Castle (and Best Defense for James).

In between all that, I worked on the spaghetti sauce for tomorrow's dinner. I really don't like using sauce right out of the jar; it never tastes all that good, even if it's the best stuff, with no sugar added. So one of the items I bought at Kroger was some pork. I couldn't find any small packages of chops or boneless ribs, so I bought pork neck bones. I knew this would be extra work because the neck bones would be more fatty and also because I would have to strain the bits of bone out of the resultant sauce. But I figured I could manage it, and I did, and the strangest thing happened: as I was peeling the bits of meat off the pork neck bones to place in the container. Of course I was nibbling the leftover meat from the bones—this is the most savory meat, after all. I knew I'd never cooked neck bones before—but I remember doing this before, long, long ago, eating the last bits of meat off the neck bones and crunching cartilage. Not only that, but I recall that Mom and I did this together. It was spooky. I'm guessing many years ago when I was of elementary school age we had a week or two where money came up short and Mom bought neck bones to make the gravy rather than the cut of pork she always used. What an odd but comforting memory for the eve of Mother's Day!

[I'm putting the gravy in the refrigerator. The extra fat from the neck bones should rise to the top and we can skim it off before warming it up for supper.]

Labels: chores, food, friends, health, nostalgia, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:35:00 PM

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