After nearly a week of no heat in my house, I finally felt warm enough to write a story, a spicy one, at that.
This morning I made my usual run (with wet hair) to the grocery store for the Sunday Chronicle. But alas, there were none. I popped into the CVS next door and used the self-check to buy the newspaper. Then I went back to the store for groceries, some cake squares on special, macaroni elbows, cheese, milk, an onion, some apples, pudding and bottled water.
As I turned onto my court, it was lightly raining. My neighbors, who had moved all their stuff out of their house the day before, were back. I hadn't said good-bye yet. I pulled in the driveway and walked across the court to wish them luck. The wife hugged me with tears in her eyes; they'd lived there for twenty years. But her mom was alone in another state, and the two-story house wasn't going to work. The market's sweet spot for selling, according to her realtor, was between the Super Bowl and Easter. In other words, the clock was ticking.
I walked with her and her big dog to the park. Would they have a dog park at the new place they were renting?? My neighbor didn't even know yet.
I came back home and brought in the three bags of groceries, unloaded them, folded up the paper bags, went back to the car for the bottled water. I realized I hadn't seen the onion in any of the bags.
Crud! How does a person make homemade mac and cheese with no onion? I certainly did not want to drive back to the store to get it. I found my receipt to see if the onion had even been rung up. Yes, for $1.11.
Dang that cashier! He'd forgotten to put my onion in one of the three bags.
Then I went out to walk the dog in the mist. On the way down the hill, I spotted something yellow int he gutter. A tennis ball? A lemon? As we got closer I saw that it was a huge lemon that had fallen off someone's tree and landed int eh street. Fair for the taking.
"It's a lemon, Pepper!" I said to my dog.
OMG. Lemon pepper, in my spice rack. I remembered that I might have some minced onion with the spices. When I got home, I went into the pantry to see. I didn't find minced onion, but I found three cans of baking powder. Wow! How old was it, anyway? I checked the expiration dates – 2000, 2004, 2009. Old, older, and oldest, the stuff that gets ignored when you get divorced, move, and close your shop in five months' time.
But I digress. I dumped the contents of the baking powder cans down the garbage disposal to make it smell good.
Should I go ahead and make the mac and cheese with no onion? Should I wait till tomorrow when I'd be more willing to run to the store again? Why did my neighbors have to move away? Why was it raining again?
Then I had a thought. Maybe I had absent-mindedly put the onion in the apple drawer with the Fujis. I opened the fridge door and then the apple drawer.
There it was. The cashier hadn't screwed up after all. The day's trauma and tragedy were over. I could make the homemade mac and cheese after all.
My aging brain had jumped to conclusions that turned out to not be true, yet again.
At least I cleaned out a tiny part of my pantry.
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