Supper Guest

Right now, after a day with our one-year-old Granddaughter, lots of laundry, last night's dishes STILL in the sink, and a pot of tea at five o'clock, as Chris had brought a box of pastries from our favorite German bakery---you might say my house is what is known in today's young vernacular as a "Hot Mess." And it actually WAS rather hot while the biscuits were in the oven.

One of our contract workers happened by, a young man of no responsibilities save his own, and Chris invited him to stay for supper. I was dismayed/delighted, since the potroast in the crockpot upstairs, and a little pot of lima beans with a smitch of ham, cooked earlier in the day so our little one could have her "foursies"---her Dad does all the cooking in the family, and gets off work at six, while her Mom picks her up at 5:30, so I give her a little meal about four to tide her over til the late dinnertime. But the roast and gravy and the beans were all there was to put onto the table.

Dismayed, because I had to do a quick put-together of a pot of white rice, a pan of whole kernel corn, last night's potato salad, a couple of the tomatoes rescued when the frost hit over the weekend, and a black skillet with six cathead biscuits, which baked perfectly in the time it took to set the table and get all the rest onto it. A jar of the pear preserves I made a couple of weeks ago, and the offer of some of all the pastries, and that was dinner. It took just the twenty minutes that it took the rice to cook, and we sat down to a good meal, with very little effort.

I DID have a Tupperware of tuna salad, one of egg salad with black and green olives, and one of sharp, strong Paminna Cheese in the fridge, all made yesterday when I actually HAD some energy. I like to have nice containers of stuff ready for a quick sandwich lunch or for spreading onto crackers or toast for an easy nibble with pre-dinner drinks. But they just didn't seem to GO, somehow, with the cold-weather comfort food we were having tonight.

Last month, I'd made the exact three spreads in anticipation of a visit from my Sis and BIL, so we could go do stuff and run in for a quick bite of lunch before going out sightseeing or leaf-looking or whatever else, again. I was getting the same type of roast/gravy/rice/vegetables meal on the table the first night when Sis opened the fridge, delightedly exclaimed, "MMMMMMM!!! Things in DISHES!!!" and hauled them all out, reaching for a knife and the cracker box. And I think she emptied them all during her four-day visit.

It IS nice, come to think of it, to find Things in Dishes awaiting you, either at home or on a visit. Something made and tucked away to chill til you need it, the counters cleared and sprayed and all traces of work wiped away---that's a nice feeling. It bespeaks preparation, your own or another's on behalf of your comfort and enjoyment. And that's a nice thing, anytime, either way.

And Delighted, because he's got all the information of any computer function stored in his vast brain cells; I have an idea that a head x-ray would show LONG ranks of file after file, shelf after shelf, stretching to the horizon in a warehouse like the one storing Indiana Jones' Ark.

He fixed the format for me, with a few clicks and screenfuls of hieroglyphics, so that the text (of which there will be MUCH more than there are pictures) will fill the page side-to-side, instead of wasting all that white space at the right.

And it's better, I think; I hated to see the slender wording stretching down and down, when the page could be full. I DO love a full page. Or a page in general. Or a book. Or a . . .

Moire non.