It’s really just not been my day today.

Well, not that it’s been all bad. I took the day off from work, so I got to sleep late–that’s always good! The fact that I woke up to a rainy day isn’t really its fault, right? Chappy made me laugh right off, too. We usually save the cream cheese containers for him. I’ll put his vitamin in one and then hide it for him to find, which doesn’t usually take long because he knows all the good hiding places by now. Well, this morning, I put it on the stairs–midway between the halfway-point landing and the upstairs … and he couldn’t figure out how to reach it! All he needed to do was stand on the landing, put his front paws on the second step and take the container in his mouth, but he didn’t think of it. Instead, he ran up the stairs PAST the container and then sat at the top trying to figure out why he couldn’t reach it, three steps down. Silly dog! I finally had to help him by sitting next to him on the landing and pointing out that it was in reach. (Oh, his softie of a Grandma helped too, by moving it down a step. She was going to just give it to him, but I told her he needed to figure it out on his own.)

I planned to leave the house at 10:00, to go visit my friend Cindy (the one who had open-heart surgery last month), but ran a little late, not getting to the car until 10:15–very much not like me. I bundled up, left, took the time to fill up the gas tank (in preparation of Rhinebeck on Saturday), and headed down the highway.

I’m not sure why, exactly, but at some point, up ahead, a couple of police cars with flashing lights blocked off the traffic to let a string of cars onto the highway. At first I thought it was some kind of entourage, like the Govenor was visiting, or something … or maybe a funeral with a longer cortege than usual. I didn’t see a hearse, though–although I was a way back so didn’t have the best view. But it was interesting! Not something that happens every day. (Or, well, maybe it does, I’m just usually at work.)

My first stop, though, wasn’t actually visiting Cindy, it was my favorite apple orchard to buy some apples for her and for us. Except, I forgot to allow for the fact that lots (and lots) of schools come by for field trips to play in the orchard, and even on this rainy day, the parking lot was full of yellow school buses. Which meant that the shop was full of KIDS. Lots of kids, getting donuts, picking out candy .. largely bypassing the apples, though. I waded through with a nice smile for everyone and collected my apples, as well as a frozen apple pie and some donuts for Mom. (She loves their donuts.) (And, um, we won’t discuss the frozen pie I dropped on the floor, right?)

So, I waited on line for ages while individual kids pulled out their change purses to pay their $.95 for whatever little things they were buying, and then the cashier rang me up. She balanced my two bags of apples on the scale, rang up the pie and the donuts and then turned back to the next kid … and as I reached for the donuts she’d left on her side of the scale … one of my bags of apples plummeted to the floor. Ouch! Talk about bruised apples, some of these were cracked, they landed so hard. NOT the kind of apple you can bring home and store for a while, you know?

Anyway, I got back in the car and headed up to Cindy’s–only about 10 minutes late (which, considering the number of kids at Wightman’s was pretty efficient of me). We had a really nice visit. She’s still tired and wears out very quickly, kind of sore, but at least starting to feel better–which is good!

Her dog, Horatio, was delighted to see me, too. He is Chappy’s best friend–they’ve known each other since they were three months old, and even though it’s been about nine months since they’ve seen each other, they have one of those great “best friend” relationships where, it doesn’t matter how long the delay has been, they reconnect instantly when they see each other. I TOLD him that Chappy had wanted to come, and that he was going to be super jealous that I got to see Horatio but he didn’t, and Horatio was just so thrilled to see me and smell Chappy on my clothes … it was so sweet.

When I left there, about 1:30 … it was raining, but … with snow mixed in. In fact, by the time I got home, it actually was snowing. Wow! And it’s pretty much snowed all day long, turning spots on the grass white, even if it was too wet to really accumulate.

Naturally, though, I had to bake, because those poor, abused apples weren’t going to last for long at ALL. So I peeled and sliced all the badly-bruised ones and ended up with enough for a huge pie. Except, we all know my trials with pie crust, so I opted for an apple streusel crisp instead (once I’d dug out my cookbooks that Dad moved to the garage). I couldn’t get them all to fit in my Edge Pan, so I put the extra into a loaf pan and popped them both into the oven.

Ten minutes later … a pop followed by a nasty smell. The heating element had burst! Now, this has happened before, but … it couldn’t have lasted three more weeks??

We called our neighbor across the street to beg the use of her oven … and, wasn’t it lucky that I had the second, smaller crisp? They got to keep it as a thank you.

All in all, an interesting day.

I apologize for the lack of pictures, too. It’s been so gray and wet, it didn’t seem worth digging out my camera.

And–is anybody else worrying about the weather for Rhinebeck on Saturday? The forecast is for rain mixed with snow … brr!

Tags: Baking, Friends // 7 Comments »