Shuffles and Hows

Hi all,

I got an e-mail yesterday telling me what we'd be doing for the orientation course. We were going into Hudson to work on a garden for the house there. It was funny though, because the e-mail asked us to bring "shuffles, hows and rakes". Of course, it's from a non-native English speaker, and it just made me smile. It came really early, so he probably wasn't totally awake yet. It's a nice feeling to know that even after being in a country for many years, it still takes a long time to get down every aspect. Hope for my German...

Anyhow, we did go, although I was a little vague on how to best help. I settled for picking up the cardboard they'd put down to keep weeds out (didn't work) and separating out the packing tape and broken glass shards. The guys pretty much manned the shoves in order to dig out the paths to elevate the beds. I wasn't feeling up to taking any crap though, although I did manage to turn the tables on the silly German who figured I'd be afraid of a gardener snake. Right, as if I didn't have 3 brothers and spend a good amount of my childhood searching for them.

However, the day wasn't my best. I managed to have my first official minor meltdown...over tofu. It pains me to write that. Although I'd gotten 8 hours of sleep, I think I was still on edge over yesterday. We had 3 guests for lunch, including one I'd had to reschedule. So I knew exactly what I was going to make. It's happened before that we've run out of something (both at home and the co-op) and I've just moved on to the next thing. However, the fact that there wasn't any tofu in the village (I called numerous houses...), the cars were ALL booked and that both housemom and dad were taking the youngest to a doctor's appointment hit me hard. Normally if I get upset I can run to my room, have a minor freakout, and compose myself in about 2 minutes. Or walk around the house ranting to myself. Not so much an option. Housemom started to go on with what I could do, but I had to gesture that I needed 5 minutes and get a quick cry out.

Yes, I can cry.

So there.

Anyhow, I got it out of my system, feeling quaky and made it downstairs just before they left to the appointment. Her suggestion was pretty good, and her comment of "You'll probably find this funny this afternoon..." was apt. Although I found it funny about 20 minutes later.

Tofu.

Anyhow, I decided to rally myself and also make apple crisp. Halfway through I read a variation with Walnuts and thought "Hey...that might be good" and then I realized-

"Oh, only if I wanted to kill Polo!" (Co-op coworker who came to lunch today)

He's allergic to certain nuts and fruits.

Of course, I realized as I put the crisp in the oven, that apples would indeed be on that list of things he can't eat.

Go Steph.

So I called him to run through a list of what he can't have, and it turned out that he can have most things if they're cooked. So I toasted the crap out of the almonds for the salad.

Things turned out very well for the meal, although I'm thinking there was a bit too much kale in the kale/mushroom/broccoli/leek/onion/garlic/butter/white wine and noodle dish. But it wasn't anything to be ashamed of, and everyone liked the crisp - including Sam who has something against cinnamon...of all the crazy things!

So, that was a fun morning. Well, it turned out all right at any rate. Especially as we had ice cream for tea break...

Hope all is well,
Steph
Steph