Monday, May 10, 2010

And Then the Bagpiper Showed Up

Hi all,

Spanakopita: a greek dish using filo dough to sandwich layers of spinach, garlic, fetal cheese, spices and egg. Sounds delicious, no? Granted, I was going to use swiss chard today instead of spinach, and also going to add leeks and mushrooms. I saw was because after the morning of a co-op run and vegetable prep, the power decided to go out. Well, technically a power line went down because of a run-in with a tree, but the end result was the same. We couldn't get the oven lit. We got the stove top no problem, but literally took the oven apart trying to find the pilot. We eventually decided (as we couldn't get a gas smell either) that there was probably a safety mechanism that prevented the actual oven from being used during a power outage. Stumped, the only thing that came to mind was soup. Luckily, housemom decided that ordering pizza was a much better idea, and who am I to disagree?

Though I knew I would (and did) get crap from Sam about what I'd done all morning.

We also had a visitor for lunch, and so it wasn't much of a "home cooked meal" for him. He was a good sport about it anyway. The kicker was, the power came on at about 11:45. Just late enough to have ordered the pizza, and not really be able to cook anything else anyway in time for lunch.

After a short rest hour, we got together for orientation and set off to the new project site - an elder care community. It's still in the fund-raising stage, but could start as early as this summer. At any rate, we got a little tour and saw the plans and then started to scrape paint off of the huge deck. Actually, the girls did. We were short quite a few tools, and so all the guys decided that they'd play soccer. The entire time. The leader didn't say anything, which is kind of annoying, and I had a good time with Schmee, but it still kinda pissed me off. We could've gotten a lot more done if we'd had fresh hands working in shifts - but they obviously didn't care. It was in pretty poor form, and I was disappointed in them.

Dinner was a mushroom/leek/veggie soup (shocking, right?), and was pretty good. We were down 3 people, and so it was a pretty quiet meal as well. Afterward, as I was upstairs, I suddenly heard bagpipes. Maria had mentioned something about it earlier, but we all hadn't heard anything. Sure enough, "The Bluebells of Scotland" notes were wafting through the window. I told housemom, and after a minute, was able to see a procession (?!) following a lone bagpiper near the border of the woods in the neighborhood. It took me a few minutes (and a trip outside) to figure out it was one of the neighbor co-worker's father, who is visiting this week. Still, a bagpiper?!?

Have to admit, he sounded pretty darn good too!

Anyhow, I have a chocolate cake to bake tomorrow ("Death by Chocolate" - as promised to Flo to celebrate his birthday!), and that'll keep me busy in the morning.

Hope all is well,
Steph

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