Friends and Time

I have a friend coming to town I haven't seen in over thirty years. She was, along with Z (a mere girl, like me) my first grown-up female friend. I met her in the Huddle Room at the University of Utah. She has been a Professor/Tutor at St Johns University, Santa Fe campus, and is now retired. She's coming to town for a high school reunion and I get to spend Friday afternoon with her. So I'll be cleaning house and cooking up a storm.

I have raided the large garden next door; I gathered loads of fresh organic eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, parsley, and basil. The bag of purloined vegetables had to weight at least fifteen pounds. Yesterday, after my doctor appointment (I am still clotted just right) I stopped at a fruit stand and bought a Utah watermelon, two cantaloupes and five peaches. I have enough food for a small army, but I just want to feed these two very important women a lovely lunch. I'll fix a very fresh eggplant parmigiana, a fresh chilled melon plate, and fresh peach cobbler for dessert. My bar is well stocked and there is beer in the fridge. I have soft drinks and two varieties of iced tea. I could fix a great iced coffee. And last but not least, I have a HUGE bouquet of late summer flowers. I think I've got all the bases covered.

It cooled off for a few days last week, but it's very hot again now. Our days are in the 90s; our nights in the high 60s. It's too hot to do a lot of cooking in the middle of the day, so I'll probably get up very early Friday morning to cook the peach cobbler. I will make the tomato sauce this evening. Then while the cobbler is in the over Friday morning, I'll cook the eggplant and assemble the eggplant parmigiana. Once the cobbler comes out of the oven, I'll slip the eggplant dish in the oven for about a half hour--long enough to melt and lightly brown the cheeses. Then a quick shower for me, and I'll be ready. Even if neither of them feels like eating, it won't be wasted effort. My friend Tracy and I shared the last fresh eggplant parmigiana I made. She's ready for another such treat, and her husband, who didn't even get a taste of it last time, is planning on leftovers this time.

I am frantic to get my house clean, but things just keep popping up that can't be ignored. Am I making excuses? Probably. I used to go to group therapy where one of the women in the group always talked about getting up and vacuuming and mopping all the rooms in her house, cleaning all the bathrooms and doing laundry EVERY DAY! I thought she was especially crazy.

I'm a once a week sort of cleaning lady. I change the bed, clean the bathroom, vacuum and dust and call it good. Then another day I do laundry and think I've done a good days work. I try to keep things neat, but I hate vacuuming and mopping floors. I just don't ever plan on eating off my floor. I would like to get all the windows clean, but that's optionaly given time constraints.

For some odd reason I seem to be very popular the last little while. Phillip is coming back for another pit stop on his way back to San Francisco, and Larry, my boyfriend when I was twelve, is also coming to town for the reunion. It's a hive of activity here, and drastically cutting into my blog reading time. I've become an addicted tweeter too. I need a little cooling off time there.

Z is having a very rough time of it right now. She has radiation burns on her chest and back. She's allergic to sulfa drugs and when they treated her burns they didn't check her chart and put sulfa/antibiotics in a salve on the burns. She had a very bad reaction: high fever, chills and shaking, and extreme pain. All of this makes her dislike of western medicine more intense. She hates them all. It was a nurse who dressed her burns with the sulfa drug and didn't check her chart for allergies. Every interaction with a medical professional turns into another trauma. She is going to take a radiation break this week. She still has two weeks to go on radiation, but just can't take it anymore. I'm not sure she's going to feel well enough to get together. I'll just have to clean house with my fingers crossed.