Patty sent me a really cool video about puppies and I absolutely love it, even though it made me tear up because it was so sweet. I hope that you will check it out, because I promise it will make you feel good.
This morning while I walked eight miles the phone rang—it was Lisa, so I picked up the phone and chatted with her as I dodged sleeping dogs and jogged around the big room. She told me that she and Mark are meeting in Houston this weekend. She'll be driving down and Mark in Mississippi will be flying in and they plan to go to a football game and do the town and she is so looking forward to seeing him, again. I told her that I was so happy that she has found her true love and for them to have fun in Houston and for her to drive careful.
When I was done talking on the phone to Lisa and galloping around the living room and kitchen I decided to call Carol, so she could tell me how she had cooked the Fairy Tale pumpkin a few years ago, that our friend and neighbor, Grace Atwood, had given to us. I called her at the ranch and got Carol's machine and then I called her cell phone and got that machine, too.
Since I was anxious to cook the gigantic pumpkin, so I could regain my counter top space, I grabbed my Joy of Cooking cookbook off of the bookshelf and went to the pumpkin part of the book and read the easy cooking instructions. It said for me to slice up the pumpkin and bake it in the oven at 325 degrees for an hour or until it was soft. "This will be a piece of cake to do," I thought, but I was wrong.
After I lifted and put the pretty, plump pumpkin on the marble pastry cutting board on the counter top, that my friends "Erb and Karen Cares gave to me, to help me make better homemade flour tortillas, I pulled a big knife out of the drawer and then proceeded to insert it into the pumpkin, but because the pumpkin was as hard as a rock—I had to use all of my strength to push the knife down into the pumpkin and then I couldn't pull it back out. To say the least, this Fairy Tale was starting to scare me.
I knew that I needed Tony to help me, but since he was busy outside working, I briefly thought about throwing the pumpkin into the garbage can and covering it up with newspaper, so he would never know, but then I had a second thought, "If Carol, as small and petite as she is, did it—then I can, too!" So I turned on my iPod, selected the song "Young At Heart" sung by Jimmy Durante from the "Sleepless In Seattle" soundtrack and then I clicked the repeat button, so it would play over and over again and then I cranked up the volume on the Bose iDock and went to sawing with a new knife.
While the oven preheated, I put two chunks to a dish and then I cooked four chunks at a time in the oven for over an hour and then I repeated the process. When I was in the middle of removing the skin from the first round of cooked pumpkin the phone rang—it was Carol. Since I was covered up with pumpkin problems I let Carlton take the call. "Hi, Nancy. This is Carol," she said, and then she started laughing. "I got your message and I am glad that you got your Fairy Tale pumpkin. Hmmmm...cutting it was a real *#*!* and I couldn't do it, because I wasn't strong enough. I had to get John to cut it for me. Maybe Tony can cut it for you using an ax?" Carol started laughing. "Bye."
I had a fun conversation with Cheryl and we laughed a lot. She told me that she wants to come out next Wednesday to visit us and to walk our dogs and that she and Walt were fixing to plant the Four O'clocks that Kinky and I gave to her. Then Cheryl put Walt on the phone. "Nancy, I want to thank you so much for your hospitality last Sunday. We really enjoyed ourselves and I..."
"Walt, I really enjoyed meeting y'all, too and I just wish that Tony had been here, so he could have met y'all. I've told him all about y'all. I told him that I knew that y'all were like family, the minute we shook hands."
"We are looking forward to meeting Tony. From what you have said and written about him, he sounds like one really nice man..." After I got off of the phone from this really nice man and his wife, I peeled and pureed the remaining pumpkin chunks and then cleaned up the kitchen.
All that I can say is, "Fairy Tales can come true. They can happen to you, but trust me I will never and I mean never buy another pumpkin, Fairy Tale or not, and cook it. If I had known how much work and trouble it is and was for Carol to have done that for us without ever complaining about it—I would have taken her out to dinner seven days in a row, because she earned it. Thank you, Carol! I never knew.
My lesson for today is: Pumpkins are meant for people who have a lot of time on their hands. I love pumpkins as much as anyone else does and I don't mean to be bad-mouthing them, because I know that they are really good for your health. But after chopping and sawing one into chunks and then cooking it—I've come up with a new word—Pumpkin-itis and I've got a bad case of it! My definition for Pumpkin-itis is: a temporary state of mind that causes one to want to smash pumpkins, because pumpkins can only be easily sliced by a man using his trusty chain saw. Since I don't have a chain saw or want one, I now know from experience, that the next time I need some pumpkin for my smoothies I will just go to H-E-B and buy a can, because it will save time and be a lot cheaper.
Late this afternoon the phone rang—it was Kinky calling from Washington D.C. "Hey, Nance! How are you?" He and I had a short visit and he is doing fine. We mainly talked about Sophie and The Friedmans and the weather.
"Sophie is doing great," I said, "and she seems to be getting along better with Brownie and Chum. When are you heading out to Albuquerque?"
"Friday," Kinky said. "Please tell The Friedmans that I will see them Monday and give Sophie a hug..."
Y'all have a great evening!
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