Wednesday, December 2, 2009

It Was No Big Deal!

It is forty degrees outside. I just turned on my salt lamp to set the mood, and Michael McDonald is singing,  I Heard It Through The Grapevine, one of my favorite all time songs. 

Four of our dogs are sound asleep in the chairs, and Toto and Thunder are curled up by my feet, snoring. I just took a sip of my boxed fine wine, and I am now ready to write. Will Hoover, my good friend, over in Hawaii, has just started singing his song, Jesus Don't Drive No Fastback Ford. God, I love that song!

Around five o'clock this morning, Mama woke me up. She wanted to 'cuddle' with me. Mama, my great, one hundred pound, rescued Great Pyrenees, only does this after Tony has gotten out of bed in the morning. Her version of 'cuddling' is to lay down on top of me and smother me with wet kisses. 

I am glad that Mama wanted to 'cuddle' this morning, because I was having a nightmare about something that actually happened to me, back in 1986, in Houston. Fortunately, because of a guardian angel, I wasn't killed. This is what happened.

My husband, Jim, and I had gone to Sugarland, Texas to visit his sister and brother-in-law, and I had taken Bear, my Great Pyrenees with me. In the afternoon, while Jim was visiting with his sister, I decided to take Bear for a walk around the neighborhood. At the time, it was an upscale neighborhood.

Fifteen or twenty minutes into our walk, I saw a pack of big dogs, down the street, approaching us. I didn't think much about it, until they came up and surrounded Bear and me, then the hair on the back of my neck stood up, as they started closing in on us, and started nipping at us! 

I remember one dog was a Newfoundland and the other was a German Shepherd, but I can't remember what the other dog breeds were. I looked around the neighborhood, but no one was outside, in their yards, to help us. I was really scared. I knew Bear would fight to protect me if he had to, but we were outnumbered.

Then literally, out of nowhere, this woman in a black Mercedes, pulled up to us, and started honking her horn, to break up the pack! As the dogs backed off, the woman screamed, "Get into my car, now!" I was scared to death!

I opened the back seat door, and Bear and I jumped inside, and then the woman took off, leaving the pack of dogs standing in the middle of the street! In less than a minute Bear and I were back at my in-law's house, and I was thanking the kind woman for coming to our rescue, as Bear and I got out of her car. She said, "It was no big deal," and then she drove away.

It was a big deal to Bear and me, and I regret that I never got her name, because as far as I am concerned—she was one of my guardian angels, and she saved our lives. 

Mama woke me up just before the woman, in my dream, showed up and rescued us.

Today, I made beans and cornbread for lunch, again. Tony teased me about it, so after cleaning up the kitchen, I grabbed my Moosewood Cookbook, to find some new recipes to try.

I found five new recipes that I wanted to try: Broccoli Mushroom Noodle Casserole, Mushroom Moussaka, Zucchini-Feta Pancakes, Stuffed Eggplant, and Spinach-Ricotta Pie!
Around one o'clock, after writing down all of the ingredients that I needed to make these delicious sounding meals, I half-hollered down the hall, "Tone, we need to go to H.E.B.!"

A hundred and forty-five dollars later, Buttermilk returned us to the rescue ranch. I'm not sure what I will fix for tomorrow's lunch, but I know it will be tasty.

Y'all have a great evening!

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