Rhubarb Pie

What's Up With Me

Hi, friend. 

It's the end of the school year -- exam week.  Student appointments have dropped way off, although the level of anxiety in any particular appointment is much, much higher.  I have room to think about the year, how I do what I do and how I might be able to do it better next year. 

NBT and I had a friend date with a couple we don't know very well but we think might be promising pals.  It was so great that since then I've been feeling a little insecure.  Their life sparkles with creativity, art, projects, plans.  It left me a little less satisfied with our own life.

All I can really report that I've been doing faithfully is reading.  Thanks to my new index card system I don't have to rely on my memory to tell you what I've been reading.  It's a strange list, with chick lit books cheek by jowl with classics and dry nonfiction titles, but that's that.  Below is the list of books I've read in 2010, with any remarks I jotted down on the card.  Not listed in chronological order -- I haven't been dating the cards (should I?), just shoving them willy-nilly into the box. I'm torn between the desire to explain away some of the trashier books and just shrugging and saying, yep, I like trash.  I think that's the right choice.  I like trash.   

Squash plant on the left.

Fixt!  I switched out the emitters.  On inspection, it appears to be installer error; looks like some careless person grabbed a few of the wrong emitters.  Thankfully, I had more of the right ones.  Does your porch look empty without your box of irrigation supplies?

Next project, electricity!  This ugly-ass fixture has got to go.  One flips the breaker first, though (carefully brushing the black widows out of the fuse box first)?  I've spent so much more time with irrigation systems.

 

Drip emitters, my ass.

This is not what they taught me about drip systems in grad school.  I can't believe something has gone wrong inside three intricate plastic pieces worth forty cents each.  Where's the quality control?! Well, they're easily replaced.  Good to know I've got plenty of head, though.

So, what do you guys do without irrigation systems to think about?  You must get bored without the daily suspense about which part will get kicked over by drunks on the sidewalk.  What could occupy your mind when you aren't thinking about whether that last sprinkler will reach to the squash plant on the end?  Are you lonely without the constant presence of something to fix?  Do your evenings loom long without your sprinkler system to keep you company?  It sounds so empty, empty and dry.

I tell myself that every day.

My bees are coming today!  My sister's friend is bringing me bees.  In exchange, I'm giving him a piece of pie.  This is a very good deal for me, but in fairness, it is a very good pie.  I made it up.  I was thinking of lemon-rhubarb, and found a filling for honey-lemon-rhubarb.  But when I'd made the fruit-y filling, it didn't look like enough.  I like a heaping pie, you know.  So I thought some more, and what I thought was, what if I put something under the honey-lemon-rhubarb topping.  Kinda like a cheesecake, and from there, lemony ricotta was inevitable.  Poured the fruity filling over that, and was grateful that I didn't have to make a top crust.  It came out pretty tasty.  This is the type of creativity that wins pie contests*, and brings me bees.  The barn will no longer sit empty.

*It is also the sort of creativity that loses pie contests, since apparently the people weren't impressed by the sweet corn-flavored custard pie.  Whatever, savages.  Sweet corn is a dessert flavor in Asia, as you might know if you weren't so ignorantly wedded to pecan or chocolate.  Sometimes Art gets ahead of its audience, and you just have to tell yourself that amazingness is more reward than winning some stupid contest could ever be.

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