Pie

Today's recurring theme seems to be pie.

I have a small rhubarb patch, which the previous homeowner planted in the side-yard, and I've decided I'm going to do something with it at the weekend. If any of you listen to "Prairie Home Companion" on NPR, you can sing along:

One little thing can revive a guy / and that is a slice of rhubarb pie.
Serve it up, nice and hot/ Maybe things aren't as bad as you thought.
Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb,
Bee-Bop-A-Ree-Bop Rhubarb Pie.

(Nothing gets the taste of pain and humiliation out of your mouth like Bee-Bop-A-Ree-Bop Rhubarb Pie.)

So I went out to harvest the rhubarb this morning. It doesn't look like my mom's rhubarb, which grows lushly in Wisconsin, with perfect stalks as thick as my thumb. This worries me. All my stalks are pencil thin, and when I have picked all the full-grown stalks (leaving the little ones to grow. A lot. Before Sunday.), I see that I have maybe a cup and a half; I need four cups, according to my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. After looking at the rhubarb patch with some concern, I headed for the Rec Center.

I'm tired of running 'round and 'round on the indoor track, and I'm getting diminishing returns from it, anyway. I need to add an element of challenge, so I decided to try the treadmill. I have never liked the idea of treadmills, and I've only used one once before. It was in a hotel during a business trip and I was managing pretty well until I tried to peel off my shirt while running, got it tangled around my head and fell off . A story to relate in more detail another day. So, I approached the treadmills with some trepidation. I stood there for a while, reading the control panel, which rivals that of a 747. Hmmm...it does inclines! I can program it to give me hills! Well, that's pretty exciting. If you read my blog often, you'll know that I'm planning to climb King's Peak in August, and running on an incline would be...training. I imagined myself (delusions of grandeur) running on the treadmill like the Six Million Dollar Man, [cue theme music] up jaw-dropping inclines. For the sake of fantasy, let's have me doing that in my big hiking boots. Oh, let's add a loaded pack. OK, the rec center probably wouldn't let me do that anyway. There must be rules about that. In reality, I spent about 25 minutes pressing random buttons on the machine, trying to figure out how it works. There was considerable lurching and stumbling. I was also distracted by the presence of a TV. I don't see TV very often, as we don't have one at home, so when I see one, I'm entranced. This took my attention away from the task at hand, resulting in my coming off the back of the treadmill. I tried to look casual, as if I'd meant to do that. The control panel also had a "calories burned" indicator. This is very discouraging. I'd run for a while and think, "One Girl Scout Cookie." Theeeeeen, "Two Girl Scout cookies." That got me wondering about how long it would take to burn off a slice of rhubarb pie. Aha! Were you wondering how I was going to segue back to pie?

Finally, I went to Marie Callender's (do they have these all over the country, or just in Utah?). The food at Marie Callenders is of about the same calibre as Dee's, Denny's, Big Boy, etc... But the PIES! Oh, boy. I was after a pie for Father Bittmenn, the priest at St. Patrick's Catholic Church. Father has allowed me to use a couple of his Sunday School rooms on weekdays, to house a new Family Literacy program I was piloting. Guadalupe Schools is filled to the gills with little kids during the day (the adult English classes are at night), but St. Patrick's is right next door to Guadalupe Schools. The class was a big success, I got it funded for next year, and so I wanted to get Father a really superlative pie. Cherry sounded good. I was standing at the counter while the cashier boxed it for me, and I was idly staring at the pie cooler. I looked at the strawberry pie and all my rhubarb anxiety fell away. My path is clear now. I will make strawberry-rhubarb, and then it won't matter if my rhubarb is dysfunctional.

I'd better sign off and take this pie over to the church. It's tempting me.