Sunday, November 30, 2008

The Great Pumpkin Pie Saga

My father doesn't like pumpkin pie, so if he's responsible for dessert at Thanksgiving, there won't be any pumpkin pie. For some reason, I really like having pumpkin pie and, of course, I know my father's opinion of same.

Somehow, I managed to think that with so many people coming to Thanksgiving at my parents' place this year there would be someone else bringing dessert, and that odds were at least one of those desserts would be pumpkin pie.

Two people brought appetizers, Charles (who even more than my parents could be a gourmet chef if he wanted) brought the turkey (I think) and stuffing, and I brought the cranberry sauce. My parents made everything else. Which means no pumpkin pie.

After dinner, on the way home, I decided I had to see if I could come up with some pie. I knew, of course, the odds were pretty low, but there are 6 grocery stores within 2 miles of my house. I knew one of them hadn't been open at all on Thanksgiving, but figured at least the 24-hour Safeway would be open. No joy.

Friday, Dick and Darryl walked to a nearby pet store and before they left, I told Darryl it was necessary that they get some pumpkin pie on the way back. They could also get pecan pie if they wanted. Despite Dawn's claims, I did not say they would ot be allowed back into the house without it. It's hardly my fault if they chose to infer anything sinister!

I did, in fact, have a piece of the pie on Friday evening, and it was good. It came from Whole Paycheck and was both better AND cheaper than one of the other stores near us.

Cut to Saturday night. We had a nice simple dinner of some of our favorite ravioli, from The Pasta Shop. Dick's friend Linda arrived from Sacramento as we were finishing, and joined us for dessert.

But wait... Is that MOLD on the pumpkin pie??

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Uh-Oh

A few minutes ago, Dawn attacked me as I sat innocently on the sofa with Rachel and Zachary. She started, completely without warning, to throw various stuffed toys at me. Despite the fact that not one of her first salvo scored a direct hit, I could let the assault go unanswered.

Several minutes of stuffed toy warfare ensued, with Dawn even hitting the children on occasion, until she surrendered (she called it a "truce") when I started tickling her.

At one point, as I started to throw one of Zachary's toys, it said....

Uh-oh!

Monday, November 03, 2008

How 'bout that?

I've long thought it strange that MUNI's automated announcements sounded more human than BART's. It seems BART may have upgraded their speech software... Both the voices (for some reason one direction is announced by a female voice and one by a male) seem to sound a lot better today. Still a little mechanical, especially on the word 'platform'.