Day 31 Slow Day For Me

I stayed home today to do some laundry, do some cleaning, work on my classes and study for Lithuanian class tomorrow.  The last is not coming easily.  I was not a good language student in the 60's, and things have not improved in the years since.  Del did read the other day that learning a language is supposed to help one avoid getting dotie, but I am afraid you have to actually learn more than I have so far.  Del had a double lecture today, so he was gone most of the afternoon and until 6:30.  We brought our computers but not a printer, so they have set up a little office with a laptop and printer for us to use, and he goes in early to print his materials.  I confess to emailing mine to the department assistant and asking her to scan or print what I need.

I forgot to tell you that one of the phrases my advanced English class learned yesterday was "made from scratch."  During our discussion time, I mentioned that I had found puff pastry in the frozen foods section and made pastries for the neighbors, and Del, for Valentines Day.  One of the young women said she had made a puff pastry dessert for her husband to celebrate Independence Day. I said something to the effect that it is wonderful to have that frozen, ready to use.  She said she had never tried that.  I said, without thinking, "You mean you made it from scratch?"  After I explained the term, and inquired about cake mixes, the cooks in the group explained that they never use mixes.  It reminded me of when my mother used to come to visit and make little rounds of pie dough to put in the freezer.  She just did not hold with the idea of bought pie crust, and "You never know when you might strike a notion to make a pie." Since the notion did not strike me all that often, some of that pie dough died of freezer burn.

Now, proving that BIL Tommy's philosophy that while in every family, a  word in a conversation  will remind someone of something and the topic will change, in our family the word is often "the", I am about to jump another rabbit. Freezer burn reminds me of a discovery Del and I made when defrosting Mother's freezer  when visiting her the summer before she went to assisted living.  Down at the bottom, we found and pulled out a tupperware cake saver. I asked her what it was,  and she told us that it was the layer from our wedding cake that she had saved for our first anniversary.  You should know that we had been married for more than 20 years at that point, but we had never been home for an anniversary, and she never thought about it when we were home.  She had kept it every time she had defrosted the freezer over those years and had even moved it from the country to the Jarratt house because "I just didn't have the heart to throw it away.".  We opened it and the icing didn't look as bad as you would think, but the whole thing sort of crumbled to crumbs when we touched it.  We didn't have the courage to taste it, but it was really hard to pitch it.  Would it be bad luck?  Was it what was holding us together?  Maybe I am more superstitious than I like to admit. 

Something is going on in the neighborhood tonight.  We can hear a drum and lots of cheering from a distance, but we can't see anything from the windows, and it is too cold at 0 degrees F. wind chill to go out at nearly midnight to check it out.