The Miyoko (vegan butter) had come to room temperature for the cookies, but she’d forgotten and suddenly realized she had to do XYZ before leaving for the meet up with her friends and–oops.

I can bake them, I offered.

She texted me a recipe to squint at and, being so much my child, told me of the things she does just a bit differently. Triple the cinnamon. Double the vanilla. Use chocolate chips instead of raisins. One cup of flour, one and a half cups of oats, old-fashioned, not quick (did that). Half sugar, half brown sugar.

Then she ran to do that errand that had to be run.

Even embiggening it I had a hard time reading it and my phone kept turning itself off fast.

Every cookie recipe everywhere says one teaspoon of vanilla, so okay, I put two. And then found the recipe said a half? Who puts a half a teaspoon of vanilla in a batch of chocolate chip dough? Too late.

The Miyoko went squish when I tried to cut it. Much better to have a bit much than not enough if you’re not sure. Cold butter you can displace in water to check the measurement, but warm Miyoko? No. So let’s add maybe that’s a tablespoon but who can tell.

The big Costco brown sugar bag had never been opened but nevertheless was fairly dried out. I mostly filled the measuring cup from it and used a little white sugar to fill in any gaps–so much more flavor than plain white. Plus I wanted to squish as much as I could of the rest into my small OXO container for it and be able to securely tie off the rest of that bag.

It calls for baking soda and baking powder? Why do people do that to perfectly good cookies? (I actually went looking for the baking soda but I so dislike the taste of it that all I had is that five pound bag under the bathroom sink along with vinegar for clearing out drains and darn if I was going to pick that up to wreck a perfectly good batch of cookies. Double the baking powder it is–like the vanilla, it had only called for a half teaspoon of each in the first place.)

The second sheet of cookies came out of the oven just as she was walking in the door to get ready to walk back out the door.

She tasted one. She pulled a face.

Did you triple the cinnamon?

Oh! Dang. Sorry, no I didn’t.

Weak, she pronounced them. Needed more cinnamon.

But quadruple on the vanilla! They’re vanilla oatmeal chocolate chip cookies!

I did not tell on myself over it being almost all brown sugar. Some dire secrets are meant to be kept close.

My hubby helped overbuy on frozen foods on Thursday, I told C at church, and there was no room for the chocolate torte in there anymore. It got moved to the fridge, where there wasn’t really space for it either; it had to go. Could she take it off our hands?

She couldn’t believe it. She told me if I wanted to cut off a slice for myself/ourselves first she was totally fine with that. Were we sure??

Her kids are home for Christmas break and I knew that getting rid of the whole thing was not going to be a problem and that it’s one of her favorite desserts.

But what I said later as I dropped it off at her door was, My daughter’s in town. She’s allergic to dairy–but she remembers how much she once loved these.

Ah. We were not eating it in front of her. Got it.

She sent me off with some oranges she’d just picked from her tree in happy anticipation of sharing back. They are so good.

The doorbell rang this afternoon.

Scott and his two daughters told me their mom had baked these cookies for us. Merry Christmas!

There were so many and so different. Each was a work of art. If his wife isn’t a professional baker, she certainly could be. Richard and I later cut a few in half so we both could explore among the variations.

My astonishment and stunned delight made their day while they were totally making mine. I had been sick and they had decided to do something about it to help me feel better.

Hours later, I suddenly wondered if their old KitchenAid still worked?

Not that the one has anything to do with the other, but–I’d long forgotten that about twenty years ago, I bought a new beater for my mixer at an outlet store, only to find it didn’t fit my machine. A rookie mistake, but not worth the two-hour round trip to return it. Maybe the next time I go to Gilroy?

I never did. It sat in its little white box in my house taking up space till not long after they moved in half a dozen years later.

Monica, barely knowing anyone yet, offered a baking demo at church. She was good!

And my beater that fit her Kitchenaid perfectly found where it had been waiting to go. A good baker could always use extras for making multiple batches in a row.

What I need, I thought but did not say, is some classic get-better chicken noodle soup.

The doorbell rang before dark and there on our doorstep was our friend Phyl. I stood nowhere near but managed to at least wave hello and say thank you from the family room as she handed salad, bread, a dessert–and a great big thing of fresh-veggie chicken noodle soup to Richard.

Hold on, one more thing, and she ran back to her car.

A birthday present for me to wait to open.

Wishing everybody a very Happy Thanksgiving.

A year ago, we were delayed after boarding, it was raining, there were accidents on the freeway coming from the airport, and we finally pulled off at an exit and went looking for a food establishment, any food establishment.

We found an ice cream shop. Richard hesitated a moment and I said, Calories. I didn’t care what kind at that point, just, we needed to get something in us fast and get back out on the road. The app said that under current conditions we had an hour to go.

There was a young couple waiting while our order was coned up trying to manage two small children, and the usual finger puppets came out for a happy distraction.

I mentioned that other than airline pretzels we hadn’t eaten since 11:00 a.m.

The dad’s eyes went big: nine hours, if I remember correctly. I could just picture him imagining trying to get through that with his kids as he went, Oh wow.

So. Not doing that again.

It’s easy to find small packages of junk food, but I was hoping for at least some protein. There’s a brand of Korean barbecue jerky that doesn’t use nitrates or nitrites nor is it tough (usually). Costco sells it in mega-packages. I wanted single serving.

There they are, they do exist!

It came today. Amazon said so, with a picture as proof.

I picked up the small package that had USA added to my address, wondering, what on earth? Who is this from? Why?

I just hope the person who ordered the zipped hardshell book holder wristlet with an inner compartment for a wallet substitute (that’s all I can figure this thing is) isn’t being a horrified vegetarian right now.

Baked my own answer to the dilemma. Now I just have to figure out how to get my cranberry/orange/almond flour muffins onboard (like I have enough space for that?) without having them fall apart. Probably way healthier anyway.

The Washington Post reinstated my paid-for weeks on my subscription, which means I got to read Dana Milbank’s essay today arguing passionately for the paper he loves. He didn’t say out loud, Boycott Amazon instead, but he’s right, I do still want to support the 18 signatories on their protest to their employer. And I will always want to read them.

Meantime, that reaction flattened me for a second day, which has never happened before. Glad I got the shot, glad I don’t have to do it again, and the case of Marie Callender’s chicken pot pie soup I bought for earthquake emergency supplies? (You know, veggies, protein, a bit of liquid, zero prep necessary.) The rest can go right back into that storage closet because it would take a lot more than that for me to say I’m that sick.

I picked up my friend Karen and we headed down the freeway towards Andy’s Orchard. As we were talking, I said, well, my potassium’s always low–to the point they actually treated it for awhile, awhile ago–and one of the best sources of potassium in food is dried apricots. By far, compared to, say, bananas. (Side chatter about stocking up for the winter on this trip.) So it’s not just food, it’s medicine, right? Hey, when life gives you an excuse to do what you want to do anyway…

She laughed.

I was hoping for Comice pears, too, but they were out today.

So, she asked me, standing in front of the recently-dried varieties: regular, premium, slab. How do you know what’s what?

The slabs are the ones that were so perfectly ripe they went smush when they cut them open. Those regulars? Nice and round and pretty. The slabs? Sweet and melting in texture with no added sugar but the shape is ‘gone splat.’ They are perfect.

Turns out it was her son Andy’s birthday. I was his Sunday School teacher back when he was ten, and now he’s ‘the answer to life, the universe, and everything‘ (MIT link with happy mathematicians) per Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. (It appears the answer really IS 42!)

Got her back home. I opened my car door, went around to the back and of course I pulled out a pound from me. Go celebrate with Andy for me, willya? Tell him I said happy birthday. He was always one of my favorites.

425? Isn’t that a little high? he asked, coming out of the kitchen last night.

You start out that high and then turn it down halfway through so the crust won’t burn. Thank you for reminding me–I’d better go do that.

I walked in there just as the end timer went off.

The goofy expression I’d given it on a whim because why not: it suddenly fit. An emoji cherry pie trying to smile.

We polished off half of it for breakfast. Minus the burns.

Great to be over the 10-day bug and the fall and mobile again.

We were going through serious peach withdrawal: it’s the last few days of August, the season is short, we knew they’d all be gone soon.

One of Andy’s employees was new (to me, at least) this year and started off seeming down. I made a point of being a friendly face. And you know what comes next. Maybe.

Only, the last two times I went in I didn’t see her and wondered if she still worked there.

Today answered that question nicely. She got two flats from the back for me, one Cal Red, one Angelus.

I waited till I was rung up and then pulled two soft Malabrigo hats out of my purse and asked her to pick a color.

Okay, this was a first for me: she laughed–I’d never heard her laugh before, she hedged on accepting one, and finally explained, I have so many hats. My mom’s a knitter!

My turn to laugh: I’m not going to compete with your mom!

I totally made her day, she totally made mine, the hats came home with me but the love they convey was completely present.

I almost typed ‘his’ all those times.

I bet she still gets that a lot.

It’s become a tradition: before Michelle flies off we go to Dandelion Chocolate in San Francisco, and with their new early-morning hours we had the place to ourselves at 8:30 a.m.

They currently have a crisp almond pastry with a filling made from the juicy part of the cacao fruit, which as I understand it typically dries out during the fermenting process with the beans. They describe it as tasting somewhat like lychee–which I love but would never dare try again after having a near-anaphylactic reaction to its cousin, rambutan. From cacao? That I could do.

And now I want to find a source of that (if there is one for people who aren’t chocolate manufacturers) because it was very very good.

With a shout-out to everyone’s inner Mikey. I’m… I’m….

Okay, picture the scene.

It’s the early 1800’s, you’re a fur trapper, you get a whiff, go oooh, and a quick trip to Madagascar to grab a bottle of vanilla to put in your brownie mix is just not happening that day.

Since you’re going to be skinning that pelt anyway once you find that thing the animal’s not going to need the rest of him so it’s all yours.

The ultra-anti-skunk: glands in the same place, different effect. Beaver butt vanilla flavoring. Castoreum.

Don’t forget the ice cream.

So, y’know, just update those dairy farms, we can squeeze a few beavers between the cows and hook them up too, right? You could make that ice cream on site. If a cow leg comes too close the little guys will chew them out, they can stand up for themselves. The cows can argue back but they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

This has been an actual thing for 2000 years and nobody ever told us this in high school science class?

Didn’t go Monday. Didn’t end up going Tuesday, but c’mon, when you’ve got your daughter in town, in August no less, ya gotta have some of Andy’s divine peaches for her and we’d finished off the last previous one together, so off I finally went.

Maybe going on a long drive would get me out of my head a little better.

Some acquaintance-friends who are grieving and under pressure were not thinking straight and did something stupid because they did not think it mattered, did not think we would find out, and did not realize just how many problems they were causing. It was likely physically beyond either of us to fix it if it turned out it went as far as I was afraid it might (later: turns out it didn’t.)

Grief is not a get-out-of-rude-free card.

Forgive as you would want to be forgiven, I told myself again and again. Make it better the best you can, not worse. A year from now, this will be nothing.

Miles and miles and at last suburbia gave way to golden hills and quiet.

Andy’s Orchard. There was the woman I’d given the hat to last month. It was so good to see her.

And then–I think it’s been two years since I’ve seen him, and probably only once since the whole Covid thing–Andy himself stepped in from the back room to talk to her.

He saw me and his whole face lit up in the warmest smile, and I tell you, he had no way to know how much I needed that. Such a lovely man. The two of them turned my day around completely just by being there and by who they are.

I brought home some perfect Kit Donnells and a variety of deeply golden nectarine that Andy himself had brought home two seeds of from the then-Soviet Union. Silk Roads.

And thought wistfully of these friends who, having no idea what they were missing, were last week the only ones who have ever turned down my offer of an Andy peach.

So very good to have our daughter home for a visit. So good.

We even shared our anniversary-celebration Dandelion hot chocolate mix with her. She surprised us back with chocolate from–Dandelion. Well there you go. Raised that one right.

James Beard wrote, in a cookbook that was given to us as a wedding present so that gives you some idea of how long ago, that the only way to eat a mango was in private in the bathtub.

I’m not sure I’d ever seen a fresh mango at that point so that description stayed with me.

Fast forward. I didn’t have a box the right size to put four of Andy’s peaches into nice and upright and you can’t stack those, so I took a small paper bag, put them in in a line and  held the thing shut with one hand and supported the weight with the other after texting my neighbor.

Her teenage son met me halfway and carried those balls of fruity juiciness just as carefully. He knew.

I knew they didn’t have enough bathtubs but they could make do. Most definitely.