The first day of a long weekend

As I said, I slept until 6:30 AM on Friday. The first thing I saw was snow every where. It was still lightly snowing, but it had snowed enough overnight to cover the grass and the fir tree limbs. What made me nervous was this was the first time it covered my driveway and the road. I was glad I didn’t have to drive through that (yet).

As you may have gathered, I never ate dinner last night (nor answered email, nor took my Epsom salt soak, etc.). So, I was starving!

I put on a pot of coffee and started to prepare my breakfast. I drank a cup of coffee while I made soft-boiled eggs. I ate them my Mother’s (versus my Father’s) way: served over shredded bread with butter, salt and pepper.

It was delicious! I ate that watching the morning news. I had another cup of coffee and took my pills. Since I had to go to the doctor’s later, I put off shaving and showering.

I killed time checking my work emails, surfing the net, making out a check for one bill and a birthday card for my sister-in-law, Kathy (Joe’s wife).

Speaking of Kathy’s, I forgot to mention that Kathy, Jay’s mom (Jay is Jake’s best friend) called me Thursday, before I crashed, to ask me if I was interested in going in on this year’s beef. I was supposed to call her, but I hadn’t yet.

Now, bear with me. This would be hard enough to relate, without being under the severe influence of prescription drugs (I am typing this up after my doctor visit and after getting my three prescriptions from CVS, downing them and waiting a couple hours).

So, each year, as you may recall, they buy a quarter of beef from a local farmer, have it processed and then sell half to Jake and Carla and me. So, Jake and Carla and myself both end up with 1/16th of a cow.

She asked if I wanted in this year, despite the absence of Jake and Carla. I told her I still had a lot of beef left from last year (she said, “Really? We’ve been out for a month or so”) and, in spite of being a meat lover, there was no way I would ever use up 1/8th of a cow in one year.

She reminded me that, all in all, no matter what the cut, the meat comes out to roughly $2.50 a pound. I agreed it has been one heck of a deal, but there was no way I could eat that much meat in a year. I said if they found another person to buy Jake’s share, I would be happy to go in, and we hung up.

Is there anyone within a reasonable distance interested? If so, just let me know. It will fit easily into a small chest freezer (I know, because that’s what I have).

It was still snowing off and on, so I got ready to go around noon (my appointment was for 3:00 PM). I left here at 1:45 PM. Sure enough, it stopped snowing about five miles from my house and the expressways were clear and dry. So, I got there at 2:15 PM.

I asked the receptionist when I was signing in if I could use their restroom. She laughed and said, “No!” I said, “Okay, then I’ll just pee on your carpet out here.” Everyone laughed and she hurried to open the door for me! (I kill myself, sometimes.)

I talked with the doctor and explained why it took me so long to get in. She agreed and said there was no real reason to get an x-ray, unless I wanted one, and I said, “No, no thanks.” So, I left there with scripts for a steroid anti-inflammatory, a muscle relaxer and some Vicodin.

For a change, I didn’t go to the Smoke House, being more concerned about beating the afternoon traffic rush. That almost worked. I did get stuck in stop-and-go traffic on I-94 between, say, I-75 and I-96 (my exit). It took awhile to go those two or three miles, but I eventually got through, got off on I-96 and headed for home.

I stopped at CVS and got my meds. Then I went home, treated the cats, changed clothes, took my pills and sat on the bed with the heating pad; watching the nightly news and waiting for the magic to happen. And, it did!

I was still sore, mind you, but had no difficulty getting up or down. I felt so good, in fact, that I made dinner! I had been just warming stuff up in cans for almost two weeks.

I made the recipe I’d shared with Carla a while back. She said it sounded simple and good and to let her know how it turned out. Here’s what I did.

I melted a stick of butter in a sauce pan and added six cloves of minced garlic. I preheated the oven to 375 degrees F. I prepared two bowls, one with the butter/garlic sauce and one with about two cups of Italian breadcrumbs (any kind of seasoned breadcrumbs will work, that’s just what I happened to have on hand).

I dipped my boneless, skinless chicken breasts into the butter/garlic sauce, then rolled them around in the breadcrumbs. I shook off the excess breadcrumbs and put each one in a lightly buttered 9x13 inch baking dish. I carefully poured the leftover butter/garlic sauce on top of the chicken breasts.

I popped them in the oven and set the timer for one hour. When they were halfway done, I made some Uncle Ben’s wild rice for my side dish.

When the timer went off, I pulled out the chicken breast and let them rest for a bit. Then I plated one with the wild rice and went in to eat and watch TV.

The chicken was fantastic (and so simple)! I think the only thing I’ll try next time is to add some fresh lemon juice to the butter and/or some lemon zest to the breadcrumbs.

So, Carla, now you know. The recipe is definitely a keeper!!

I watched TV until 11:00 and then went to bed (no, really, I slept lying down in my bed!) That was a real treat as I’d been sleeping in the recliner for most of this past week.

I did have a spell of insomnia around 1:00 AM, but I finally fell back asleep and slept in until 8:00 AM.