Text 21463, 102 rader
Skriven 2009-03-02 19:29:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: trip 304
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Ambien-deprived, Billy kept coming downstairs and pacing,
during which time he snacks. I joined him on one of his
forays: there was some leftover Wegman's fried chicken in
the fridge. It's not bad - better than the frozen stuff,
not so good as Popeye's. But it does the job in the middle
of the night. Annie and Billy have this joke that there's
a homeless guy who sneaks in at night and raids the fridge.
Well, now there's two homeless guys.

I had a glass of 1800 to help me get to sleep. I've been
here 5 days. Half a bottle of 1800 is gone, all of it mine.
That in addition to the mealtime beverages and the Bourbon.

Saw Billy off for his chemo. The cancer center is only a
half mile or so away, and so he drives himself. One of the
advantages of living on Doctors' Row.

Annie took me to the local hangout, Donna's, where we met
Rob for breakfast. Let me interject something I'd forgotten
to say. Annie goes to the country store in Pennsdale because
she is uncomfortable around the local butchery for the
following reason: Annie grew up around here and so knows and
is known. Don Waltman, the butcher, catered a party for one
of Annie's schoolmates or neighbors or something, and Sidney
stiffed Don (Sidney being one of the numerous unsavory women
Annie has tried to set me up with over the years). So now
Annie won't go to the shop. Anyhow, Donna's serves Don's
sausage, and this was the only place I'd be able to taste it.

Okay. I don't eat breakfast food in general, not just because
it's carbohydrate bombs, but because I far prefer savory food.
So I got an order of scrapple (enough carbohydrate there) and
an order of sausage. The scrapple was pretty good - no better
than mine, or Habbersett's, or Rapa, but made by Don's sausage
man, so I was supposed to genuflect before it. The sausage
didn't come. Meanwhile, Rob had eggs over easy with scrapple,
and Annie had the famed Philly cheesesteak omelet and a side
of hash browns. The omelet was gigantic. I tasted some of the
filling, which was okay meat, good onions, very gooey white
cheese, not provolone or Cheez Whiz. The sausage didn't come.

Don Waltman came in the door with a delivery. The sausage
eventually came. It was good, rather black peppery and more
seasoned with sage and savory than the country store stuff.
I thought it needed something so put some hot sauce on it,
which improved it. Don came by and sat with us: made some
small talk, and Annie ordered a batch of his famous stuffed
pork chops for dinner tonight - I was supposed to take Annie
and Billy out to dinner, but it's not going to happen, as
Billy will be sick from his chemo, plus he doesn't like to
go out with his pump (installed today, removed Wednesday).

As you can guess, this is a household in which the social
life revolves around food and cooking, which is fine with
me, mostly, but when the man of the house has colon cancer,
it becomes both difficult and ironic.

Okay. The highlights of the day. Going to the CVS for pain
killers and getting rooked. Buying coal - as Billy's sick,
Annie and I humped a third of a ton of coal between the
coal store and the house: the SUV helped, but there were
moments of walking along carrying vast weights.

The lowlight of the day. They found a metastasis in Billy's
lung: a couple cubic inches of solid cancer. After initial
consternation, he did okay. Annie didn't do so well. She
dialed the phone to friends, got choked up, and then I would
have to explain stuff to people I didn't know.

For our break we went to Don's store and picked up the
chops.

Come dinnertime. I unwrap the chops. Don's forgot to stuff
them. We have naked chops, so Annie - really ripped - makes
stuffing (sourdough crumbs, sage, an egg, a can of broth)
and I slit the chops and stuff them.

Anyhow, dinner was great. The chops, broccoli steamed with
lots of butter, the leftover Brussels from yesterday, reheated
with a ton of sherry. We asked Rob if Don Waltman's stuffing
was better than ours; answer: no.

Dessert: Cadbury's milk chocolate easter eggs. I ate several,
picking out the blue ones by preference. The blue and one other
color (pink, I think) have shells that taste like vanilla; the
outsides of the other colors (white and yellow) are neutral.

And two Haagen Dazs products:

Creme brulee - a sort of nothing custard swirled with caramel.
Hello, Haagen! A few pennies' worth of vanilla per batch, and
you could have had a winner.

Coconut sorbet - quite smooth, moderate coconuttiness, a little
sweet. Okay plus.

And I came close to finishing the tequila. 4 oz of the stuff
a day all week. I hope I have a liver tomorrow.

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