apple pie

apples were on sale this week at foodland. so i got in tuned with my domestic side (which doesn't see the light of day all that frequently) and made some pies. then i cleaned my bathroom and made my bed and put domestic back in the closet and settled down to eat pie and read a book :).

pearl harbor

(sorry the order is weird)

hawaiian rainbow

the first time i ever heard of hawaii was second grade music class with mrs. zimmerman. i remember flipping through my music book (to be left in the music room. not to be taken from the music classroom. ever. under any condition.) every week, looking at the pictures. the hawaiian rainbows song was towards the middle-end of the book. i was thrilled the day we finally got to sing:

hawaiian rainbows

great clouds roll by

they fall from heaven

down through the sky.

i see a hawaiian rainbow at least once a week- sometimes twice or three times. and every single time, this song comes to mind.

fire!

here is a clip of the best-ever-so-far scene from the office: check it out! i have watched this scene three times and laughed out loud every time. it's classic.

happy valentine's day!

i’ve never been a big fan of valentine’s day.

i don’t remember celebrating it before i entered kindergarten. so that first valentine’s day party was very exciting. i carefully prepared my valentines, and arrived to find a variety of sugary treats eagerly awaiting my arrival.

i don’t remember much about the party, but i do know that valentines were exchanged, and the consumption of unhealthy quantities of sugar occurred. i may even remember one of my parents cautioning me about the downfall of ingesting too much sweetness in one sitting once the remnants of my cardboard and construction paper mail box and i arrived home.

my mom got a degree in health and nutrition in college. as the first child, my sugary choices were limited. the only cookies i knew were oatmeal raisin and the russian tea-cakes my dad made once a year. (by the time number six came along, many of these healthy eating principals had gone out the window, except we all harbored an open disdain for store bought baked goods because the home made variety were so much better.) so needless to say, the aura of all the store-bought goodness was crippling. i didn’t have the willpower to muster up a “no” in the face of a new, different heart shaped confection.

my next memory is of the blue carpet in our ranch-style home. my bedroom was about ten 6-year old steps from the bathroom. that was approximately seven steps too many. before i knew it, the contents of my valentine’s day binge were all over the carpet.

needless to say, any valentine’s days that followed were eyed with suspicion. every school year after that, i would dutifully hand out my valentines and nibble on a brownie, but i would never party with the abandon that i’d had fateful first valentine’s day.

so what did i do today? made a half batch of oatmeal raisin cookies. they were quite tasty, still warm out of the oven.

composed in china (june, 2008)

smoke falls to the ground
life ignites, burns, smothers
falls to the ground
vanishes
once and for all
because one chance is all you get.

(and this came together because i watched the smoke from a cigarette literally fall through the fog to the sidewalk. as much as i detest smoking, it was beautiful.)

apple cinnamon

do any of you remember dannon apple cinnamon yogurt? it was available for purchase at your local martin's supermarket in the mid-1990's. it was my favorite. the only flavor worth buying in my humble opinion. but then some high-powered, over-paid, under-educated, unknowledgeable dannon executive decided to cut the production of the flavor. i was crushed. i had to make do with mediocre peach and blueberry and raspberry flavors. 

until today.

i visited our local foodland grocery store with a coupon for yoplait yogurt in hand the other day. i parked myself and my shopping basket in front of the display and read through the flavors: which fortunate canisters of yogurt would be coming home with me?

then i saw it.

apple turnover.

hmmm... turnovers are apple-y and cinnoman-y, are they not? i thought to myself.

i was not disappointed. it's just as good as i remember the dannon yogurt being. i am pleased beyond all reason.

this morning, i read through the foodland ad for this week. yoplait's on sale this week: 10/$6 and i have another coupon besides that. i am thinking of abandoning all second-rate flavors in persuit of the only one worth my consumption: apple turnover.