Cooking Day, Coughing Day

What do you do when you sleep until 8:30?  Well, first you almost forget that you have a mechanic appointment to get your car gone over, oil changed, and winterized.  Lucky for you the garage is a mere 2 blocks away.  Whew.

Then you decide to make the Pesto Chicken Spaghetti Squash Casserole (how's that for a mouthful of a recipe name?) because it's been chilly the last few nights and the basil in the garden won't put up with cold for long.  I went out and clipped all of it, then spent some time with the herb shears, snipping off leaves and frost-nipped ends of leaves to make 4 cups since I planned to make a double batch of WW Pesto.  It didn't thicken up like it said it would and made the casserole very wet but it tasted right and I took off the foil and baked it longer so it was edible--and delicious.  Plus there's seven more servings!  It really pays to skim through the comments on AllRecipes from people who've made the recipe.  I learned that the spaghetti squash needs to be baked cut side UP and at 450 degrees so that the resulting casserole isn't too soupy.  Of course, my un-thick pesto contributed its own soupy factor but all that was fixed in the end and notes were made for future makings.

I decided to not go to knitting this evening because just as I was going to gather up my stuff I had a coughing jag that made my chest hurt so I thought I'd be smart to go get more cough medicine and stay home, not share my germs or virus or WHATEVER with the knitters.  I can't wait to see the doc on Tuesday.  Anywho, I realized that I'd misread Round 3 of the Slip-Stitch Cap pattern so I frogged back to the ribbing, picked up the stitches, and took another run at it.  I like the subtle color shift between the two grays.


October 5--Maria Callas as Tosca.  Backstage the shadows were inky and the curtains wavered in an imperceptible air current.  The old theater creaked and groaned like everybody's grandpa's knees and it smelled just about as stale.  Years of notices and scraps of playbills hung from yellowed tape from the painted brick walls.

I got a tune-up and a new battery, got my tires rotated and an oil change so the car should be good for The Clearing and Kentucky and the winter.  Cars, can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.  I'm going to spread Vicks on my chest and hit the sack.
--Barbara