neighbors | Inane Chatter

I swear I’ve got it all under control

Published November 19th, 2012 at 7:53 pm by Zannah in food, holidays, John, neighbors with 2 comments
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I baked today. In fact, I’m still baking. And I need to check on my pies – the last thing I need is burned pie after all that effort.

So far so good. Now, at least. I was up to my elbows in pie filling about an hour ago. I pulled up my recipe (yes, MY recipe – eleven Thanksgivings ago, I experimented until I came up with the ideal sweet potato pie recipe), checked that I had everything to make two pies (I had double the ingredients listed in my recipe), and threw the sweet potatoes (I got them before breakfast this morning) into a pot to boil. All EIGHT largish sweet potatoes, because my recipe called for four. They boiled forever, and then they cooled, and then I got my mixer out. I peeled four of them, put them in the mixer, and realized that was about all that would fit. Okay, no problem, I’ll just get one pie ready, then do the second. I mixed everything together, pulled out my pie crusts (I make pie filling, not pie crusts), filled one of them, and realized I had enough filling left in the bowl for a whole ‘nother pie. What? So I filled the second pie crust. (I may have overfilled it a little.) Then I looked at the other FOUR giant sweet potatoes that were sitting there in the pot, already cooked, just waiting to be peeled and turned into pie. I had one more pie crust because I always buy one extra (I usually have enough filling left over for a little pie), but that clearly wasn’t going to be enough. I put the two pies that were ready to go into the oven, shoved the dogs into the backyard so they wouldn’t be tempted to counter-surf for drops of pie filling, and raced to the nearest grocery store for another pie crust. (I get nervous leaving the house with the oven on.) I got there, picked up one crust, grabbed a set of six mini-pie crusts (perfect for that little bit of filling left over, right?), and raced back home. Nothing burned down, so I made the rest of the pie filling. Turns out those last four sweet potatoes were ALL bigger than the first four, so after I filled the other two regular size pie crusts, I had enough filling left in the bowl for at least another whole pie. No more whole crusts, though, so I filled the six little mini crusts and called my neighbor Beth. “Anyone in the family allergic to pie? No? Wonderful! ‘Cause I seem to have vastly overestimated how many sweet potatoes I needed to cook.” She opted for the mini pies, so John and I are now discussing who we’re giving the fourth pie to. (We’re keeping one, and two are slated for Thanksgiving dessert.) It has to be someone we’ll see in the next day or two, so it’ll either be a work friend or another neighbor. Tough choices to make.

Anyway, I have now added the crucial information that was missing from my recipe. My sweet potato pie recipe, as written, makes TWO pies. Never forget.

Batten down the hatches

Published October 27th, 2012 at 4:38 pm by Zannah in food, neighbors, weather with no comments
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You can’t tell by looking out the window today, but apparently, the world is going to end soon. Probably Tuesday. Judging by the crowd at Wegmans this morning, though, everyone is pessimistic about that and planning for the apocalypse to occur tomorrow. Yes, I was part of that crowd, but not for the same reasons. Not out of panic. I went because we had NO food in the house. You know, the normal reason you go to the grocery store. Something I’ve been avoiding for the past couple of weeks because, I don’t know, going to the grocery store sucks. I went, and we have food, but we’re still going out for dinner tonight because I told one of the neighbors we were (as my excuse not to go to her house for bunko). She lives across the street, so we kinda have to actually leave the house. Damn.

I might be the only who’d pay to see this movie

Published April 17th, 2012 at 8:43 pm by Zannah in books, neighbors, people, trying new things with 1 comments
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I think I just joined a book club. I went Friday night to my neighbor’s book club to meet people, drink wine, and talk about The Snow Child (we certainly talked about it, but that was far from the main event). There were 9 other women there, and all of them have known each other for a long time, so I wasn’t sure how this was going to go. Four people in this group started the book club FOURTEEN years ago (one of them is my neighbor), and three of those four (the three who are not my neighbor) have known each other since high school (which for me was 15 years ago, so longer than that for them. I think). Thankfully, it was not at all awkward. They were so welcoming, really friendly, and despite the fact that I was the only one there who does not work for a local school district in any capacity and who doesn’t have kids, I didn’t feel like an outsider. It was fun. Really pleasant. I’d like to do it again.

It could have been a movie. All of these women, all gorgeous in cute but casual clothes, clustered in ever-changing groups around the island in our hostess’s beautiful kitchen, chatting, drinking wine, snacking. I can just see a camera swooping in from an upper angle and swirling around to follow snippets of conversations. Later, the camera would follow our move to the family room to talk about the book. We sat in a circle around the coffee table (some on the floor, on the couch, on ottomans), and the camera would shift from the middle of the group to an over-the-shoulder shot and back until it lifts out of the center and off to the side.

I think I’ve already seen this movie.

Socializing

Published September 20th, 2011 at 9:07 pm by Zannah in a little bit random, general, John, neighbors, trying new things with 3 comments
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John and I have lived in this house for almost six years. We know the people in three houses around us by name, and of those three, we only know the last names of the people immediately next door. We say hi on the sidewalk, help them shovel snow, and occasionally chat with the kids. Six years. Pathetic and anti-social, that’s us. In our defense, everyone in this neighborhood has kids (except us, of course), so they all know each other from school and play groups and the bus stop. Paper-thin, I know. We haven’t made an effort, and honestly, we haven’t minded all that much. I’ve met a few more people who live nearby since I joined the gym six months ago, but that hasn’t lead to real relationships. Until now, possibly. Maybe. Friday afternoon, a woman I know from the gym called to invite me to play bunco with her club that night. They need 12 people, and two of their regulars couldn’t make it. “Is it a problem that I don’t know what bunco is?” “Not in the least. Bring $10.” Yeah, that doesn’t sound shady at all. Come play a game you’ve barely heard of. We’ll take your money. She said it’s easy and mindless, and the club is really just an excuse to for the members to eat, drink, chat, and maybe win a few dollars. I went. She wasn’t lying – all you have to do is count, and the rest of pure chance. I can do that. And with only $10 at stake, it’s no big deal if I lose. Which I did not do. There are twelve rounds (six winners in each round), and I won the most rounds, so I took home $40. Not a bad way to be introduced to a game. I’m certain it’ll never happen again. (This is how it starts.) I played, I met 10 new people, it was enjoyable enough, and John and I were invited to a block party the next day. That was a bit more awkward than bunco night, but shortly after we sat down at a picnic table with our food, a couple came over, said “Oh, good – faces we recognize!”, and sat down. They’re the neighbors across the street and over one house, the ones with the very friendly cat and five kids (mostly grown, all living at home). Now we know their first names (but not their last name – what is wrong with us?). Had a good time chatting with them for over an hour. So, yay. Neighbors.

There was a spider in my car today. It was crawling across the roof (upside down, on the inside of the sunroof), and I know this because I was watching it when I should have been watching the road. Spiders are not allowed in my car! Maybe I need to put up a sign. Maybe our new neighbor friends are exterminators. Except they’re not. Every single person we met was either a teacher or a government contractor. Not that those are bad things to be, but they don’t help me much when I’m trying to keep a crazed and bloodthirsty spider at bay while making a left turn. Inconsiderate of them, to say the least.

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I swear I’ve got it all under control

Batten down the hatches

I might be the only who’d pay to see this movie

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