STLWorkingMom

It started off badly, got worse and then just settled to a low hum of awful. First thing this morning, my husband told me of an e-mail we’d gotten with a status update on our friend M. I’ve written about her battle with metastatic breast cancer before. She’s in the ICU at a St. Louis hospital with a ventilator tonight. She’s been there since the weekend. The prognosis is, as they say, not good. St. Louis has never seemed  quite so far away.

I sort of fell apart when telling the boy the latest news about our friend. He was kind enough to wrap his 6′7″ wingspan around me and let me cry on his shoulder. It’s the first time I’ve cried in my child’s arms, as opposed to the reverse. Thank God for children, I thought, even when they make us crazy, they’re there for us. Kids can say the same about parents, I suppose.

It was hard to stay focused through the day. Other concerns weigh heavily and I’m eager to get through the week. As Ed said, so perfectly in his e-mail this morning, if you’re Hindu, Enlightened or other, say a prayer, light a candle, take a moment . . . please. Our friend and all who love her need it.

On Sunday, I made a blueberry lattice-top pie. It was the first time I’d made a blueberry pie from fresh blueberries. It wasn’t perfect, but it was very good; I particularly liked the all-butter crust. Warmed a bit in the microwave with a dollop of vanilla ice cream, this pie was fresh-tasting and delicious and not at all hard to make.

The husband, though, laid down the law. No more pies every other day or more than once a week. In fact, I’m on a pie ban; one pie every seven days; no more. He has two good reasons for this. One, food prices have really shot up. Each pie I make costs about $10. Two, we have lost a combined total of about 30 lbs. and if we keep eating pie at this rate, it’s all going back on, something neither of us want.

I’m disappointed, though, because my family (mom, dad, sister, father-in-law and mother-in-law) arrive Friday and I know they’ll be expecting pie.

Of course, I still hadn’t figured out which pie or pies to create. And of course, there is the high probability that the pie I might make would be a disaster. At this point, I consider all my pies test pies.

On the other hand, I’m making dinner, breakfast and lunch, cleaning the house and otherwise preparing for not one but two graduations (the boy from H.S., the girl from elementary school). I may be better off without any pie stress. Maybe we’ll just get an ice cream cake from DQ.

You know, I think I like photographing my pies as much as I like making them and, of course, eating them.

It’s fun to think about the right setting for the pie, the right background color. I like the blue wall and the chair with this pie, with its beautiful purple-blue fruit peeking through the top.

So I’ll be pie-free for a few days, scrubbing toilets and floors, dusting (over and over again; what’s up with all this dang pollen?) and cooking.

Friday night, I made a pie. I made up the recipe as I went along, something I do not recommend. I had graham cracker crumbs which, mixed with butter and brown sugar became a crust. I cooked up some vanilla pudding and created the bottom layer. Then I melted a whole bunch of semi-sweet chocolate with butter and added that as a layer. Next, I whipped some peanut butter with yogurt and powdered sugar and spread that over the top. I put it all in the fridge to set and we ate some about an hour later.

I can’t say it’s the best pie I’ve ever made. Not the worst, either. Not much too look at, that’s for sure. Teenage boys will eat anything, though, and they downed some of the pie, not guessing that it was something I’d made up and pulled in bits out of the pantry.

Ever made up a pie with stuff you had in the house?

I am a girl who has always wanted a deep, dark tan. I am also, sadly, a girl who has never been more than a nice off-white. Beige, at most. Oh, I’ve been orange, too. But that’s another story.

I’ve tried to get an outdoor tan, before we were all so completely aware of the hole in the ozone and the threat of skin cancer. In the 1970s I slathered myself with Bain de Soleil and prayed for a golden-hued miracle. Mostly I burned, then faded. When I was nine, I played the role of Emile Debeque’s half-Polynesian daughter in a local production of South Pacific. Unable to acquire a tropical tan before showtime, a makeup lady covered what showed of my legs, arms, neck and face with pancake makeup five shades darker than my skin — every night for a week.

In high school, tanning beds were the rage. Girls I knew frequented tanning salons and became various shades of copper. Some, rumored to have their own tanning bed in their home, turned prematurely leathery and brown as dried tobacco leaves. I was fearful of that extent of tan, and in fact, was forbidden to tan. So of course, I did, sneaking out to a salon on the outskirts of town that charged just $5 a tan. I attempted to gain a tan before prom. It didn’t happen. Instead, I burned and itched like crazy.

Years later, approaching a Hawaii trip, I tried indoor tanning again. That trip, combined with the pre-gaming I did indoors, is possibly the tannest I’ve ever been. Not one person commented on my tan upon my return. I was, of course, merely cafe au lait; light.

I’ve tried self-tanners, which have significantly improved over the years. My mother tells a story about a self-tanner she tried in the ’50s or ’60s; it turned her legs a bright, streaky orange. This didn’t dissuade me from trying them in my early twenties. The first time, memorably, was before the Styx concert we went to at The Fox in St. Louis. We met the band backstage after the show and in the photos we captured of the moment, I do look slightly healthier than my usual Helena Bonham Carter pallor. As the self-tanner faded, my legs grew scaly and looked diseased.

In the last few years I’ve grown fond of the Neutrogena line of build-a-tan lotions. They’re subtle, and not orangey. Want more tan? Apply more often. Sometimes, as lately, I’ve been in a hurry though, and not applied thoroughly, or well. The result of this is occasional miscolored patches; or uncolored patches, I guess. So right now I’ve got a foot that appears to be afflicted with the disease Michael Jackson has.

I’m very attracted to the idea of the Mystic Tan. I’m afraid to actually do it: the idea of being sprayed with chemicals in an enclosed area is rather frightening for anyone familiar with the Holocaust. Isn’t this a bit vain, I think, being willing to enclose yourself in a box and exposing yourself to God-knows-what we will find out this is going to do to us years later? Plus, I don’t know what it costs but I do know that it only lasts a few days. With my luck, I’d come out ochre and wheezing.

I’m destined to remain mostly white, with seasons of off-white with a chance of splotchy legs. I hope the result of all this is that I’ll keep deep wrinkles at bay longer than my high school tanorexic friends (um, I realize this is a real condition, I’m not making fun). I’m OK with that, in general. But just once it would be cool, I think, to know what I’d look like all bronzed and summery.

Do you tan?

Last week, I traveled to St. Louis on Wednesday and came home again on Saturday. I tend to go off-blog when I travel. Plus, the travel days were exceptionally long and we were so busy when I returned, I’m just now catching my breath. Some highlights:

I was able to spend quality time with my colleagues and friends while in St. Louis, including saying goodbye to one of my work friends who has left to pursue her MBA full-time.

I was able to see my friend M. who continues her struggle with cancer.

I saw Wilco at the Pageant, and confirmed that THAT’S how to see a band, in the town they came from.

Upon returning to St. Louis, I baked two “cheater” pies meaning, refrigerated crusts, canned pie filling — enhanced of course with fresh blueberries and apples, respectively.  I didn’t even photograph them, even though I think they looked lovely. I made them to take to the high school band awards banquet and was delighted when they disappeared in record time. They were, I think, the only homemade pies on the dessert table. Go pie!

We spent five hours Sunday going to a band concert and the aforementioned banquet. It was worth it. It’s our last. (Sniff!)

From there it’s been an endless parade of catching up on laundry and work.

The good news is I will travel much less this year so these trips to St. Louis end up having more meaning and more quality time rather than being a frantic marathon of trying to pack too much in. I think I’m now rested up, caught up and ready to tackle the week ahead, which will include Memorial Day weekend and preparation for graduation. I’m starting to plan the graduation pies!