Sunday, Sunday

The apartment smells like vanilla and key lime and sweetness. It's hot right now and I'm sitting in the middle of hell with these power surges. I finally turned on the ceiling fan and the fan in the bedroom is going but the heat from the oven in the kitchen and the lack of strong breezes through the windows doesn't help regulate my thermostat. The power surges don't last long and they're not as bad as at first. At least I'm not sitting in the heart of the sun -- yet.

Yesterday I met my favorite couple at Poor Richard's for lunch and book shopping and a cooling ice cream sundae (one of us had iced coffee and complained it wasn't Starbucks). We left shortly after, talking outside near my car before going our separate ways.

Today I decided to play with Dave's cheesecake recipe. I bought a bag of key limes at the grocery store yesterday because the night before I woke up in the middle of the night with the idea for key lime cheesecake. If this recipe works out I'll need to get a lime juicer. It's a bit messy using my favorite wooden lemon reamer. I did forget the vanilla wafers and had to go back to the store to get some today. My hand held cheese and vegetable grater works quickly and well crushing up the vanilla wafers for the crust and I used the microwave to melt the butter. Yes, I used artery clogging real sweet creamery butter. There's no sense indulging myself and my friends if I'm going to skimp on the ingredients or use substitutes. Mom asked me why I didn't buy bottled lime juice but it's not the same and you can't get fresh lime zest from a bottle of reconstituted concentrate.

I did taste the batter -- it is the baker's job to make sure the batter is the right consistency and has the right balance of ingredients. It's a nasty job and I won't ask someone to do what I won't do myself. Back to the batter...it tastes wonderful, just that right balance of key lime juice tartness and sweetness and rich creaminess from the cream cheese and eggs. Since I used 3/4 cup of lime juice I decided to add another egg to keep the batter from being too watery, thicken it up a bit with those lovely organic vegetarian eggs. I added one cup of sour cream to balance the sweetness of the cream cheese and blend with the tartness of the key lime juice.

Now I have to wait 24 hours before I can even unmold the cheesecake but I will taste it tomorrow. I'm not taking the whole cheesecake with me, just half of it. The other half is already spoken for. I told Nel and the landlady I'm not guaranteeing the results but it should at least be edible and I was able to taunt my mother with my next variation on the recipe -- chocolate raspberry cheesecake with real organic cocoa and pureed fresh raspberries swirled through the decadent richness of the chocolate. I'll have to figure out something to balance the dryness of the cocoa.

So enough of all this food talk.

The latest news on KAØPII, Dean Haskins, and even though he isn't awake yet he is moving around and responds to commands, even to the point of squeezing hands, balls and a teddy bear. There is some determinism to his movements but they won't know anything for sure until he actually wakes up. Opening his eyes doesn't count since he isn't focusing.

When I talked to my mother she had just returned from Lima, Ohio and seeing her best friend who is also in the hospital with blood sugar over 600 and what they think was a stroke. Mom is understandably upset as more and more of her family and friends succumb to the end of their lives. She sounded scared and sad. At least she rode up to Lima and back in my brother's Mercedes. Mom was awed that my brother's car talks to him -- probably with a female voice. He also has a talking GPS and that surprised Mom just as much. Sometimes I wonder where she has been during this century. At least Dad has an excuse; he is always chasing chickens and planting trees and flowers and finding ways to make enough money to keep Mom. Sometimes I think he should have sold her and kept Fred, the flea bite appaloosa-Arabian. It would have been cheaper.

The thing is that Dad is just as expensive to keep as Mom with his obsession with chickens and growing things. All Mom buys is jewelry and clothes and shoes and purses and fabric and yarn and whore house dining room furniture and wall coverings and collectible carnival glass. At least Dad's chickens give him fresh eggs and his plants protect the topsoil and provide shade for the decks and house and beauty for the eyes and soul. It certainly doesn't cost anything for him to smack a hen upside the head when she's misbehaving or chase the roosters around his 6.5 acres with a switch or a blue bucket. From what I can tell, they do not need to be taken in a wrap-around jacket to a loony bin -- they're already there.