Cracking Eggs

If someone wants practise cracking eggs, then the summer is a good time to let children do it. The kitchen needs 3 or 4 cartons of eggs whenever egg foo yung is on the menu – or even when waffles are made in the morning -- there is a large call on eggs.

Here, in London, no one is crazy about eggs.

Duncan is amenable to cracking them into the pan if Rebecca and I will eat a fried egg.
So far none of the yolks have made it to the pan and then out again in a perfectly round formation. I tell him to come in lower when he puts them in the pan. He tells me that he watches this done on TV and the cooks start high. Who am I to argue with someone who has watched professionals at work.

I walked the dog today at 2;30. The drizzle was turning to rain. I had to walk that dog before Duncan came home. This is the reason why.

Duncan's ticket for The Sunshine Boys

Last night we went to the theatre to see The Sunshine Boys.

The timing had been perfect for the day. I was to drop off the dog at 2:30 and pick her up 3 hours later, then go to the theatre. But she was not ready as promised. I was to come back in another hour.

That was going to push the theatre back so far that Duncan and I would only get there for the second act. That didn’t make Duncan happy.

Alex didn’t think he could stay on his feet long enough to get the dog for he had been home from school, sick. Rebecca was a genius. She told us to take a taxi back to the kennel. Then Duncan and I could ride the tube from East Finchley to the Embankment and Alex could go home in a taxi with the dog.

I had this arranged on the phone when i called for the taxi. When Alex ran into Fetch 22 to pick up Kiwi – that is the moment when the taxi driver said, “No dogs in the taxi.”

“What!”  Apparently this taxi drive doesn't do dogs.

Alex echoed, “What”, when he came out with the dog and saw the taxi pulling away.

Duncan and I abandoned Alex. We didn’t look back. He was an hour away from home, Kiwi’s leash was in his hand, and the taxi was driving off.

Duncan and I had theatre on our minds. Duncan also had on his mind – the treats for the theatre. I
carry a bag of them – half the size of Wyona’s theatre sash, but double the size of any cache that I have previously imagined.

Duncan was right. At that moment, I was not armed with that mysterious ‘je ne said quoi’ that makes theatre going really interesting for grandchildren.

“The treats, the threats,” Duncan was perseverating on my failure to be totally prepared for the theatre.

“Your mother is there ahead of us. She will have a bag full for you. Be calm,” I said.

“I will bet you ‘walking the dog tomorrow’ that she doesn’t’”, said Duncan.

 ... Please, don't throw me in the brier patch, er, um I mean ...
... Please don't make me walk the dog...

That is the reason I had to walk the dog today.

The walk with Kiwi took 30 minutes.

The clean up afterward took me an hour.

Kiwi pulled me down a gentle slope, the grass glistening from the rain. My arms starting to flail backward for balance until my feet could run no more. I stopped when I was flat onto my back in a puddle of English mud. A large pool. Lucky me. An all points landing.

And so to return to what Duncan needs to practise – cracking eggs, we made a chocolate cake from a mix today. His first cake.

And as to what I must practise – no more making bets with Duncan.

Arta