It's no secret that I am not a religious
person. I am spiritual in that I believe there is a something
bigger than ourselves, but not an old bearded man in a golden chair
watching over everything we do, giving conflicting orders to different
religions.
However, that said, I grew up with
traditions around religion. So I celebrate Christmas, Easter and
other religious holidays. Maybe my favorite holiday is Shrove
Tuesday, which is rooted in the Christian tradition of Lent, the 40 days
before Easter when people are encouraged to give up certain luxuries as
a penance for their sinful ways.
If you live in New Orleans, you do it in
spectacular fashion during Mardi Gras ("fat Tuesday") celebrations.
I don't think much about my sinful ways
when Shrove Tuesday rolls around. I think about the fact that
tradition says you eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and I am
all about pancakes. The explanation for why you eat pancakes is
that pancake recipes are thought to date back to the Pagan times as a
way of using up eggs, flour and milk in one dish and you are thus able
to rid your house of temptation before Lent starts.
Some Christians believe that the four
ingredients in pancakes represent the four pillars of the Christian
faith: flour for sustenance, eggs for creation, milk for purity and salt
for wholesomeness.
The heck with that. I just like
pancakes, but I rarely make them.
However, this year we received a gift
from Walt's sister and her husband following their trip to the east
coast....
...and Shrove Tuesday seems to be the
best time to try it out, so we will be cracking out the cinnamon bun mix
and real maple sugar and celebrating Shrove Tuesday this morning.
We have a smoke detector that drives me
absolutely nuts. We have one downstairs and one upstairs. It
seems that all I have to do is turn on the stove and it goes off.
Any time I am cooking anything, the
slightest bit of searing causes the damn detector to start blaring.
And 90% of the time it happens when I'm in the middle of doing something
I can't stop doing to push the button that quiets it.
The button is in the middle of the
detector, which is on the ceiling just inside the front door and can be
reached by a pole that I use to push up on it, if I can center the pole
around the tiny button.
As I get older, my balance isn't all that
great (one reason I walk with a cane) and standing under the damn
detector with my head tilted all the way back trying to get the pole
centered over the little button has more often than not caused me to get
dizzy and lose my balance. Thank goodness there is a wall for me
to hang onto, which means I'm working with only one hand to push the
button.
Walt is almost always upstairs when the
smoke detector goes off and has to come down, climb over the gate that
blocks the stairs so that Polly doesn't go upstairs, and silence the
detector.
If I'm alone in the house, I may let the
detector go off for several minutes until I finish what I'm doing.
No neighbor has ever come to see if everything is all right!
Every night I end up cursing the damn
smoke detector.
Last night I was getting ready to sear
some shrimp and had put oil in the pan and was standing with my back to
the stove, patting the shrimp dry, when the smoke detector went off.
I cursed, Walt yelled that he'd get it and then when I turned back to
the stove, I saw that it was on fire. A potholder I had left on
the stove had caught on fire, as had a wooden spoon.
In an instant, my hatred of the smoke
detector melted and I was glad we had it.
No comments:
Post a Comment