Sunday, June 9, 2019

I Think We've Been Down This Road Before

Last evening, I ascended the basement stairs to talk to Farmer H before he left for the auction. It was pre-planned (heh, heh, as opposed to post-planned) that he would be having spaghetti for his supper. I made it for him on Thursday, and he ate it again on Friday night. It's unusual to have Farmer H agree to THREE nights of a leftover. But he really likes spaghetti. I, myself, do not.

Yes, this was one of the most convenient meals I can make. The most time-consuming part was frying the hamburger for the sauce. Which is canned. Surely you didn't think I made it from scratch! I just added some canned mushrooms and the hamburger and a little dab of butter and a couple packets of artificial sweetener (no sugar for Farmer H, there's enough in the canned sauce), and some minced garlic squeezed from a plastic bottle. I'm thinking of opening my own gourmet restaurant!

Anyhoo... I made the sauce Thursday morning before I went to town, so it could sit in FRIG II all day co-mingling the flavors. Also because I wanted those dishes washed, with only the noodles to boil Thursday evening. I made enough noodles to put in the leftover sauce, and stored them in a quart plastic container that once held take-out Hot & Sour Soup. Voila! THREE meals, one prep!

Anyhoo... as I came up the steps last evening, I saw Farmer H's feet kicked out on the La-Z-Boy footrest. He had a paper plate of spaghetti in his hands. Huh. I would put mine in a glass bowl, but then, I don't like spaghetti.

"Did you warm up my supper, too?"

"What?"

"Did you warm my supper?"

"YOUR supper? No. I'm just having my leftover spaghetti. You don't even LIKE spaghetti!"

"That's right. I don't. Just thought you might have left me some. Since you were warming it." [In the microwave on a paper plate. I, myself, would have heated it in a pan with a lid, stirring often, possibly adding a bit of pizza sauce from a jar with a resealable lid. But I don't like spaghetti.]

Talk drifted into whether The Pony would be able to traverse the recently flooded Oklahoma highways to meet us for a visit.

"Did you check the roads?"

"It's not easy. Everything I click on keeps taking me back to May 24, when it was flooded so bad. You have to get on the Oklahoma Department of Transportation website, and specifically look for Muskogee and Highway 69. I think I only found it on an interactive map."

So what does Farmer H do? Gets out his phone to prove me wrong. Does a bunch of searches. Says he found it. Triumphantly reads to me a travel report saying how Highway 69 is like driving over a washboard between Chekotah and Muskogee.

"We know it's really rough. I doubt being underwater has helped it. What's the date on that? Is it even current?"

"Oh. Um. That's from 2014."

Farmer H spent 20 minutes looking. Finally taking my advice to get on the interactive map. Which wouldn't load for him.

"Maybe you can look it up on your computer," he said, as I returned from the bathroom.

"Sure. I'm used to doing everything for you."

"Everything FOR ME? You don't do everything for me! I warmed up my own spaghetti!"

"Which I made for you. I do EVERYTHING for you! Like just now, wiping your pee off the toilet. With my butt."

4 comments:

Sioux Roslawski said...

Aaah, urine on the toilet seat. We have "discussions" on who gets urine on the toilet rim--the rim under the seat.

Like the miracle loogie on Seinfeld, according to my husband, my urine is able to curve around the seat--leaving it untouched--and splatter onto the rim and the floor.

Hillbilly Mom said...

Sioux,
Wow. He must be really wise to be able to calculate the trajectory. So wise that he would probably be the one to ask who really owns a little girl's bicycle: a spared-square-needing woman with a face like a frying pan, big wall of hair, who dances with thumbs and little kicks... or a portly mailman, raised in the Pacific Northwest, who can shinny up a tree like a ring-tailed lemur to get a man's fur coat that was tossed out a window onto the branches.

River said...

Oh Yuk! Pee on the toilet seat. You'll have to et into the habit of wiping the seat before you sit. Just in case.
And what's this about pizza sauce in the spaghetti? That's just nuts in my opinion.
I make my spag with a store bought jar of sauce as a base, but I don't add meat. I fry onion and garlic with finely chopped or grated carrot, then add the jar of sauce and a half jar of water and after it has simmered a while I add a grated zucchini for thickening and a finely chopped portobello mushroom, then let it simmer again. I also put in tomato paste and some dried parsley. Then I freeze meal sized portions so I just have to cook my pasta of choice on the day.

Hillbilly Mom said...

River,
Maybe I should have Farmer H install one of those dispensers for paper toilet seat covers!

The pizza sauce is a quick way to moisten the leftovers after the noodles have soaked up sauce. Farmer H likes his spaghetti dryer. I don't like spaghetti, but for The Pony, I'd add more sauce. The pizza sauce jar can be closed up and not wasted, unlike the spaghetti sauce that I buy in a can. Quick fix. Besides, The Pony really likes pizza.

Your sauce sounds delicious, if I liked spaghetti. I've added fried onions before for Farmer H, but The Pony was not a fan. I also had to add the mushrooms later, once The Pony had been sauced.