My oh my what a day. It all started with the case of the missing blueberry. We were making blueberry muffins this morning and I laid out all the ingredients and after we measured and mixed everything, we couldn’t find the blueberries. We immediately thought Henry Houdini, the king of disappearing things, made off with them. His favorite place to put things is in the garbage–like throwing my cell phone in the kitchen trash where it sinks to the bottom after intermingling with the most disgusting stuff. His other favorite hiding spots are shoed or boots.
We scoured the house from top to bottom looking for the blueberries. We even looked under the couches. We found all sorts of blue things, but no blueberries.
We looked for clues, the first being the spot of blue paint on the bottom of Henry’s foot. After an hour of searching, I said forget it and substituted chocolate chips. I moved the cookbook to see how long to bake them and…lo and behold–there the little vixens were! Hiding under the cookbook!
From there we went to the fabulous Cathy’s house. Cathy is the amazing photographer who took most of the photos on this blog. She’s also one of my dearest friends. She planned a Halloween cookie baking party for Henry and Annabelle.
So we donned our galoshes and took a rain walk down there, Henry running into every puddle. He insists on wearing Annabelle’s pink cowboy boots, a good look with his shorts. At least he had taken off the coin belly dancing hip scarf he’d been wearing to dance earlier!
It’s been so hot and humid here it’s like a steam room outside. The plants are growing wild and sultry, flowers opening their velvet petals, ivy curling up the giant trunks of trees, the sidewalks broken and erupting from their massive roots. The colors looked like they were glowing in the rain light.
Henry and Annabelle are wild for Cathy’s cat, Colonel Bourgeous, a gorgeous big eyed tabby who does an impressive job of tolerating screams of delight and patting baby hands.The warmth of the oven, the smell of baking dough, frosting smeared all over a baby chin–it was a heavenly afternoon.
I’d have to say the climax of the day, though, was sitting down to dinner and having Henry put his plate of veggie burger over the top of his head, rubbing it around so the ketchup could really get enmeshed in his hair. Annabelle shook her head and looked at me and said “That baby!” I told her if Henry was Native American they would call him Chief Messy Baby. Even after a good scrub in the tub, he still smells like ketchup!
