A Weird Evening

As I trudged home from the evening service on Sunday, I was planning the dinner I would fix for myself. My mouth watered as I thought about it! My idea was to slice up an onion, and sauté it till beautifully translucent, add a clove or two of sliced garlic and give that a few turns, and then dump in a bagful of spinach.  In just a couple of stirs, that would be nicely wilted and wonderful.  (I love spinach altogether and in any form.)  When the spinach was nearly ready and nicely salted and peppered, I would plop in an egg and poach it in the spinach with the pan covered so the top of the egg would get cooked more quickly.  Not too cooked though – just still nice and runny – but not too runny.   Mmmmmmmmmm!  I pictured the whole process as I trotted along through the brisk autumn air.  I could not wait, and knew that I could have this ready within minutes of stepping in my door.  And sure enough, I did.  It was so lovely that I debated getting my camera and taking a blog picture.  But no, the light was too dim, and I was too hungry! I sat down, poured myself a nice glass of wine to accompany my meal, and ….. blip ……      No lights.  No lights anywhere. My kitchen was dark as the inside of a cow.  The whole neighborhood was dark as the inside of a cow! What to do?  Eat in the dark? That didn’t sound good, especially with a poached egg.  Those are not darkness friendly.  I managed to find a candle, started my meal, and called my aunt, who lives just around the corner.  She had been in her pantry when the lights went out, and couldn’t find her way out.  She later said that she had somehow made a mental 90° turn without actually making that turn. Hence the confusion.  Our handyman John had come to rescue her, and then cycled off to check out the source of the problem.  Some car had run into a power pole and cut the electricity to a huge swath of Seattle.  John helped Aunt Dakki get bundled off to Aunt Pauline’s, but I opted to stay home and read by candlelight.  As, on the way home, I had been planning my dinner (which was a success, I might add – very tasty), I had also been planning my evening of knitting till the wee hours.  Alas, none of that in the dark!  I read my book by candlelight for an hour or so, and then went to sleep – way too early.  A waste of a good evening.  But at midnight, the light blinked on, so I reset my clock, read a bit, and went back to sleep.  All in all, it was a rather pleasant evening.  It would have been a very sad evening if the lights had gone out about ten minutes earlier, before my egg was nicely cooked.  

Some neighborhood ladies

Since I didn't take pictures of my dinner, I'm giving you some images from my neighborhood, reminiscent of the ingredients of my oeuf florentine.