These recipes come from family members, friends, cookbooks and the Internet. If you would like to know the source for a specific recipe, let me know.
Makes two 9-inch crusts (use half the ingredients for a single crust)
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup shortening
dash of vinegar
ice-cold water, enough so dough is flaky but not dry or gooey
To prebake the crust, bake at 350º for about 10 to 12 minutes. Placing aluminum foil on top of the crust, with some dry beans or rice, helps prevent bubbling.
• Loving my job. Really, loving it. Just good things all around.
• Summer seems halfway over.
• Bought textbooks for grad school starting in August. Dull titles like The Intellectual Foundation of Information Organization
• Wes almost got bit by a rattlesnake at work yesterday. The key word is "almost." Should he get hazard pay?
Last weekend we went camping in the southern Bighorn Mountains. I caught tons (well, maybe a dozen) brook trout, which appeared to be lured by me calling, "Here, fishy-fishy!" Or maybe they liked the little fly I had on my line. We had perfect weather, not many mosquitoes, lots of cows grazing and bellowing nearby, plenty of food and beer and wine (pork chops, applesauce and pineapple for dinner). Wes continued to win more backgammon games than me.
Wes took a Benadryl to counteract the itching from all his recent bug bites, combined with a couple of beers and a little wine. This made him much dopier than usual. So we were asleep before dark and up at dawn, which was probably around 5 a.m. The cows were grazing and bawling nearby. Lying in the tent, not ready to get up despite my bladder's suggestions, I made up some scenarios for the cows:
"Dammit, Bobby, I spent the night with Edith! What if George finds me?"
Moooooooo.
"Well, Sam, you better get out of there. I'll send Bessie over to distract him."
Moooaaaaaooo.
2. The sight of a group of French-manicured hands kind of makes me feel itchy.
3. The idea of veils also makes me feel itchy.
4. I love cake, but I don't want a hundred people watching me cut a ceremonial slice, then smear it on someone else's face.
5. Speeches. Gifts. Dinners. And other kinds of etiquette.
6. I worked in a flower shop for a year and know how inflated the prices can be.
7. Thank-you cards. Many, many thank-you cards.
8. I'm a list-maker. I imagine I would bury myself in lists if I had to plan a wedding.
9. I don't believe that the first day of one's marriage should be billed as the happiest day of one's life. That implies that it's all downhill from there.
10. Any one-day event that requires its own category of books, magazines, budgets and color schemes is too much for me.
11. Perhaps I always wanted to think of myself as a romantic, when really I'm very pragmatic.
12. Bottom line, I'm just too tight-fisted.
*Other people's weddings are fine, and I love seeing my friends get married—especially if it means I get to eat great food, take photos and dance.
During the drive, Wes observed the progress of his weed killing endeavors along I-25, while I...what did I do? Oh yeah, took pictures of stuff. The green green lands. Wes's pygmy tongue. My feet.
Driving toward Story, we passed this fire and of course had to turn into a side road to get a closer look. Alas, there were many trees in the way, but it didn't look like an intentional fire. Fun! I mean, bad. Nearby, we stopped to learn about the Wagon Box Fight. Wes was excited!
A short while later, we intended to fish a certain stream, but the water was so high that it covered part of the trail. So we thought this path might take us up and over. It did not. It also ceased to be a trail, provided much poison ivy to navigate around and continued upward at an extreme angle. Then we came back down. (Please note, Wes is not wearing a fanny pack. It's a fishing waist pack. Very different.)
Now this is camping.
Big bag of dry wood, courtesy of my neighbor. Hatchet, of course. Wine and backgammon. See the fancy dutch oven with hot coals on top? That was my contribution: dinner, in the form of Mexican cornbread casserole with lots of cheese on top. I've made it many times at home, with great results. Somehow the dutch oven was hotter than my home oven, and so I burned it. The cheese-crusted cornbread was great, especially with the honey Wes had luckily brought, but the meat, onions, olives, corn, tomatoes...incinerated. Evaporated. Not stuck to the pan, just gone.
Wes said, "We're too ugly for photos." Really, we (I) just don't do the camera-held-at-the-end-of-the-arm thing very well. But these are nice shots of Wes's (big, and Portuguese) nose.
He smiled! Almost.
Later in the evening, with darkness settling, our stomachs full of cornbread and honey, our palates tempered by wine and beer, we turned to other entertainment: firewood as drumsticks and chew toys.
I leave you with images of some common Wyoming wildlife: White-Tailed Deer, Lazily Grazing Horse and, my personal favorite, Scruffy Wild Man With Truck. Take care, these creatures are not as docile as they may seem.
And that, let me tell you, is so much better than our previous jobs.
When you are this happy, you tell yourself God must be
upset by your bliss. Something must not be right.
He's waiting, piss-poor and grouchy,
holding a staff, stroking his beard.
He loves you, dammit.
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