May 2007 Archives

Jeff offered us a chance at a pair of Red Sox tickets, and we went for it. Boston sent Daisuke Matsuzaka to the mound and we are in section 28, a pie wedge of seats up under the eaves above the left field box seats. Boston's winning streak came to an end as they fell to the Cleveland Indians 8 to 4.

We had a good time, getting in to the park with time to spare. We dined on a dog and a sausage and settled in to watch the game. The game had perhaps one moment of drama when Big Papi came up with the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh inning. He cranked one hard that fell to the foul side of Pesky's pole. Ortiz then ended the inning, lining to third.

It was a late night, but all the logistics went smoothly. It felt odd to be driving home out Route 2 instead of Beacon Street. It's always a longer, more quiet drive when the Sox don't prevail.

Sometime, maybe in 1980, back when the Rock of Boston still played more rock than shock jock, I caught a cover of a song first make famous by Peggy Lee 20 years earlier. The song was Jerry Leiber/Mike Stoller's "Is That All There Is?". The artist was Christina (Monet) taking a No Wave turn on a song that already started with a bleak existential point of view. It caught my attention on that first playing and then a few days later the idea of the song was fixed in my memory when I read that Leiber and Stoller had objected to Christina's brutal reworking of their lyrics. The lawyers came out and forced the Ze Records recording to be withdrawn from sale.

Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is

The memory of that single hearing rattled around my head and surfaced a few months ago when I was doing some surfing on ebay. Hmm, maybe someone has a import recording listed? Christina was one of those one-name artists, and it is next to impossible to find anything musical in the midst of the Christina Aguilera results. But somehow I got clued in to some reissued recordings available simply on amazon.

Well, it was supposed to be simple. An order put in in January has been postponed three times and is now slated for July (ha! we'll see). I guess I can wait a little bit longer. Or is this an irony waiting to happen?

Karen suggested she would like a blueberry pie for Mother's Day. And fortuitously there are fresh blueberries in the stores now. At around the third itsy-bitsy four oz. pack of blueberries, I start to get galled by the accumulating price. Rhubarb, too, has made its spring appearance. I add three stalks to the cart so I can get by with fewer than four containers.

I am confident that a search on the web for blueberry rhubarb pie will be successful (300,000+ Google hits). The winning recipe comes from a rhubarb enthusiasts site: rhubarbinfo.com

Still living with our temporary replacement kitchen, I didn't have the means to roll out my own crust. The Pillsbury pre-made served adequately, although I was rushed for time and did not include the called-for lattice top.

The rhubarb concept was met with skepticism, but no one refused their slice. Not being a berry fan, I found the combination to be very nice. Good pie.

Just after observing that there had been no "new job" celebration pie, I got my first introduction to our company's president last Wednesday. Without fanfare or explanation, she circulated through the office, distributing an apple pie to all. Shades of Oprah: "You get a pie! You get a pie! You get a pie!" Okay, well, it was not quite that hysterical. Still, free pie!