Keeping the Doctor Away

Four septuagenarian eyes peer at the tiny screen.

"It's right here, Ma," I touch the screen indicating the location of their house.

"I need my reading glasses."

"I need mine, too."

My parents toddle off and return a few moments later, bespectacled, ready to see their house and land on my iPhone.

"Does that thing tell you how to get home?"

"It can if I ask it to show me," I reply, but I'm really thinking Why do I need directions outta here when I've been driving home from here for years?

Ah, don'cha just love parents.

Kevin and I made an unexpected trip out to the Valley for apples yesterday. I have two favorite apples, first picked Golden Delicious, still green and crunchy, sweet and also slightly tart; and Staymans, late season apples, also crisp and tart.

After church I went to the Bowie farmer's market and saw some of the stalls had apples and I realized it was time. You can only get good first-picked Goldens for about five days in September or they'll be mushy. I cannot stand mushy apples. It's like eating solid apple sauce. Yuck.

I called my folks and asked if the goldens had come in yet. Dad called me back (over an hour later!) and reported two local orchards had them in for $18 and $19 a bushel. We're on our way.

Kevin and I headed west for a two-hour trip to the Shenandoah Valley for a quick visit with the parents and apple shopping. We came back with a bushel box of delicious Golden Delicious. To keep them fresh for the longest time possible, I packed the apples into 2.5 gallon zip bags and put them in the fridge. There were 12 that didn't fit so I put them in a lovely terracotta and blue mixing bowl and displayed my catch predominately on the kitchen counter, along with the other weekend catches: newspapers, mail, and the new crock pot direction booklet (but that's another story altogether).

Since the chicken in the crock pot failed miserably, I started making spaghetti-n-sauce for Kevin. He started cutting apples up into wedges with the apple cutter. Not just one apple, mind you. He put his slices into a bowl and proudly showed me his work. They were in the terracotta mixing bowl. And where are the apples that were in there? All over the counter.

"Kevin, Honey, you need to put those apples back in a bowl so they won't roll onto the floor." I go back to my cooking and turn around a few minutes later to see a whole row of cereal bowls on the counter with one apple each.

Ah, children, don'cha love them?