Steph, did you get an email from me about next week. There's no rush, of course, what with the next week and all, but I just realized I may have sent it to the wrong email.

I did get it, and I was just (mostly) away from the computer all weekend, so I owe a lot of people e-mail.

In any case, I can definitely do the topic next week. Though it will probably help if you can remind me.

And that was the right e-mail addy.

Cool. I will remind you.

My usual dinner - a cup of coffee and a piece of pie, with a square of cheesefood melted over the pie. The coffee tastes like the bottom of a tar pit, quintessential truck-stop coffee.

This is the other side of the American Dream, isn’t it? The endless road trip, criss-crossing the continent with the only constants being the greasy truck-stop food and the tired waitresses in their aprons and comfy shoes. The landscape varies, but the humans stay the same, with only their accents to tell you where you are.

I’m tired, but the road beckons, dragging me on.

These drabbles have all been very good.

with only their accents to tell you where you are.

I love that line.

Coffee and Pie

I worked at the diner for five years. Sometimes my whole life seemed like eggs and bacon, coffee and pie. One of the regulars came in every afternoon around 3. His face was weathered and his jeans grubby, but he always tipped well. The coffee was on the counter in front of his stool before he sat down: cream, no sugar. I knew how he liked it. He never said much, just sat at the counter and contemplated his mug. But we had an understanding, he and I. The stool, the coffee, the cream, the tip. A ritual we shared.

Separate post to say I love your drabble, Juliana.

And yes, I'm lame and have not been drabbling in months, but I'm getting back in the game, damn it!

This isn't very good, but for some reason is what popped to mind and won't go away

What I Told Them: "I know you were looking forward to blueberry pie, but I discovered too late I didn't have enough ingredients. I hope the crumble will do."

What Really Happened:

"Pie."
"Pie!"
"Pie!!PIE!PIE!!PIEPIEPIEPIEPIEPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!"

My toddler downed my cup of coffee before my brain could catch on. Pie for breakfast it was. Too early to be on the defensive.

sarameg, that cracked me up.

Just representing a different kind of pie...

My grandmother stands at the stove, slowly cooking the ground pork, adding a mashed potato, some onion, and the spices. She’s making tourtiere, French Canadian pork pie. The recipe she gave me calls for half-teaspoons of cinnamon and cloves, but that’s not nearly enough to get the flavor right. While it’s cooking, she makes the pie crust. After seventy years of baking, she’s got the touch, even though she can’t see well enough to read the recipe any more, and the crust is always perfect. Dinner is the tourtiere with ketchup, a salad, a cup of coffee for my Memere.