Fathers Day

Sis, Herself's older sister, promised me today that in the future either she or Mama will let me know when something's going on rather than ask Herself and / or Da Kid to tell me, because once again they didn't remember to until the last minute.

Da Kid called at 7:45 this morning to tell me Herself's family was having a "thing" today for Fathers Day. Oh, and when they asked him to let me know he'd said I'd bring a dish. Oh! And it's a breakfast at 9 o'clock.

Then I heard Herself bellow in the background, "DON'T YOU DO THAT TO YOUR MOTHER!" and Da Kid yelp in pain.

Yes, they'd forgotten to tell me about it but it was Sunday dinner, be there around noon. And no, I didn't have to bring anything with me.

But I hate going over empty handed, not that I knew what they were having. With them there are only two things known: it will be delicious and there will be plenty of it.

I decided I'd take a dessert.

Just making that decision was an incredibly amazing thing for me to accomplish at that point because I am most definitely NOT a morning person. I might have been up and already moving when Da Kid called, but that didn't mean I was awake. Still in my bathrobe, on my first cup of coffee and walking into walls, I began thumbing through index cards trying to figure out what to fix, based primarily on whether I thought I'd actually be able to . . .

I reached for the coffee pot to refill my cup, but the pot wasn't there. The coffee maker was in its same place, but the pot was gone. I finally found it in the refrigerator which, I guess, is where I put it.

Like I said, I don't function well in the morning.

Peach Cobbler? I'd never tried to fix one but I had all the ingredients. I thought I did but knowing the way I am in the morning, I decided to put all of them all out on the counter to just make sure. If I didn't I'd figure out something else because I really didn't have time to go to the grocery store, with all the usual morning obligations yet to be met.

Cans of peaches, CHECK! Bisquick, CHECK! Ground Cinnamon, CHECK! And so on.

I showered, took care of Dingbat and Starbuck's needs, and then went to work.

You know, I'm sure, what it feels like when you're fixing something you've never fixed before, especially for people who are damned cooks. Damned good.

Herself's mother and sister fix cobbler all the time and while I knew mine would never measure up to theirs, it's something I've wanted to try. If mine comes out even edible, I'd be thrilled. With me, too, there was the additional terror nervousness in knowing that since we seldom ate sweets, I have little experience fixing desserts of any kind.

In other words, I didn't know what the hell I'm doing.

But then sometimes, comes that wonderful feeling when everything seems to be working right. It's going your way. This may actually be good. It looks good and it's surprisingly easy.

Okay, I did have a problem shaking the cinnamon out of the container into the filling, but with a couple whaps of my palm on the jar's bottom . . . the recipe said "some" and I could only guess that that was enough. (I added another "whap" just to be on the safe side.)

There was just right amount of dough for the top. The oven is preheated to 350 degrees and the only thing I have to do before covering the dish and popping it in for 45 minutes, is sprinkle it with sugar and more cinnamon.

And the cinnamon got stuck again.

When whapping it with my palm repeatedly only shook at little out each time, instead of wasting more time (which I was running out of) I pried the plastic lid off the container to reach inside with two fingers and "sprinkle" the crust that way.

The cinnamon didn't look right. The color was off and so was the texture. I sniffed.

It didn't smell anything like cinnamon. It smelled like . . .

That's when something caught my eye. It's known as the label.

I stood there and must have read the damned thing five times, willing it to say cinnamon. The last time I even spelled the word aloud, letter by letter.

I began chanting a certain four-letter word to encourage it to change. But the label wouldn't.

Instead of Ground Cinnamon, it still read Ground Cumin.