Easy as Pie

Today was supposed to be a busy day. I needed to bus to the U District Farmers' Market to buy hostess gifts for our upcoming trip and vegetable for the coming week, make a pie, walk Lucy, bake some bread, get some final things cleaned up around the house, help Amy V move in, and go to a BBQ with some church friends. On paper, so to speak, it sounds like quite a list.

In practice, it was actually a fairly relaxing day. For me, that is. I'm sure it was an extremely busy day for those more involved with the moving. As it turned out, Amy & Co. arrived later in the afternoon than I (perhaps naively) had anticipated, so in the end I didn't feel especially useful. Perhaps I can make up for that this week by applying felt pads to all the furniture that will be moved upstairs.

But while I was home baking, I realized that although baking is time consuming in the sense that several hours must elapse from the time one begins until the product is ready for consumption, rather little is required of one in the meantime. Still, one can't really leave the house when baking, as there tend to be short periods of downtime sandwiched between small tasks, and everyone knows better (I hope) that to leave something baking in the oven unattended.

There is a certain satisfaction that comes with baking that sets it apart from simple cooking. Perhaps it's the transformation of flour, yeast, and milk into a chewy loaf of sandwich bread. Or perhaps it's the fact that everyone loves pie, and mine, despite being incredibly messy and soupy, was still a hit at the BBQ.

I did have one moment of near panic today, however. Loaded down with bottles of fruit wine and veggies, I saw my bus pull up to the stop across the street. I didn't make it in time; the bus had pulled away from the curb by the time I got to the stop. But I am hard pressed to give up on a near bus connection, and was soon in hot pursuit, bags flailing wildly (and dangerously) at my sides. It was all worth it when the driver actually stopped to let me board. And he was even pleasant about it! That's more than one can expect from your average Metro driver, let me tell you. Some of them are real sticklers. This one was definitely deserving of piece of pie, or maybe a bottle of fruit wine. All I can hope is that the rest of his day was as pleasant as mine.