Sunday, January 16.
Singing For Brownies.
Mary Ann couldn't believe that I found the energy after the cooking ordeal of last night to get up in time to sing at Mass. I was surprised myself. Not so much because of fatigue--I find that the older I get, the longer it takes for the sore muscles to set in after an exertion--but because late last night, I began to develop symptoms of a cold. By the time I got home, my nose was completely stopped up and I sounded pretty bad.
But once again the miracle of Zicam came through for me. This homeopathic drug knocks down colds to the point where I don't notice any symptoms. I think that homeopathy is voodoo, but something in this stuff works. I'm so enthusiastic about it that friends--let alone listeners and readers--are accusing me of owning stock in the company that makes it. I don't, of course, because that would mean a strong return on an investment, and such a thing seems to be impossible for me. On the other hand, anything that kills colds gains effusive thanks from me. Colds are bad, but doing a three-hour radio talk show with a cold is torture.
Anyway, the only symptom left this morning was a deepening of my voice. Which works for me: I sing bass, and some bass parts are below my natural range.
For lunch, the rest of the gang decided that hamburgers and fries were the thing. There are few foods as alluring as freshly-cut, freshly-fried potatoes. No matter how many we cut and fry, we eat them as fast as they come out of the fryer. This is where my efforts to lose weight get into real trouble. I made up for it by not eating anything else the rest of the day.
Except, of course, for three of the brownies that Mary Leigh baked between movies. She has achieved perfection with these: a little crunchy at the top, very rich in the center, and light through most of the interior. And she does it with flour, cocoa, eggs, and butter--no mix! I'm proud of her!
Mary Leigh had something else going on in the kitchen. It's a science project for school, and it has to do with the amount of weight an eggshell can support. Her experiments in this regard cost thirty-three eggs their lives. At least she collected most of the spilled yolks. What we will do with them has not yet been decided.
