Rescued in the Nick of Time

This was almost the story of the terrible, horrible, no-good day. It started when I was cutting the end of a loaf of crusty sourdough bread from Wegmans and my very sharp bread knife sliced into two of my fingers. It was then that I discovered that I was out of bandages save for two teeny tiny ones and one enormous one.

Wait. It gets better.

I cut the enormous one in half and that would’ve been just dandy but one of them was bleeding with great enthusiasm. So I ended up having to concoct my own back up bandages out of paper towels and medical tape. Several times.

Still, I didn’t have much time to waste as I had a follow-up doctors appointment and I didn’t want to be late. I arrived with time to spare only to discover I had driven to the wrong office by mistake. The buildings are near the hospital and the driveways are next to each other. The interiors of the buildings are identical too, dagnabbit.

Back in the car. Arrive at the correct doctor’s office and, at the check in, I see a puzzled look from the woman at the desk. She looks at her computer screen. She clicks. She types. She pauses.

“I’m so sorry, but your appointment is next Friday. You’re a whole week early.”

Dear readers, at this point I thought of many things. Some of them were not printable.

But this is not the end of the story. As I sat at home in my comfy chair, nursing my wounds, I got a delivery.

It was an entire box of Momma’s Gingerbread Cakes hand-delivered to me From Momma’s Kitchen. I had ordered them as a special treat for myself because I adore gingerbread. I had no idea how much I would need it when it arrived.

I wasted no time in the unboxing and the tasting.

The top sparkled with plentiful sugar crystals and the cake was light and tender with flecks of fresh ginger. I almost cried, it was that good. I made myself eat it slowly so as to appreciate everything about it: the flavor, the texture, the fragrance, the moist and tender crumb.

This is not your mother’s gingerbread. This is Momma’s Gingerbread cake and you could serve it to company or the Queen of England. But it would be very, very hard to share.

Want your own box? Or something else equally delicious from a local, Black-owned business in Columbia/HoCo? Look up From Momma’s Kitchen on Facebook and take a look at her website, too.

I don’t wish on anybody the day I had yesterday, but, just in case it happens to you, it would be a good idea to have “Momma” on speed-dial.

Comments

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents. When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday. Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018. 2018 . But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest. In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...

Separate and Unequal

Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not. It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...

Village Green/Town²

Search This Blog