Saturday, June 14

Today is Flag Day, so the first thing Hubbie did was hang our flag on the well house. Flag Day is celebrated on June 14 to commemorate the adoption of the flag of the United States, which happened on that day in 1777 by resolution of the Second Continental Congress.

Skipped my exercises today after breakfast, so I could get right to work preparing food, and doing other things necessary for entertaining family tomorrow for Father's Day and Hubbie's birthday.

I began by boiling a couple of cups of macaroni for salad. I don't like the macaroni we bought at the big box store recently. It's very starchy and stuck to the bottom of the pan no matter how many times I stirred it. Hubbie doesn't like it either, since he had a difficult time getting the residue off the bottom of the pan when he tried to wash it.

While I cooked the macaroni and did a couple of other things, Hubbie vacuumed the carpets. Then he went to the lawn mower repair shop to pick up the mower. He's determined to mow the whole yard before tomorrow, I guess.

Before he went, he accompanied Mother to our house, and I set her up to cube potatoes, and chop veggies and boiled eggs for salad. When she was done, I put the salad together.

Hubbie returned from his errand about that time, and I informed him we didn't have enough salad dressing to make macaroni salad, so we all hopped in the van to go to town. I figured we could stop by the farmer's market downtown before we went to the store.

This is the first day that the market set up downtown. It's to be a one day a month event until fall, which doesn't seem like enough to me. It took place in the pocket park, and was scheduled to start at 8 a.m. So naturally, by the time we got there, nothing was left, even though it was only 10 a.m. One vendor said folks began arriving at 7 a.m. and cleaned them out in no time. Phooey, I had hoped to get some farm fresh veggies to serve tomorrow.

It was 11:00 by the time we returned home. Mother and I put together the macaroni salad, then decided to sample the salads, the baked beans, and the ham, for lunch.

After lunch, Mother and I made a couple of cakes. We started with the pineapple upside down cake. For this, I tired to open a can of pineapple rings, with no success. I simply could not pull the tab up on the can. So Hubbie tried. He couldn't do it, either, and finally managed to rip the tab off the top of the can.

He tried to open it with the electric can opener. No dice. The lid was too far down for it to catch on the opener. Likewise with a hand cranked opener. He was going to try using an ice pick, but I suggested he turn the can upside down to see if the rim was shallow enough to fit under the can opener. It was, so he finally succeeded in opening it.

I drained the pineapple, and Hubbie promptly drank the juice, which I was going to use in the topping and batter. This necessitated my opening another can of pineapple...crushed, this time. The tab worked fine on this can. I drained the fruit, used the juice in the cake, and put the pineapple in the freezer for later use.

Once the cake was baked, I successfully turned it out onto a cake keeper. My thumb protested a little, but I managed it, anyway. The only thing was, I couldn't figure out why there was no pineapple ring in the dead center of the cake. It wasn't in the pan, so where was it? Mother looked at the cake and surmised that one of the half rings she'd placed there moved somehow. Since there's a blank space in the middle, I'll put candles...the number 80...in there.

I washed the pan, and used it to bake a lemon cake. This cake will stay in the pan, and I'll make lemon pudding and meringue for it tomorrow morning.

After this cake came out of the oven, Mother and I were ready to relax for a while. Hubbie spent an hour mowing, then came in to relax, too. But he soon went back out, because he was determined to get that yard mowed.

I had planned to take Hubbie to a Mexican restaurant as part of his birthday, so I put together containers of macaroni salad, baked beans, and ham, for Mother to have for her supper. But when 5 p.m. rolled around, and Hubbie still hadn't come in from the yard, I plated the food, and served it to Mother in our dining room. She was ready to go home soon afterward.

Then I went outside to see if Hubbie ever intended to quit the yard. He was weed eating, but stopped to tell me he thought he'd ruined the lawn mower when he'd run over a tree root with it. He said he would no longer run forward or backward. But then he wiggled something at the back of the mower, and lo and behold, the thing was fixed. Thank goodness.

Hubbie was finally ready to shower and go to the restaurant. It was after 6 p.m. by now, and I feared the restaurant would be full, and we'd have to wait. But I needn't have worried. We were seated right away.

Back home, we watched episodes of  "As Time Goes By." Very funny British comedy series.