• Mood: cheerful
• Music: Rufus Wainwright—Out of the Game

STRESS CANNOT EXIST IN THE PRESENCE OF A PIE*

It was sunny and blue by the time we left work (Anders picked me up after picking up Martin because my car is in for repairs) but I was in a seminar all afternoon so the weather was moot. I hope it's warming up for real now, though...I would like for it to be spring already. Martin and I went for a walk on Saturday, and it was also warm and blue and we saw snowdrops and smörblommor and crocuses, and the tiny green leaves of what will be miniature violets along a rock wall, and teeny tiny lilac buds. We have to wait until May for the lilacs but just knowing they're on the way makes me happy.

We had Pie Night on Friday. I took half the day off, left work after lunch to go to the grocery store and buy ingredients for two taco pies and all the paper/plastic serving stuff: napkins, cutlery, plates, sodas, for 48 people. FORTY-EIGHT people!! When I had told Anders a few days earlier how many people were signed up, I just got the hairy eyeball. It's, I think, the fourth year we've hosted Pie Night. So anyway, I came home and started on the final prep work, cleaning, baking the cookie bottoms for two fruit pizzas, etc. and then I checked email.

"We're sick"

"Our kid/s is/are sick"

"I'm sick"

Three people had taken their names off the list with no message. By 4 p.m. we were down to 26 people. Nearly half, felled by illness or whatever. Still 26 people is respectable, and we had fun and some great pies, though once again, despite making two taco pies, we nearly didn't have enough dinner pies. Every year we let the kids go first and they absolutely PIG OUT on portion sizes and by the time the adults are going through the line, the last few people get scrapings. So every year, I say "adults get to go first for desserts". We almost always have more dessert pies than dinner pies and this year was no exception. We had our two taco pies, a chicken pot pie, a spinach & feta pie, a "cowboy pie" (bacon & cheese) and a vegetarian pie that came a little late (more on that in a sec).

For dessert, we had the two fruit pizzas (one with a chocolate chip cookie base and one with a butterscotch cookie base), a pumpkin pie, THREE different blueberry pies, a peaches and cream, a strawberry pie and 2 kladdkakas (brownie pies).



YUM YUM. Guess who gained a kilo last week? *sigh*

The pies that came a little late were brought by... dbrus, along with her husband T and kids! They just moved to Sweden (for the third time, but down here this time) and are only about half an hour away...they live quite close to several of my long-term friends, in fact, and now I've gotten to meet another one of my Internet psychos friends!

The next day I had dinner with friends and Suzanne made a fantastic dinner of smoked salmon, green beans with a fabulous dill sauce, smashed potatoes and this:



Did you guess who gained a kilo last week? It's a stumper.

*Title from a quote by David Mamet