blackberry pie

it is officially the end of summer.....i baked a blackberry pie. this happens at the end of summer. sigh.

here is something: i don't like pie. i can tolerate pie if it has chocolate involved. i do, however, enjoy the challenge of baking pie. i enjoy picking fruit with my daughter, walking home, cleaning off the bugs. i enjoy the sensitive process of pie dough...not overworking it, cold butter, ice water etc...and mostly....i love eating dough. it is so gross. when i was a child i would eat Crisco by the spoonful (this explains a lot). it makes little sense....to like pie dough....raw dough....butter, flour, salt, ice water.....to eat dough by the fist full.....and NOT like pie? something is very wrong with me.

so after i ate my weight in dough and baked a gorgeous pie for dan to enjoy...i learned he doesn't like pie either. so....now i have a pie i don't want, and a stomach ache from too much dough.

i am going to give the pie to my mom.


day two of kindergarten went better than day one. no tears on my part and riley seemed relaxed and excited to go back so it must not be too horrible. she made friends (thank god) and i met one of them this morning. "mom! this is MY FRIEND"! and so i met Stella. she is sweet as can be. when i left they were sitting as close together as they could and giggling.

i met my best friend in kindergarten. bonnie let me borrow her special crayons and that was it. i really think to make it through grade school all you need is one friend. bonnie and i were not cool. but we had each other. we would capture lady bugs in jars at recess. we had so many sleepovers. we would play barbies until 3am and bonnie would make them do weird stuff like kiss and caress. i preferred to play with baby dolls and pretend to be soccer mom's. (funny how much this says about us now....me being a mom and totally obsessed with babies and her being a dating machine with guys piled up at her feet). anyway...point being that when i was picked last for kickball, or when no one would dance with me at the 7th grade dance, or when i stabbed spencer moss with the pencil in second grade....everything was okay because i had bonnie. i had one friend.

and now, so many years later. so many friends later. and i still have bonnie. and we are not cool. but we have each other. and the best part is that you learn how friends come and go. as adults we have criteria for friends. we are finicky and fragile. we have specifics we want in friends. and as adults we can decide someone isn't good enough to be a friend...isn't compatible...isn't worth the effort. and all bonnie and i had to do was share crayons. we are different as can be. our lives are totally different. we have little in common. but friendship isn't something we choose or don't choose. it is what we are. that won't go away.

my hope for riley is that she has that. one friend. one real friend.