Powder Puffs and Lobsters.

I am still cutting out circles of fabric for the yo-yo quilts, which I have re-named "powder puffs." Yo-yos are just not my style, but powder puffs are, and besides that, the completed fabric circles look more like powder puffs than yo-yos when they're all sewn up and pulled tight. I've made 215 of them, all from fabric scraps that I either had in my sewing basket or bought in the thrift shop. Rather than spend the rest of my life making powder puffs for a bed-sized quilt, I decided that making pillows would be the best solution.

During one of my shopping trips into town, I bought three small pillows that were perfect shapes to hold the powder puffs. I have the puffs all pinned down where they need to be sewn onto these pillows, but I have to get invisible thread the next time I go to WalMart. I mentioned invisible thread to my husband and he said "How will we find it in the store?" I excused the bad joke because by then his eyes were glazed over because I had just spent ten minutes describing the entire process of cutting out the circles, sewing a hem around the edges, then pulling the threads to make the cute little powder puff shapes.

It has been so hot here that after early-morning errands are done, about the only thing you feel like doing is either reading or sewing or writing. However, if you feel the slightest breeze, you think it's cooling down some and you drive into town to browse around the antique and resale shops. By the time you get home, you might as well have climbed Mt. Everest because you are done in for the rest of the day. But I've already written all there is to say about the heat, so let's not get started on that again.

The lobsters....... my cousin F up in NY eMailed me to say she was "duly impressed" that we were cooking lobsters in the middle of the Texas hills. After what happened during the cooking process downstairs in my kitchen, I told her not to be impressed one tiny bit.

My husband had to drive into town (the big town, the "city," not our little Hill Country town here), and when he came home, he brought with him fresh, live lobsters from one of the waterfront fish markets. (Don't cook tonight... call Lobster Delight.)

We have steamed live lobsters many times before... which is why I bought a huge lobster pot some years ago. The pot is bright red on the outside, white on the inside, made of very heavy enamel. My dad would call it a "handsome pot," and it's perfect for cooking up the lobsters.

I blame my first error in the lobster-cooking on the heat of the day. I didn't get out the handsome red lobster pot. Such a heavy pot, and I had to use the step-ladder to get it from that tall cabinet where I store things that aren't used on a daily basis. Instead, I just took one of the large spaghetti pots from the shelf and filled it with three inches of water and put in the metal basket to hold the lobsters. The correct process here is when the water starts to boil, you toss in the lobsters (head first--- while apologizing to them) and put the cover on the pot and just let them steam for 15 minutes.

Which is what I did. Except, of course, the lobsters were in the Farberware spaghetti pot, not the heavy enamel lobster pot. Within ten seconds, one of the lobsters had flicked its tail up towards the lid of that spaghetti pot, which dislodged the cover so it was half on and half off of the top of the pot.... which gave that particular lobster's tail all the room it needed to waggle itself back and forth over the rim of the pot...... which got me to screaming..... which made Gracie start barking... which scared the cats...... and then I ran out of the kitchen.

Into the hallway I went, towards the front staircase.... yelling in the direction of the stairs for my husband, who had already heard me scream, and heard the dog barking, and heard the cats screeching....... so he was on his way down the staris wondering what on earth.....

Before he got to the bottom of the stairs, I was standing near the front door with my eyes closed, and my knees were shaking, and I was waving a pot-holder in the direction of the kitchen, and telling him he had to Get into the kitchen and take care of that lobster because he's trying to get out of the pot!

Of course, the first thing my husband said when he got near the stove was "Well, where's that big red pot?" Men. They are so obsessed with details.

I got the big red pot down from the big cabinet, handed it over to my husband without making eye contact with anything happening on the stove-top, and my husband transferred the boiling water and the lobsters from the wrong pot to the right pot. Before going up the stairs, he said "Are you okay now? Are you going to freak out again?"

Me? Freak out? Because I plunged a live lobster into a pot of boiling water and he tried to escape and come after me because of all the bad lobster-karma I have accumulated over my lobster-steaming life? I told my husband I was just fine, thank you.

After sixteen minutes (giving the lobsters one extra minute because of the wrong pot/right pot situation) I shut off the stove-top and told my husband that dinner was ready. I waited till he got downstairs and then I let him open up the lid of the red pot and take the lobsters out and put them on the plates.

To answer the obvious question here: No, I did not have a problem whatsoever eating that lobster. And I didn't apologize while eating..... I only say I'm sorry! as I drop them into the pot.