See? Food!

I have just received my first cancer meal.

Actually, that might not necessarily be true, because of all the concerned and caring emails that I got last week, only Cousin Elizabeth wrote hers like this:

I wish that I could cook you a meal. I mean, I know that you're not debilitated and are quite physically capable of cooking for yourself--hot meals are just my gut reaction to any crisis situation. At certain times, it's nice just to relax and eat what someone else made. Consider yourself the virtual recipient of the following: creamed chicken over rice, green beans, dinner rolls, brownies. Nice and starchy. Classic Southern comfort food. Maybe there should be some homemade mac and cheese on that list, too.

I loved this letter. Which is why I'm bragging on my cousin. But it was a little like watching a cooking programme where the food looks so delicious and you can't eat any of it.

Tonight though? Tonight 409-Caitlin and her brother Facebook-Brendan came back to Starbucks (even though her shift had ended three hours earlier) and brought me leftovers from their mini-family reunion. I like leftovers in any event, but these ones? Well, let me just tell you.

It's no wonder I think 409-Caitlin is awesome--her family apparently eats seafood when they reunite just like mine does. So she and her brother brought me clam chowder (real New England clam chowder--homemade--even though they're from New York?!) and a crab-cake and two lobster tails and a baked potato and two ears of corn and a slice of apple pie and a slice of pumpkin pie . . . oh yeahhhh . . .

I suspect it's because no one has scalpeled me open yet, but I think I might so far be enjoying this way more than I should be.

Well, today I was anyway. Maybe that's not such a bad thing, though.

You Like Me! You Really Like Me!

(Apologies--just a little bit--to Sally Field.)

Pastor-Marty, because he is kind and cool, nominated me for a couple of his 2nd issuance of "Bloggle Awards," and I actually won one. I, because I am glaringly self-promotional, am thus telling you. This is particularly an honour because not only is it coming from Pastor-Marty, but my name got stuck in there with kind-of-famous people like Winn Collier and Donald Miller and Jon Acuff. Yikes!

There's a part of me that still kind of wonders if this is some sort of error, but I once told someone to stop brushing off compliments because it devalues the opinion of the person who gave it. And I wouldn't want to be guilty of the same, now would I? So instead, I'm expressing the value of Pastor-Marty's opinion by telling you all about it. Yeah . . . that's it . . .