At nearly nine, she decided
that she would do the more time consuming cooking the next day...she had
mostly done fried vegetables, tofu...things that involved cutting.
She'd left two types of dough to rise,
and mixed the dough for gnocci.
She would leave the apples to marinate
in the wonderful spice, lemon, and brown sugar mix for a couple of hours.
The toasted bread that went in with them would soak in the juices far better
that way, giving the desired custardy texture, as opposed to tasting like
cinnamon sugar croutons, or wet bread.
She had already chopped up four onions,
and stowed them in air-tight jars, so as not to stink the fridge, and had
laid out all the pots.
With so little time in her average day
to herself, she realized that she wanted to shop some more...maybe clothes,
more candles, definitely bath products, maybe a few generic gifts...oh
crap...the office grab bag!! She quickly cleaned up, and ran right back
out to the Durango, knowing that it was the type of thing she tended to
forget...get it over now. Everything was open late for the holidays. Where
would she go...hmmm, pain in the rump, but the mall was a one stop kind
of place. Why not.
She peeled out of the driveway a bit
more quickly than she normally would, but failed to break any laws. She
lived reasonably close, she had found. She quickly said a prayer to the
parking lot goddess that she should find a spot, and prepared a piece of
chocolate as an offering: Unwrapping it and taking a tiny bite to prove
it was free of poison.
She got there, through traffic that
was only slightly lighter than that of rush hour, and pulled into a spot
right in front of the main doors. It opened as if by magic before her.
The chocolate went by the right front tire, with extreme gratitude.
She pulled her favorite coat...the black
wool with velvet trim and hood, closer about her. It was cold, even with
the good long coat, and ran right into the front doors of the mall, not
even pausing to look up at the magnificent wreath above. How she did love
to shop!!
