Clambake

Clambake? Shindig? Well, I saw the other day that Wegman's was going to have a Clambake. I have seen signs for these in various places throughout my life and have never knowingly participated in one before. I actually asked someone what a clambake was once and they told me it was another name for a picnic but featured clams (baked presumably) instead of other foods - like a BBQ was a picnic that featured barbeque. My mom likes clams. And at this particular clambake, the clams were going to be steamed, not baked. So I decided that I would give mom a culinary surprise and feast her with steamed clams! I am a good son. Don't get me wrong, I like clams ok - not my favorite, but I can eat them happily (like a clam...). I had a plan to go there around 6 pm to avoid all of the early adopters and to keep dinner at about the same time (starting at 6:30 to around 7:30 is the window of dinner start time here at Chez Schoen-René).

Meanwhile, what did I do with my Saturday? Oh, wait, it wasn't Saturday, it was Friday, which felt like Saturday. And today is Sunday that is actually Saturday. My brain hurts. (One of my favorite Monty Python characters.) So, what did I do? Well, I blogged - go me - I took a shower - refreshing - I puttered around on my computer doing stuff - like working on my two iOS projects - Bloomin' Bouquets and the as-yet-unnamed second game - played on the xBox - and contemplated the insides of my eyelids (which was a euphemism for napping that I learned a long, long while ago).

What did mom do? Well, she surprised me with her memory. She has been complaining of her neck hurting recently. So we change her pillows and such which seems to have helped a bit. This morning she asked after her neck ring - I don't recall what she did to her neck when to receive a neck ring, but she did something sometime and so had one. She asked me to get it for her. I had no idea where to begin to look. She said she thought it was in the red room - and sure enough it was! Go mom!!

I also sorted a bit, which is always a good thing. I am working through all of the boxes, which are now in a unified location, for a single go through. Next up - either going through them again to sort out anything that is important - how important are credit card bills from 8 years ago? - from the dross and continue to pare down - or, move them further out of sight and eventually just recycle it all. 'Cause mom sure isn't going to do much in the way of sorting. She has her hands pretty much full with the daily influx of junk mail - that is overwhelming her already. How would she handle a box of New Yorkers from 2005? My goal, at this point, is to get the pile behind the yellow sofa gone through - then move the New York Reviews from the dining room to behind the sofa - out of sight for a while - which will make the dining room one hundred percent clutter free! Yay!!! Estimated time of completion - 2045...I will be 84.

Eventually it became time to go get dinner. At Wegman's, I went in by my usual door, saw the sign for the clambake and went to the deli where I thought it would be. But it wasn't. It was outdoors at a tent at the other entrance. Sigh. And they were only accepting cash! Double sigh. I was going to walk to the bank/ATM when I had the realization that I could buy something in the store and get cash back! Woo hoo! So that is what I did. I resupplied the house with tissue boxes (mom goes through one box every two days - I think it is psychosomatic) so we are almost always in need of resupplying. I picked up three dinners - each was comprised of 1 doz steamed clams, half an ear of corn, salt potatoes, a roll and a bottle of water. Looking back, I could have done all of that for less, but it was easy and I didn't have to cook. Yay. Mom loved the clams and the salt potatoes - the corn wasn't up to my standard - and I don't think she ate her roll (I still eat and love bread). So, all in all, it worked out well! Yippee!

The "clambake"

What we got