Dawn of Dogwood Dale

I was rereading Anne of Green Gables this weekend for the first time since high school, and I remember how I loved her precocious spirit, her propensity for mishaps and her vivid imagination. Once upon a time, I liked to think that I could invent names as fantastic as "Dryad's Bubble," "The White Way of Delight" and "The Lake of Shining Waters." Plus, how awesome would it have been to live in a time when people still named their homesteads? Green Gables just sounded like the homiest, most romantic place imaginable! I also used to envy Anne her gorgeous Titian (red) hair. Even though she disliked it's "carrot" resemblance, I always thought red hair was beautiful (just like my Momma.) =) Unfortunately, it seems the only thing I currently have in common with Anne is her knack for careless cooking. What fan of Anne Shirley could forget the infamous layer cake she meticulously baked for Mrs. Allan, the pastor's wife, only to discover after the horrified reactions of her guests that she had flavored said cake with liniment oil instead of vanilla! Or how Anne unintentionally got her "bosom friend" Dianna Barry drunk on current wine instead of raspberry cordial, because she grabbed the wrong bottle off the pantry shelf!

In this respect, my likeness to Anne started early...either I was not yet a very proficient reader or I was just a thoughtless inhabitant of my own world...but I remember a time when I happily prepared myself what I thought was a bowl of cinnamon applesauce. Only after tasting my concoction did I realize I had actually covered my snack with paprika! It does NOT have the same result, and I do NOT recommend the combination. It's dreadfully awful! I was riddled with guilt over having to dispose of the entire bowl full. It seemed so wasteful! I also remember another guilt-inducing occasion when I rummaged through the refrigerator and took a big swig out of a green bottle which I wrongfully assumed was a soda of some kind, only to quickly discover after the first mouthful that it was NOT any soda I had ever tasted. (I can only assume it was an alcoholic beverage. Serves me right for drinking out of the bottle...and without asking!) I would like to think I had outgrown the tendency for such mishaps...but apparently not.

At the age of 30 I am still doing silly things. This morning I prepared a steak to marinate for dinner tonight. I laid it out in the pan, salt and peppered it and went to the refrigerator to grab the worchetshire sauce. Without looking at the bottle I proceeded to douse the steak with the brown liquid. Only after noting it's suspicious smell did I examine the label...thereby discovering that I had actually marinated our dinner with Soy Sauce, whose bottle was unfortunately close to the other on the refrigerator shelf. To what should we attribute my carelessness? We could be charitable and ascribe it to the mental to-do list over an arm's length constantly running through my head. Or is it just a natural inclination? Sigh...

Worse yet, I put it in the fridge anyway, hoping it would turn out alright and, perhaps, have a slight Asian flavor to it. After a half hour or so, I started to worriedly think better of it and, after consulting with my mother (the other redhead in my life), I decided to rinse the steak off and start over. So, there I was, rinsing the steak in the sink and hoping that the combination of all these competing and not-so compatible liquids would still result in an edible dinner tonight. It remains to be seen...

So if Anne Shirley can be Anne of Green Gables, I will indulge my fondness for romanticism and alliteration and will be Dawn of Dogwood Dale for the day, since I happen to have a particularly nice collection of dogwood trees scattered about my yard. And, hopefully, this will be my only mishap of the day and will have gotten it out of the way early. Hopefully...but not likely!