life | Wendy Welch: Books, Yarn, Cats, Opioids

Everyone on the scene was frustrated. Those of us with enough local knowledge to get off the construction-clogged interstate escaped after enduring only two miles of the eight-mile tailback.

The guy behind me drove a macho white truck with one of those grills that moves cows and cop cars out of their way. He was NOT happy, but you couldn’t really call it tailgating when everyone is inching bumper to bumper along the two-lane local side road.

Finally we cleared the interstate snarl from the side road, crossed the overpass, and with a row of commercial semis, my new friend Mr. Grill-against-Mine and I began merging back onto the Interstate.

I could see it coming. Grill Guy planned to surge around me the moment he cleared the merge barrier. So I swept onto the interstate quickly, because if I hadn’t, I would have eliminated the possibility of the semi in front of me getting on at all. And the semis had been nice. They’d kept up their speed and they’d kept a few eejits from going up the shoulder to the exit back when we were all getting off.

Maybe that vibe was flowing from my wee white Prius, given what happened next.

As I took my rightful place on the highway and let the semi ahead of me in, Mr. Grill swerved back around me into the merge lane. Glory be, he was pulling a lawn mower trailer, and the thing swung erratically as he gunned it past me. Giving me a very deliberate and prolonged middle finger out the window.

Either homicidal rage blinded reason, or he flunked geometry in school. Grill Guy swung in front of me without leaving room for the trailer, so I slammed on my brakes.

Meanwhile, from those who had elected to wait patiently through the snarl some miles back, commercial trucks were still coming up the left lane. So when Mr. Grill-not-Geometry swung into the left lane to try and go around the truck I had let in, well, he almost got killed by the truck approaching at a good clip from the left.

This is where I consider him to have made his biggest mistake. He swerved back in front of me, and then, with a semi in front of him and a semi beside him, he flipped them both off.

You know, those guys have radios…..

Suddenly, from behind me a semi appeared. I got into the left lane, anticipating passing the guy Mr. Grill had tried to pass. But that truck driver had other plans. He stayed on Mr. Grill’s left flank, speed for speed. The truck driver ahead slowed down. Like a supporting ballet dancer in tight choreography, the truck behind me got up on the bumper of Grill Guy’s trailer. Mr. Grill was now completely boxed in by three trucks—sustaining an even and prolonged 60-per-hour.

It was like watching orcas hunt.

The road added a left lane after about two miles—something I suspect the truckers knew. They kept their finger-flipping-friend hemmed in while the rest of us passed their box trap.

I risked a peek at the driver boxing their quarry from the left as I passed. He was grinning.

Wendy is on her way to Louisville…loaded with goodness, of both books and apples

I’m part of a gleaning society. We move food that would otherwise rot in the field, getting it into people’s kitchens. We prioritize food banks and cafes that serve suspended meals or otherwise have token systems for those who can’t pay with money.

A week ago, the coordinator for the gleaners let us know they had apples. Great, everybody loves apples, right? Our coordinator and her husband picked them up.

Six half-ton boxes of apples. Three went straight to some food banks and suspended cafes. The call went out for community members to come get some fruit.

I took ten grocery bags of apples, with the intent of giving as many as possible away, and then canning up a bag or two for gifting. I run the buy nothing list in my county. The list proved disinterested, so I made sure to have some in my car when attending civic meetings. 12 dozen apple gifts later, people were starting to edge away from me at these events. “Don’t go near her, she’s handing out apples. Don’t leave your car unlocked. Apples are the new zucchini.”

And of course the apples landed in a busy week. We’re working on a federal grant – well we would be if our federal identity page for our non-profit worked properly. Six hours passed with help desks and support services, coring apples while on hold or waiting for instruction on what grew to be a more complex problem by the hour. There was something very meta about mashing apples when hearing there was nothing we could do but wipe our profile and start over.

Anger has to go someplace. Mine gave the 21 bottles of cider a nice spicy flavor.

200 cidered apples and one new federal identity page later, I checked the fridge. Apples in the meat drawer. Apples in the cheese drawer. Apples in the veggie drawer. Apples in the butter panel, in the egg holder, stuck behind the coil leading to the freezer. APPLES EVERYWHERE!

I made apple butter. I made apple pumpkin butter, thereby eliminating the problem of what to do with the pumpkin going over on my porch. (Our chickens are mutants. They won’t eat pumpkin.)

150 apples to go. In desperation, I googled “unusual apple recipes for canning.” Then I reset my filter to adult controls and googled it again.

Steamed apple bread pudding (yes you can can bread; you just have to know what you’re doing). Apple salsa. Spiced apple rings. Apple slaw. Each took fewer apples than one might have hoped. There were still a few dozen apples in my refrigerator as I packed a bag to be one of the authors featured at the Louisville Book Festival Nov. 11.