Thank Heavens…

It was a really busy day! We had an all-day appointment today starting at 2pm on a Secret Project that I’ll blog about some other time when it is appropriate. Being how it’s a *secret* I wouldn’t mention it, of course, except that Saturday is our Market Day (yay!) and today was especially important because it was Market Day, Artisan Cheese Edition.

Once every two weeks we buy a brick of Salty Sea and an Adwell’s Gold from Narragansett Creamery. I’ve raved about it on here before; the stuff is … well, it’s the shiznit. Yes. We’re hooked.

And for the past two weeks we’ve tried to get our hands on some of their Ricotta, but by the time we get there, they’ve been totally sold out. Last week I put us down for an order for three pounds of the creamy goodness to pick up this week. It keeps very well and is cheaper by the pound, so I saw no reason to go for pints.

Now, Farmer’s Market doesn’t start until noon. And we’re transit riders, so… that means there was a lot of hustle to get to where we needed to be and back… on time.

I am good at many things, but timeliness is just not one of them. I’ve tried. I’ve tried a lot. I hate being late for things. But always, I am (continually) late for almost everything.

But not for cheese.

I woke up this morning at 8:30, put a loaf of bread in the oven and started the morning in deep anticipation of that sweet creamy goodness: Oh, Ricotta, how I can’t wait to dig into your dimpled flesh!

Of course, we were out of everything else, so we had to pick up our usual stock for 2 weeks and then they had some *special* raw milk farm cheese that we just could not resist.

Thankfully, our cheese habit is relatively low. It seems like a lot here, but that’s only because we buy it all at one time for a set period. This is at minimum 3 weeks worth of cheese for the two of us, and probably closer to a month.

While it’s kind of spendy all at one time (Our total bill today was $40 [eek!]), when you average it out for two people, it ends up around $5-7/week for each of us. Totally reasonable and exceptionally worth it.

One really great perk to buying from locals is they remember you. I thought I was short a fiver and they were willing to let me pay them next week. Try that at the grocery! Shit, even with some of my friends that wouldn’t fly… but then again, they know me better than the cheese folk do… 🙂

So we get down there and we pick up the cheese and we head back on the 42 and out of nowhere, the bus makes a sudden, irrational turn. Both Justin & I were starting to worry because it was about 1:00 and out of the many times I’ve ridden the 42, it has never, ever made a turn onto Blackstone.

So apparently we caught a bus that had a detour to the hospital, which turned out fine, but did take an extra 20minutes longer than we had expected. So we get home by 1:20 and I head straight to the bathroom to put my hair in curlers for Secret Project.

I do my makeup faster than lightning, swash my head in a scarf (with the rollers); we grab our coats and bikes and we head to Massachusetts. Sweet.

So everyone on the road is staring at me because my head looks something like a giant lumpy brown and yellow balloon. Then I realize I have a flat front tire.

And there are hills! Of course! Gah!!

The first gas station we see wants 75c for air. What a total rip off. We decide to chance it, but soon realized that in our capitalist system, The Man totally got one over on me: there were absolutely no gas stations with ANY air option, free or otherwise. So I had to rough it, flat-tired, dodging downtowners and rubbernecked drivers to Massachusetts. (I make it sound far, but it’s really only 2 miles.)

So I’m raving like a lunatic with my crazy brown turban head and more angry than ever that nothing ever seems to go quite right no matter how hard we prepare. Why, why, God, do you torture me??

A somehow soft – yet booming – voice hovers over my right shoulder: Look forward to the Ricotta.. ri…cot..ta….aaa….aaa….aa..a.a…

Anyway, drama aside, we got there only a half hour late and everybody was fine, including me. Secret Project went really well, and I can’t wait to talk /brag about it later. Yay.

I think I’ll go slather me some cheese.

Woot.