Heard over Coffee (sort of)

Miss Sniz and I met at Starbucks the other night to chat over a fresh brewed cup of java light.

Extra light.

Hold the cream and sugar. Heck, hold the java and cup for that matter.

Ever play the air guitar? K! So there we were, grande cups of air java, chatting away. Now, it wasn't that we didn't have the money for a grande, let alone a tall.
Rather, Miss Sniz had coffeed up earlier in the day, while I was just glad to see her and spend some much needed time together that, as the minutes turned into an hour or more, I decided I would just enjoy an evening cup at home with Narcoleptic Dad.
Narcoleptic Dad; my dear husband, who has the dominant male sleep gene prevalent in so many males all around the world. He falls asleep nearly every night in his generic Lazy Boy, and has in fact fallen asleep on me a few times while I was talking. Hmmmf! I told him I'm going to get his blog up and running one of these days. NARCOLEPTIC DAD! Living Life's Greatest Moments One Fragment at a Time. Oh, what a fun read that would be.

Anyway, back to air java. So there we were, Sniz and I, deep in conversation about all kinds of important matters of the day. Things like the challenges of raising children or the status of the airline industry and the impact of rising fuel costs.
There were light topics too, like our love of scrapbooking and the repainting projects we're both taking on soon (Sniz has awesome creativity and great taste, so it was fun to hear about what she plans to do). And finally, there was the "heavy stuff" such as the disproportionate number of people I know ( that is, "know") who are either in prison or on death row. No, I didn't do a stint in the big house myself. But 5 inmates (2 death rowers included) and a missing childhood friend is a lot. And these aren't your run of the mill cases either. One was covered by 48 hours, another by Dateline NBC, and the missing friend by America's Most Wanted.
NOTE: Sniz and I discussed this, but since most of you have never met me, nor do you know where I grew up, it wasn't in a high crime area and I didn't keep company with local gangstas. It's purely coincidental that I can tally up so many inmates in my personal "I know so-n-so" file. And with the exception of one who was a co-worker, these are definitely not people I hung out with.

Sigh, time for lighter conversation. So, I inquired of Miss Sniz.

"Have you ever underfed your family?"

We burst out laughing. Laughing because the question sounded so hoakie and yet I was dead serious. See, groceries were nearing Mother Hubbard status in my house and so that evening I had made mini meatloaves. Cutest little buggers you ever did see. There were 12 of them all nestled down in the muffin tins as I popped them into the oven. I calculated that a) Reece and Cierah would make "contains cyanide" faces while simultaneously struggling to gag them down and b)12 would be enough to feed everyone and still have 2 left over for Carl's lunch the next day. But nooOOoo!

"Mmmmm, this is soooo good."
"I love this, momma."
"When I'm done, I'm having more."

I assure you, this is NOT the typical response I get over unidentified meat objects (UMO's). To my complete surprise, everyone loved the mini meatloaves. Sadly, there just wasn't enough. Because you see, while they were baked in muffin tins, they were almost small enough to be baked in mini muffin tins. Mini MINI meatloaves, if you will. In fact, Reece requested more "mini meatballs". Folks, that's one mini meatloaf, I tell ya.

It's all good though.
I bulked it up with helpings of green beans (rationed, of course) and plenty of butter crackers (just waiting for those carbs to kick in so stomachs didn't feel deprived).

Yep, it was an all-around banner day of good eatin'. Mini meatballs meatloaves followed by air java. And since we still haven't found our way to the grocery store at this reading of In The Midst, I thought I'd give you a glimpse of last night's dinner. A nice pairing, don'tcha think?

Toni