Gray Saturday

I awoke to a cold, gray day, and a cold rain falling. Patches of white lay scattered on soaked earth – remnants of snow that survived yesterday’s sun. Raindrops pattered against the awnings. It was a good day for staying inside, a good day for sleeping late, for reading, for being mesmerized by a burning log in the fireplace, or even by the warm glow cast by a kerosene heater.

Some days I like sunshine, and some days, rain. Sunshine is cheery, but I feel a bit guilty if I’m not outside when it’s sunny. Being inside on a sunny day makes me feel like I’m “wasting daylight.” But if I have nothing special to do and nowhere to go, I’m glad to see rain. It gives me "an excuse” to stay inside.

Lunch time rolled around, and I opened the fridge to survey the leftovers. I had half a spaghetti melon left from yesterday’s lunch. It was already cooked, and it would be good with spaghetti sauce over it. But I was almost out of spaghetti sauce. I remembered I had a little pizza sauce left. Both are tomato-based sauces; they should blend well. I took out both bottles and dumped the remaining pizza sauce into the spaghetti sauce bottle and stirred them. It still wasn’t enough.

I cut a slice of onion and finely chopped it. I minced a garlic clove, too. I put the onion and garlic into a pan over heat and added a tablespoon of olive oil. I let them sautée a while, then I added two tablespoons of vegetable juice (which is mostly tomato juice). I added the pasta/pizza sauce to the pan, stirred, and left the mixture to heat.

I warmed the half-mellon, scraped the inside with a fork, added salt, crumbled feta cheese into it, sprinkled grated parmesan over it, added the pasta/pizza sauce, added more parmesan, and sat down to eat. You probably won’t find this meal on the menu at your favorite upscale restaurant, but it was quite good and it was filling.

After eating, I noticed the rain had stopped falling. I checked the National Weather Service and their forecast for my little city for this afternoon is: Sun, peeking out from behind clouds.

I can live with that. If the sun does peek out, I’ll go for a walk. Probably. It’s still cold, of course. Okay, I might go for a walk. Or, I might stay inside and live with the guilt.