In which frozen foods are discovered to be surprisingly tasty.

Now Playing: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King soundtrack by Howard Shore. Track 17, "The Return of the King".

Ooh, look! All the commentors suddenly came out of the woodwork! I'll have to try short funny posts more often.... *grin*

Sorry to disappoint, but this will not be a short post (probably), nor will it (most likely) be funny.

To start the depressing tale, I have a cold. Not a dreadful knock-down-drag-out cold like the one I had most of last semester, but a measly little beast that makes me sniffle all through my classes and makes my flute sound fuzzy when I try to practice. It was frightened away for a little while this morning with a large mug of chamomile tea (courtesy Robin W.) and a thick slice of Laura's sweet sticky challah bread while I wrote e-mails and studied. I slogged through Lyric class, having a rather difficult time paying attention.

So after class I tried to console myself with some flute practice, but that wasn't much better. Though the Bach Sonata in E Minor makes me happy no end whenever I play it. After practicing for an hour, I went to the caf for lunch, and sat with Nicole, Rachel, Amy, Kathryn, Leslie, Spencer, and others.

After lunch, I studied for awhile, and then went to British Novels at two o'clock. Amanda usually sits next to me, and while the class is getting settled down, we always have pleasant little conversations together. I had a difficult time paying attention in class because I was dreadfully tired. After class ended, A.C., Amanda, and I walked together as far as the gym. Amanda then went to her apartment, but A.C. and I went into the gym together--she for a cup of coffee, I for a brisk jog. I listened to the third sermon by Pastor Edward Donnelly on Hebrews 12:1-2. Excellent sermons. Every time there's a particularly vivid point that catches my mind's eye and gives me something to ponder on and wonder at for the rest of the day. Today it was Christ as priest again. Pastor Donnelly talked about how the High Priest would go behind the veil, and about how the Jews appreciated the High Priest greatly when he was unseen. But they rejoiced most when he returned from behind the veil because it meant that he had lived in the presence of God. Pastor Donnelly talked about how Christ is our High Priest behind the veil, making intercession for us, and about how we should delight in Him though He is unseen. But Christ will be seen again, will come resplendent from behind the veil, and then we shall see Him as He is.

After I ran, as I was climbing the stairs to the room, I met Rachel coming down the stairs. She was going running herself. We greeted each other cheerily in passing.

I showered, and then called Tara. She sounded sleepy on the phone, and I winced, realizing that I'd woken her from a nap. Nevertheless, I hurried downstairs and drove over to the Penthouse. "Sorry! I guess I woke you up!" I apologized as she hopped into the car. "That's what you were supposed to do," she chuckled. We drove over to the Albertsons on fifteenth street to buy food to take to Esther's house for supper this evening. The Albertsons on fifteenth street is what I call the "candy land" Albertsons. The walls are decorated with big colorful cut-outs of cats and dogs and candy and stuffed animals, etc., and the signs over the aisles are in bright ice cream colors, and the different departments are all labeled with their own large canopies. It's like being in a child's picture book or in a dollhouse--oversized bread and candy and vegetables and fruit hanging overhead. We went to the frozen foods section. Tara chose a Freschetta pepperoni pizza for supper. Our main purpose, however (being good little hobbits :o), was to buy dessert. We chose two packets of frozen, pre-cut cookie dough: one packet of peanut butter and chocolate cookies, and one packet of caramel-chocolate-walnut cookies. The grand total of this extravagant affair turned out to be ten dollars and thirty-eight cents. With our grocery bag in hand, we marched out of the store and drove back to campus to pick up Alisha, who wanted to come visit Esther, too.

The three of us drove down to Esther's apartment at fifty-first and Yale. For those of you who have never had the exhilarating experience *cough* of driving on the surface streets in Tulsa, you're not exactly able to break land speed records getting from one place to another. We were able to go the speed limit until the first place where the Broken Arrow Expressway crosses the surface roads, and then we stopped and sat for awhile... and sat... and sat.... The same process had to be replicated at the next crossing. More sitting.... The endless rhythmic flicker of brake lights from the long line of cars in head of us, and the tangled snarl of traffic that always seems just barely to avoid gridlock. We reached forty-first street, and Tara called Esther to tell her to turn the oven on. "We'll be five minutes!" she chirped cheerily. I laughed wryly--it took us about ten minutes before we were pulling into the parking lot behind the apartment complex where Esther lives.

The three of us climbed the narrow, rickety flight of stairs to the second floor. A rather loud, creepy chap stuck his head out of the first floor apartment and said hi to Alisha, startling her. We rapped on Esther's door, and she let us in, locking the door behind us. The smell of cigarette smoke lingered on the air even inside the apartment. The apartment was small and rather dim. A hodgepodge of furniture and knick-knacks, pictures and clothes, was scattered about. Esther's lean black cat prowled around, sniffing our shoes, waving her sleek tail in the air, batting the straps on Alisha's knapsack, play-fighting with my hand, and generally making a joker of herself. Esther perched on the dining room table, and the four of us chatted for a bit.

Tara slipped the pizza onto Esther's pizza stone and put it in the oven to bake for twenty minutes or so. Then we had the pleasure of figuring out how to bake the cookies. Esther didn't have any baking sheets, so we used a muffin-top tin, a glass casserole dish, and a glass loaf pan. Tara and I sprayed the dishes with cooking spray and arranged the little rounds and squares of dough. "We have to try some of the dough!" Tara said, so Alisha cut a couple of the squares of peanut butter and chocolate cookies into quarters, and we each had a bite. "Un-cooked cookies," Tara said happily, smacking her lips. While we waited for the pizza to cook, Tara spied a packet of marshmallow snowmen sitting on Esther's table, which she'd given to Esther to decorate awhile ago. So Esther opened them, and we used a couple of food coloring markers (green and red) to draw faces and clothes on the little plump spun-sugar snowmen.

Pretty soon the pizza started to smell good. Tara pulled it out of the oven. Waving a pizza slicer dangerously in the air, she cut the pizza into quarters and slid them onto plates. It wasn't a very big pizza, so the quarters were just the right size for each of us. While the cookies were in the oven, we sat on the living room carpet and ate our pizza, chatting about school and movies and such. Esther put the cat into her bedroom to keep her out of trouble. The pizza was hot and doughy, satisfyingly warm. When the cookies came out of the oven, they were somewhat peculiar-looking. The ones that had been in the class dishes came out looking like "pigs-in-blankets", as Alisha said. A bit on the gloopy side. But the ones in the muffin top tin were, aside from being a bit swaybacked, quite alright. And they were all tasty. We ate them piping hot as we stood in the kitchen, blowing on the gooey chunks of chocolate. Each of us had three cookies, which left plenty for Esther to enjoy later by herself.

Tara had to be back on campus to practice for RUF worship tonight, so we had to leave at six-thirty. We said good-bye to Esther and hurried out to the car. The night was cold and crisp. Our breath plumed out behind us. In the car, I turned on the heater. Tara shared cinnamon mints with us as we drove back to campus. Fluorescent lights flashed as we drove down the busy streets--restaurants, businesses, banks, gas stations, shops, hotels, hospitals, like a glowing coral reef.

Back on campus, I dropped Tara and Alisha off at their apartment. Then I drove back to Lottie. I wrote for a little bit in my room before RUF, and then walked to RUF alone across the frosty grass.

I went to find a seat on the far side of the room, and ended up sitting between Amanda and Rachel in a cracked armchair that ate me alive whenever I sat down in it. Tonight John preached about the first chapter of Jonah: about fearing God and trusting Him to know when His mercy is appropriate; about how God's mercy extends farther than we expect, and because of this, we fight against His mercy. About how God's mercy has come and found us, and we must therefore show it to others.

After RUF, I talked with Jenny briefly. We arranged our own "not-a-date" for Friday night (supper and a basketball game!), when everyone else in RUF will be going on Not A Date. "There's no one else I'd rather go on a date with other than you--well, almost no one else," Jenny laughed as we parted ways. "Yeah! I'd hope there would be someone else!" I laughed back at her. I talked with Crystal and Nicole about Hobgoblins tomorrow night, with Mary about earrings (admiring her pair of dangly blue-and-silver earrings). As I left, I said good-bye to Alisha in the hall. I walked out into the night alone, praying for Alisha and Esther. As I crossed the grass, I heard someone running behind me, and then Rachel was walking beside me, striding confidently, her cheeks red and her breath streaming out behind her under the moonlight. We walked up to our room together, and now we're sitting at our desks, working. I've finished my trek through the LOTR soundtrack and am listening to Sufjan Stevens, "Illinoise!" now. Optimistic orchestral pop with Christian themes. Thanks, Kevin, Crystal, and Philip. :o)

Time for some sleep now. May God be with you all.