The Dinner That Wasn't Meant To Be

Though not as abundant as in years past, our church still does a pretty bang up job of taking care of new moms.  When Maddie and Jacob were born, I got at least fourteen meals brought in to my family, several while I still had my mom here to help me.  Yes, a bit excessive.  Okay, really excessive.  I ended up cancelling the last four meals both times because we had no fridge space to take any more, but ohhhhh, the pampering!  About two weeks after Jacob was delivered, we had a changing of the guard so to speak and someone else is in charge.  Now people only get three or four meals after the family help is gone, more if needed.  In my view, that's right on target.

My friend Jana had a baby a month ago and got her meals, but since she is a real good friend and she brought my family one of our favorite meals after Jacob was born, I thought I would take her a bonus meal.  After all, who doesn't want a night off from the drudgery of cooking?  We picked a date and I had a plan.  Pulled pork sandwiches, a fresh green salad, vegetables, cookies, the works. 

That morning we went to playgroup and one of the little kids had an accident there at the fountain.  She was just over a year and was standing up on a chair.  Her mother and I looked at just the same time to see her start to tip backwards as she clasped at the top of the chair back with panic on her face.  Neither of us were close enough to catch her and she went down hard, crushing three of her tiny fingers.  She ripped her hand out from its pinched position between the metal chair back and the concrete and in the process ripped off three of her fingernails.  What do you do then, but send mom off to the emergency room with the only one of us at the fountain that had a spare seat in their vehicle.  Luckily she had the presence of mind to leave us her keys to her van.  Then we had to figure out how to get 15 kids to 4 homes with 3 drivers and not enough carseats.  What a mess.  Can I just say that every woman needs a set of good girlfriends like we have here at our playgroup.  In a pinch, they step in so you can do what you need to do at the drop of a hat.  I love those women.

Anyway, back to the dinner that wasn't meant to be.  This, of all days, was the day I was supposed to deliver dinner.  Now I was watching three extra kids at my place, had to make them lunch at 2pm when we finally arrived at my home after the serious juggling act getting everyone to the right places.  It was approaching three hours late for putting the meat in the crockpot, but figured it would be okay I usually cook frozen meat and this one was totally thawed out.  Turns out I was wrong still.  Not only was I way late in starting, I had bought the wrong cut of meat.  It was soooo tough.  It needed lots of extra time, like three hours more.  It was ready to start shredding the pork at about 9pm, but dinner was to be delivered at 6pm.

At the last minute, I realized there was no hope on the pulled pork sandwiches.  I considered ordering pizza for them, but remembered I could whip out calzones in half an hour.  Brian called them to let them know I was running late and I threw together a decent dinner and delivered it about an hour late.  Good thing they're good friends and can still love me.

The next night I was pleased to have dinner ready to go. I shredded the pork and like magic, we enjoyed a lovely meal.  We had to rush out to the church for a baptism after dinner, so Brian packed up the meat and took Ben and Maddie for baths and changed.  I wiped down Jacob and packed up the last of the other food and opened the fridge to put it away when the entire bowl of delicious pulled pork crashed to the floor.  The lid popped off and instantly, I had warm pulled pork between my toes, all over the floor, all over the inside of the fridge, walls and anywhere else you can imagine.

I guess that it was the dinner that just wasn't meant to be.

• three hours late cooking
• 
  
  a day late for eating
• 
  
  the wrong cut of meat in the first place
• 
  
  all over the floor in the end