Life Is Short . . . Eat Dessert First!

It was a day filled with unexpected pleasures. The fuchsia plant on the front porch is just full of pink blooms, and nearly every morning now, Dancing Girls are hopping off it and begging to go on adventures with me. So for once, I obliged.

I've been riding the bus again because my Mazda has been down for the count, and I'm too chicken to drive my brand new car to work and leave it in the work parking lot. (So sue me.) As a bus rider, I've been spending more time than usual on our beautiful campus, enjoying the gorgeous summer flowers which are everywhere, much to my delight.

It also meant that on this day, I seized the opportunity to treat myself to breakfast at the Corner Room, which is right across the road from the bus stop I got off at in the morning. So convenient. So tempting!

So I wolfed down the early bird breakfast special, while the Dancing Girls enjoyed a tiny cake which had been provided especially for them by a dear friend of mine, a gal who knows a thing or two about baking cakes.

The waitress, much to her credit, didn't bat an eyelash when I whipped out my Dancing Girls. (I giggle to admit that the movie line "Say hello to my little friends" did run through my head.) I'll bet the waitress has seen MUCH stranger things than this.

It cracked me up that the little sign on the table was perfect for the occasion. Advertising sundaes, milkshakes, and other assorted sweet treats, the headline advised us: Life is short . . . eat dessert first! And so they did!

And you won't even need two guesses as to who tracked tiny footprints through the Smucker's seedless blackberry jam. Hint; it wasn't me! Although I did slather said (delicious, even with tiny footprints in it) jam liberally on the Italian toast that accompanied my meal.

I had a meeting downtown in the afternoon, and here was another little surprise for my day: I had just enough time to enjoy a hot, fast crock of the Corner Room's famous French onion soup before my meeting. For the record, I believe this was only the second time in my life I've eaten at the Corner Room TWICE  in the same day.

Let me toss in this last bit of news. Followers of this blog may recall that I had some car trouble back in June. The rear driver side strut broke and our mechanic fixed it. At the same time, he also replaced the rear passenger side strut. All of this happened right after I arrived home from a short beach vacation trip with my oldest sister.

The strut on the passenger side (yes, the replacement part) broke on Thursday of last week (the same day our overhead garage door broke), and so my Mazda has been out of commission since then. On this day, my husband took my Mazda back to the mechanic in Huntingdon to be re-fixed.

My husband called around lunchtime to provide an update: the mechanic had quickly and efficiently replaced the defective part. Even better, he did it in less than an hour, at no charge to us. So I've got wheels again! My Mazda's back in action! Zoom-Zoom! Oh, happy day!

The soundtrack to this day's story has to be something in honor of sweet treats. So I've chosen Aerosmith's Sweet Emotion. Here are two different live versions by Aerosmith (1975, and 1978). And I'm tossing in a fine cover by the Dave Matthews Band. (Yes, the Dave Matthews Band.)

Rock on, brothers and sisters!

Oh, and don't forget . . . Eat dessert first!