The Difference Between Dim and Dimwitted? Sunglasses.

What a dingbat.

Earlier today, I’d been doing the usual SAHM (stay-at-home-mom) runaround, eventually landing, ahead of schedule, at the orthodontist’s office.  While Son went back to be serviced and await the predictable "just-a-few-more-weeks news," I cracked open my beloved MacBook to tap out a few notes.

Weird.  I could hardly read the screen.  Why was it so dim?  I squinted, but not for long, because I don’t want to admit that my opthalmologist was right in saying I’ll soon need glasses.

Hmm.  Even squinting, still dim.  Fine.  I tilted, and then, re-tilted the screen.  Surely it was a matter of finding the just right angle.  Just a few degrees.  Maybe 79 degrees.  Maybe while squinting.

I bobbed my head, birdlike.  Left.  Left.  Right.  Forward.  Forward.  Whoa.  Better stop that before someone in the waiting room thinks I’m trying out for a Bojangles commercial.

I was still befuddled when Son and his orthodontist came out to deliver the dreaded and expected just-a-few-more-weeks news.  Oddly, they both regarded me very curiously – as if they’d been privy to the short-sighted chicken act.

I scheduled Son’s next appointment, we exited the office, and I instinctively reached up to pull my sunglasses into place.  Duh.  What a dingbat.  I’d been wearing my sunglasses in the orthodontist’s office.  That computer screen wasn’t dim.  The computer operator; however, was dimwitted.

Why didn’t someone tell me? 

No girlfriend would let me walk around like that.  Even 12-year-old Darling Daughter knows that membership in the “girlfriend network” is unconditional.  It’s our obligation to tell another “girlfriend” when her tag is hanging out, when her bicuspid is coated in spinach, when her zipper’s gapping and revealing those cute pink panties, or when toilet paper trails her stiletto.

This past weekend, I found myself with an abundance of past-their-prime bananas.  I used Twitter to issue the call to “the network.”  The girlfriends – most of whom I’ve yet to meet – responded quickly.  Suggestions – for freezing and smoothies – flowed.  Recipes – for cobbler, for banana pudding – were tweeted just as quickly.  Rebecca, of Chow And Chatter, immediately shared her recipe for luscious Banana Brownie Cake, which I'll include in a future blog.  And Barb, of The Ambient Chef, shared a banana bread recipe that turned out to be the best I've ever made – moist, crusty and super simple to make.

And I feel sure that neither she, nor Rebecca, nor AprillWrites or StepfordLife or CookingVirgin would ever have let me wander around that orthodontist’s office with my sunglasses on.

Or trailing a few squares of Charmin.  I’m just sayin’.

The Ambient Chef’s Mom’s Best Banana Bread

2 very ripe bananas, mashed

1 teaspoon lemon juice

2 cups sifted flour

½ teaspoon salt

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 stick butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease a loaf pan, well.  Mash bananas with lemon juice.  Set aside.  In a small bowl, stir or sift together flour, salt, baking powder and nutmeg.  Set aside.  In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar.  When well combined, beat in eggs, one at a time.  Stir in mashed bananas to combine well.  Stir in dry ingredients until combined.  Pour into prepared pan.  Bake 1 – 1 ¼ hours, or until loaf tests done.  Cool 10 minutes in pan on rack, then remove to rack to cool completely.