January 22

And Puck spent his morning and afternoon with Gloria; this started off with a plate of nice crispy bacon for the little rolly-poly monster.

Sinai was out for the day, with Rosie, for their anniversary.
Judah and Henri Eight were in and out…
Collette had a box of crackers for lunch while the rhythmic turning of the copier — the endless printing press — calculated out 321 bulletins for Sunday morning’s services.
The gray never subsided over the rust-colored fields.
And Collette opened the jar of peppermints on the secretary’s desk… twice.

That evening, Puck decided that he would like to spend the night at the Silverspoon’s, so Collette returned home for two hours of reading and more Ballykissangel before OLeif returned. They had a dinner date, the first in around five months or so, apparently.
At Outback Steakhouse. Where, after so many, many years of ordering only the Alice Springs Chicken (except for that one exception of an evening where she ordered the plate of half Alice Springs Chicken/half ribs (because she had never had ribs) and decided she would probably not order again because of the excessive mess)… Collette ordered a new dish. The quesadilla: stuffed with cheeses, grilled chicken, and dipped in honey mustard sauce. It was good enough to convince Collette to make it her new signature dish at Outback Steakhouse.
During dinner, they discussed various things, including the taste of vegetables and the niceties or un-niceties of peoples’ thumbnail beds, etc.
And though they passed on ordering the peanut butter pie for dessert, they did have a question for the waitress…
“What happened to ya’ll’s Chocolate Tower Cake?” OLeif asked. “Who took that off the menu?”
The waitress sort of got a defiant look on her face, “A fool, that’s who.”
Although she said that there was a possibility of it returning to the menu at some point in the future.

And then home for cookies and more Ballykissangel. Collette and Carrie had, together, now successfully managed to create a triage of television series from the ’90’s taking place in all three of the Queen’s countries (well, in a manner of speaking): England (Midsomer Murders), Scotland (Hamish Macbeth), and Ireland (Ballykissangel).