Nutmeg Sprinkled Freely on Date Free Tart

The Anaesthesiologist told me not to write for 24 hrs after my operation because all that morphine would make me think whatever I’ve written would be Pulitzer Prize material. I saw this recipe on Better Homes and Gardens that night - zucchini cake with pistachio nuts and he’s right – it seemed like the best thing since sliced bread (if you’re going to use a cliché, you might as well make it appropriate – mind you, if I was talking about bread and butter pudding – now that would have been something).

Since then, I’ve bought some zucchini and the nuts and have wound up using them for something else before they even come close to seeing a baking tin.

And I’ve baked other things. They haven’t been good enough. Well… honestly, they have been perfectly all right except that they are not zucchini cake and so I’m left with this feeling like something jest aint right.

Speaking about jest aint right, what century is this? Say a man asks you out. You NEVER assume anything more than this is one date. It could be coffee. This could be something not coffee but all in all, you’re thinking this is one date. When a boy asks a girl on a date, I have never seen the girl suddenly get her pen out and change her life insurance. It doesn’t happen.

Yet, if a woman asks a man out, as I bravely (I might add) did the other day, suddenly the world assumes she’s wheeling her apron strings into a lasso and singing about mountains like Julie Andrews.

But then, this is all new to me. My mind said ‘out for coffee’ – my mouth just said ‘out’. And that, I’ve been told, is the difference. Hell, all I meant to do was advertise the coffee, not the whole coffee shop!

In fact, I was on the train the other night and there was this Gen Y girl sharing her life and mobile phone conversation with us all - as they do so well - without caring that those of us with no life are listening with many stations to get through without the relief of a newspaper – not even an MX.

The girl spoke words that I was certain the universe had prepared for my ears alone:

She said, ‘I’m going on a date…I know…I wouldn’t normally… I mean he said do you want to go OUT!… Yeah, like if he’d said, go out for a coffee, then that would be okay but do you want to go OUT…I know… but he said go OUT…who ever says THAT?!!!…I know…’

I wonder now what the hell entertained my head to do this. I’m not too sure really but I’m guessing it was probably one of the things I was thinking about while watching Better Homes and Gardens, a few weeks back.