So Kathy was gone for most of the weekend, and it fell to my entirely amateur shoulders to be attentive to our two dogs, one of which was getting over the fllu.  That meant serving Ellie (the sickie) chicken and rice, which kathy had prepared for me and put in little baggies.  And all that was fine except that I made the mistake of serving it to both Ellie and Bobbi,  which meant that it lasted half as long as it would have otherwise.  No problem, I assured Kathy when she called Saturday morning.   .   . I’ll whip up some more rice on my own.  I’ve actually done it before, so it’s one of the three things I know how to do in the kitchen.  (The other two are making grilled cheese sandwiches and opening up cans.)

Attempt #1 – which I actually did late Friday evening – was a bust because I misread the directions on the box and combined 3 cups of rice with 2 quarts of water.  (I inadvertently combined the stovetop and microwave directions.)  The result was a giant, dough-y white blob in the kettle that was sort of like soggy styrofoam, if you can imagine such a thing.  .   . so disgusting that Oliver Twist would have turned down a first helping, let alone seconds.)

Attempts #2, #3, #4 – Saturday afternoon was devoted to cleaning out my car, sorting through the junk, throwing away the crap, you get the idea.  At one point, the couch was completely covered with music-  and three TV trays were piled high with books, CDs, paperwork, etc.   In the midst of that undertaking, I tried to make some more rice- this time the right way.  Three times I started boiling three cups of water. . . and all three times I forgot all about the water until it had boiled 35 minutes, 50 minutes, and 30 minutes- meaning that in all three cases I no longer had three cups of water.  Each time I struck myself in the head- and after both the second and third incidents I even said a bad word (bad for me)  for all the good it did me.

Attempt #5 – Success, at last! ! !

Next time, if there IS a next time, (if Kathy ever leaves the dogs alone with me again) I’ll make sure I have a copy of “Instant Rice for Morons” handy before I attempt such a culinary project again.

* * * Note-  Every word of this post is completely true.  Not one iota is exaggerated in the least.  Really.