Jeeves did not show up here at the house this week, but I managed to make it to my 948^th blog post in one piece.  Can you believe I’m in my fourth year of writing a blog without domestic assistance?  No, neither can I.

I snuck out of my office at 4:30 p.m. yesterday and whipped up an old-fashioned “Banana Pudding” with some darkening tropical specimens.  Have you ever made banana pudding?  I had never made one before Thursday.  The dish has its own Wikipedia entry and apparently, there’s even a Banana Pudding Festival in Centerville, Tennessee.  What is it about bananas and Tennessee?  I wrote a blog post about banana cake last year and discovered there was a “Banana Festival” in South Fulton.

Banana pudding…it’s a Southern thing.  Essentially, a layered trifle of bananas, vanilla wafers, and vanilla pudding.  It’s delicious, especially when served in a dish with whipped cream.  I didn’t have any vanilla wafers, so I used Kedem brand tea biscuits.  I made the pudding from scratch and it couldn’t have been easier.  Sugar, eggs, salt, cornstarch, milk, and vanilla all quickly boiled and stirred in a saucepan and poured over the bananas and cookies.

As the dessert cooled, Handy showed up and made dinner with leftovers he found in the refrigerator.  It was a pleasant early evening meal.  When Handy and I have dinner here at my house, the after dinner joke goes like this:

“How about we have dessert in the living room and watch some Tee Vee,” I’ll say.

“Sure.”

We go in the living room with our desserts and sit on the loveseat.  I grab the Bose radio remote, click it, and we look at the radio for a few seconds.  There is no Tee Vee in my house, remember?

This is my life.

Last night, we took a break from the radio and the alleged news.  We just talked, mostly about the current Sun Journal writing assignment I was patching together and then our upcoming trip to the ends of the earth.  We’re going on a long Lady Alone Traveler ride one of these days and we’re having fun looking at the map and considering the stops we might make along the way.  But that’s another blog post for another day.

It’s Friday and this is my 948^th blog post.

“Jeeves, could you kindly bring me some of that leftover banana pudding with my coffee?  Put a Maraschino cherry on top, please.”

“Yes, Mademoiselle, right away.”