Funny Thoughts About Food and Some Old Friends

I have what I think is a funny story about food and people.
Firstly, I have intentionally avoided mentioning much about food for fear of leaving someone out of the thanks. It has all been wonderful, plentiful, and delicious.
And, I have learned that no matter how completley prepared a meal is, I can turn the kitchen into a wreck within three minutes of the food breaking the plane of our front door.
If the donor brought the food in, set the table, and served it to me, without leaving my seat, I'd have six dirty bowls and about four spoons in the sink before I took the first bite. I don't know how I do it...
That being said, you have no idea how much less stress I suffer knowing that when I get home, I can serve up what is is so generously brought to our door, and have only myself to blame for the messes I make.

We have been SO blessed with great food by everyone, and this story isn't really about the food, and the subjects are not on the calendar, so their identity will be kept secret from most people.

But, if you know the person I'm writing about, you will not have the least amount of trouble laughing along.
My parents' closest friends as I grew up were a couple that my parents met in graduate school in Philadelphia. They have a son my age, and son the same age as my younger brother, and their kids were some of our best friends growing up. We have home movies of us playing together when we were a year or two old, and we spent many Summer Vacations together jammed into our beach house in Charleston, SC. My parents' friends were the kind of adults that had the "full faith and credit clause" in their relationship with my parents, meaning that if they thought you needed to be brought to heel, they had the full range of armaments on the table, with an implicit understanding that they could use whatever means necessary to have get the job done.
I spent days and days at their house throughout high school, and even travelled to Russia and Europe with their family in the early 1980s. Their travel itineraries were the stuff of legend in terms of comprehensiveness and detail.
If "Mr. and Mrs. E" had planned Napoleon's trip to Moscow, Vladimir Putin would currently be wearing a beret!

Mrs. "E" (to keep her identity secret) was/is a self-driven perfectionist, and a fantastically generous person, as is her husband and their two sons. She even makes her own (delicious) pimiento cheese spread. She does not suffer fools gladly. You want her on your side in an argument, if you have any sense.

I have used "Mr. and Mrs. E" as character references on just about every job application I have ever completed.

"Mrs. E" made us a dinner for Cathy's recovery.
It was a homemade meatloaf, a bag of green beans, mac and cheese, and some chocolate-chip cookies. It was all fully cooked, but frozen for us to use at our leisure.

The image posted at the top of this post is a full 8 1/2 x 11 page of handwritten instructions for me to make sure that I could heat up everything. Properly.
Included, on the pan which held the meatloaf, was a post-it note indicating "IMPORTANT, this side up!"
Did I mention it was a meatloaf in a standard meatloaf pan?
Was I that unimpressive as a teenager?
I mean, look at all that underlining!!!

Did I mention that the meal was scrumptious?
Thank you, "Mr. and Mrs. E."
We really appreciate the great food and good thoughts.

According to "MR. E" the leftover meatloaf is best when eaten as a sandwich on white bread with mayonaise, cold.
We'll see, but there's barely enough left for a sandwich.

Cathy is still improving, but it seems that after about every third or fourth day, she gets beaten back down a little bit. It's hard to believe that all of this just started three weeks ago. Still, three or four steps forward for a little step backwards is pretty good progress.