The Year of the Lemon

It was fabulous. It was life-altering!

If you are wondering what year that was, it was the year the Olympics were held in Los Angeles. Look it up.

It was the one year of my life that I actually lived in Los Angeles. Oddly, I never attended a single Olympic event that year while I was there. I wonder if it is a fear-based chemical reaction to having been at the Olympic Village in Munich back in 1972. I should probably have that checked out but I must also say that I have attended the Special Olympics — both in Heidelberg and in Colorado Springs — and for some reason that is so much more appealing to me.

Anyway, I was living in a second-floor apartment in a small apartment complex that was built back in the 1940s. It was very similar to any of the seemingly thousands of apartment complexes built there in the 1940s. (Think windows that you crank open and shit. Think courtyards sandwiched between a couple of two-story apartment buildings. Think balconies.)

Think balconies! I say this with emphasis because I’m a balcony freak. I think all rooms should have a balcony.

The balcony I had was special. Why? Because growing on the ground below the balcony was a lemon tree! It must have been an older lemon tree because it was big enough to reach up beyond my balcony. (I wonder if it had been planted in the 1940s.)

Have you ever gotten up in the morning and, either barefoot or in flip-flops, you wander into the kitchen and you look around and suddenly realize that you are out of lemons? You panic, right?

Well, during that mind-expanding year in Southern California I did not panic much. Okay, I did. But not about lemons!

Without having to put on shoes and go to the freaking grocery store, all I had to do was walk out onto my balcony, reach over the railing and pick a lemon or two directly off that lemon tree.

That year in Los Angeles was the year my life changed forever!

That was the year I became a bona fide, certified, registered LEMON FREAK! Since then, I simply cannot live without lemons.

As an example of how ignorant I am, I once tried to grow a lemon tree in Colorado. That’s like trying to force a penguin to live in Phoenix.

My home had 12-foot ceilings so I thought I had the space. I loved it, fed it high-intensity energy, delicious food and water, and a big window to live in front of. If I could not be in a place where lemon trees grow out-of-doors then I would simply grow one indoors.

But the lemon tree was never truly happy. I could feel it. After all, it was in Colorado. In the nine years I had that lemon tree in my home it produced a grand total of three lemons. With intense gusto, I ate all three of those lemons, skin and all.

Did I mention that I’m a lemon freak?

How do you tell when it is time to go grocery shopping? Do you look over your ongoing shopping list? Do you look in your refrigerator? Your cabinets?

All I have to do to know if it is time to go grocery shopping or not is look at my lemon bowl on the kitchen counter. If there are only one or two or three lemons in the bowl then it is definitely time to go grocery shopping.

Well, earlier today I flip-flopped into the kitchen and my lemon bowl immediately caught me eye. There was only one lemon in it!

I took three long, deep breaths, trying not to panic.

I then walked over to the window and looked outside. It was dark, overcast; very gray. Thankfully it was no longer snowing. On the ground was three inches of snow. Scratch that. Those three inches of snow were not on the ground but rather on a thick layer of ice that covered the ground.

This is our sixth winter storm of the season so far and it is not even December yet!

I have been indoors all day so far. (How weird is that?) And there was no way in hell that I was going to hike way out to the local Wal-Mart (the only grocery store in an 80 mile radius). Screw that! I am actually going to spend the entire day indoors.

I figured that it would be at least 48 hours before everything was cleared up and melted before I could hike all the freaking way out to Wal-Mart (the only place to buy lemons in an 80 mile radius).

That’s okay. Maybe I needed a day indoors, void of any human contact, free of excursions into the simmering pot. Maybe today is a blessing. Maybe the first day of freedom is a day of learning further examples of freedom.

Yeah, I’m celebrating today but that’s a different story.

Turning away from the window, I walked back inward into my apartment. When I entered my kitchen I immediately looked at my lemon bowl at that one single, solitary, cute lemon in the bowl.

Can that one single, solitary, cute lemon last me for 48 hours?

That is when the panic intensified.

(Did I mention that I’m a lemon freak?)

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved.

If you are going to cook at all this holiday season you must read this first: