Saucepot Saved!

Amazingly, after yesterday's experience of carbonized orange and grapefruit rind, I was able to rescue the sturdy saucepan. All it took was a bit of cooling off time on the fire escape...
But to get to the fire escape, that was an adventure.
As soon as I smelled the, uh, caramel... and ran to the stove, I lifted the smoking pot off the burner. My first thought was actually for the smoke alarm. As I mentioned, we had already had a fire truck pull up, lights and sirens going, when there was an egg explosion in the kitchen. So I ran to the intercom and frantically paged our ever-placid Sr. Lusia, who was at the information desk in the book center downstairs. "Hurry, turn off the alarm! I have something burning and the alarm will go off any minute now and I have to open the fire escape door to let the smoke out!" She responded in so laid-back a manner that when I hung up, I wasn't sure if I could open the fire escape without getting, not the fire truck, but the police. I ran down the hall, the pot emiting a heavy plume of smoke, incensing the whole second floor, and finally threw open the fire escape door. Thanks be to God it had recently been repaired, or it would have been impossible to shut again! It took quite some time, but eventually the smoke cleared. And the smoke alarm never did go off, so I guess we'd better get that checked so we can be safe the next time we burn bacon or (this is my other favorite trick) carbonize pecans.
But back to the saucepan. It was a nice heavy one, stainless steel. None of that cancer-causing no-stick lining or anything. So when the blackened mass inside had stopped smoldering, I just slammed the pot upside down on the fire escape railing and an oversized hockey puck plummeted to the alleyway. No, it did not smash into little pieces on hitting the surface. And our saucepan is only slightly the worse for the wear, still featuring a few blackened bits that I will tackle with an S.O.S. pad. Later.
This weekend the Mt. Carmel parish choir also participated in a Three Choir Festival. Each choir (Mt. Carmel, the William Ferris Chorale and the choir from the First St. Paul's Lutheran Church) gave a small recital and then the three choirs got together for a massive piece of music, the Jongen Mass in Honor of the Blessed Sacrament, composed for something like the 500th anniversary of the Feast of Corpus Christi. I thought it was a wonderful piece of music, and I generally don't like 20th century stuff (except for William Ferris' music). The William Ferris Chorale is one of the significant choral groups here in Chicago, and that drew the Tribune music critic to our Friday night concert. Today's Tribune had this to say: "The chorus [under the direction of Simon Preston, who "with all that sound and fury at his fingertips" "looked rather like an overgrown kid in a candy store"] sounded confident and well-prepared; their big, fervent sound swimming around in the resonant acoustics of Mt. Carmel." "The most impressive singing came from the Mt. Carmel Choir under the direction of Paul French."
This came at a price. The price of a mother's sacrifice. My mother's sacrifice. She gave up honey in her coffee and salt in her grits for three whole days, and on the second night of the concert (last night, at the University of Chicago's Rockefeller Chapel) she gave up dessert until after the last note. Here is her description of the final moments of sacrifice (please note, Mom often types in all caps because she is afraid that she will hit the wrong key and lose all her typing; it is not really for emphasis):
I HOPE IT WAS A REAL "DOOZIE"....IT SEEMED THAT TEN O'CLOCK WOULD NEVER COME AS I ANXIOUSLY BUSIED MYSELF WITH LITTLE NOTHINGS, AFTER THOMAS APRIL AND KATE LEFT....THE HANDS ON THE CLOCK FROZE AT TWELVE MINUTES TO TEN....THE COFFEE ICE CREAM, AND YUMMY SWEET POTATO COOKIES MADE BY NELL, SAT WITHIN MY VIEW, CAJOLING ME, "TAKE A BITE IT'S ALMOST TEN"...WELL, I CONFESS THAT I DID REMOVE THE ICE CREAM FROM THE FREEZER, GET OUT MY FANCY DESSERT GLASS AND SPOON AND WHIPPED CREAM, AND NAPKIN AND FINALLY THE SMALL HAND REACHED THE TENNNNNNNNNNNNNNN....QUICKLY FOLLOWED BY THE BIG HAND ON THE TWELVE. WHAT DO PEOPLE DO WHO GIVE UP COFFEE ICE CREAM AND SWEETS FOR LENT. I HAVE NOT ACHIEVED THAT STOIC STAGE OF SACRIFICE, BUT JUST THAT TEENY ONE MUST HAVE BEEN FELT.
God bless my mom!