I have this popcorn thing going on right now. I place the blame squarely on a recent article that I read in a magazine at the salon where I get my hair “done”. As is my lifetime habit, I started at the back of the magazine. (Last the best of all the game, right?) A few pages into my backward peruse, I landed on a page filled with popcorn ad-in ideas. Pink Popcorn was not one of them.
Gotcha. You thought I was going to say something great about finding a pink popcorn recipe and being all “Oh my gosh! I have GOT to have some of that right now and here I am stuck under a hair drier with my hair covered by a plastic shower cap while the oh-so-amazing-brown color cooks its way into my not-as-brown-as-it-used-to-be hair.”
Actually, I am still working on a popcorn add-in post that is going a whole lot slower than I had anticipated. Ain’t it the way of things. Something looks amazingly simple and brilliant and suddenly there is a detour. Those kinds of things happen to me all the time.
Oh, and speaking of detours, boy do I have one to share with you. Learn from me, okay? LEARN FROM ME. Be careful when you’re driving. Be mindful of YOUR driving. It’s so easy to berate others for their driving, but what about your personal driving???????
I had a doctor’s appointment on Friday. My doctor’s office is on a narrow, easy to miss side street off of a 6 lane, very busy main street. I have driven right past that side street numerous times and instead have had to take a longer circuitous route to get to my doctor. On Friday, I was focusing hard on NOT missing the street while simultaneously keeping my eyes on the busy traffic buzzing around me.
Although I was really watching for the street and had turned on my blinker in anticipation of making my turn, I still almost missed the street. Like I said, it’s a little fellow. Consequently, I took the corner too wide and a little too fast. As luck would have it, there was an on-coming car…two on-coming cars, both of them white.
Don’t worry, nothing bad happened. I managed to pull my vehicle back into my lane in plenty of time, but I noticed that whoever was driving the first white car had gotten scared and was ditching to the side of the road. I was scared, too, because in a brain-flash I saw so many possibilities of what could have happened.
I was feeling sorry about having scared the other driver, but I was more intent on finding a parking space in the parking lot at the doctor’s office than I was about the other driver who was probably well on her way to her destination by this point. I found a parking place and the good parking fairy was with me because there were two empty spaces back to back. I counted myself fortunate and nimbly pulled through to the other space so that I would be poised for a forward exit after my visit with the doc.
Grabbing my purse from off of the passenger seat, I reached to open my door. At the same moment I was reaching for the door handle, a white car skidded to an angled stop in front of me. It had pretty red and blue flashing lights on it’s roof and on it’s front grill and sitting on its dashboard.
Yessiree, that second white car that I had passed by had been a police car. And the policeman hadn’t missed a single moment of the action. He hadn’t missed my wide turn, the frightened woman driving the other car who had pulled to the side of the road, not even my fast-as-lightening reflexes as I pulled my vehicle back into my own lane.
What do you do when you are caught in an error with potential for some very unpleasant consequences? Own the moment, ladies and gentlemen. Own the moment.
I got out of my van, stood still for a moment, and waited for the inevitable. The policeman got out of his car somewhat cautiously. (My husband, who obviously has a lot more experience than me with getting pulled over, said that you are never supposed to get out of your vehicle when you get pulled over because it can be considered threatening behavior. In reflection, I can see his point.)
In my head I was thinking, “Let’s just get this over with so that I won’t be late for my doctor’s appointment. I wonder how long it will take for him to write me out a ticket? Or will he arrest me…”. What my mouth said cheerfully was, “Hi! I guess you saw what I just did and so you are going to write me out a ticket. Do you want my driver’s license?”
He was caught a little off guard, but smiled back. “Yes, I’ll be needing that. But first, do you know what you did?”
“Yes, I took the corner too wide.”
“I’m more concerned about how fast you were going than how wide you took the corner. You scared the other driver and did you know that she had to pull off of the road?”
“Oh dear,” I said. “I can see how she would have been scared seeing someone in her lane.”
Clearly he thought I was missing the point. “Like I said, I’m not concerned about how wide you took the corner. Your speed is what concerns me. But you did handle the car very well, good recovery, very quick, got right back into your lane, especially for how fast you were going.” He shook his head, asked for my license and (insert screechy, maniacal, Alfred Hitchcock music here) my registration and proof of insurance.
Do you know when the last time was that I had to produce those? Yeeeeeeeeears ago. Lots and lots of years ago. “Oh please let them be here,” I thought. “Please let me be able to find them.”
I pulled out the stack of papers from the glove box and started rifling through them. They all looked the same except that the dates were different. “There it is,” the policeman said as he spied one of the papers.
“Nope. That’s from 2009,” I said. I kept looking. 2012, 1997 (what the heck?), 2010, tire receipt…
“Ummm…I need to make a phone call to my husband. I know that he just registered the van, but I don’t know what he did with the paperwork.”
The officer was full on laughing at me now.
After a phone call to said husband, I finally found the current registration, but the proof of insurance was from 1997—seriously, 1997. The hubsters said, “Ahhhh, ummm, wellll, I um haven’t printed one off for a long time because I have to print a new one every six months and it is such a pain in the butt.” I countered with, “John! The last one is from 1997! What am I going to do? I’ve got a policeman standing right here waiting and he is going to write me a ticket and I can’t even produce proof of insurance!!!!!!”
The end of the story goes like this: The policeman continued to snicker, asked me if my insurance information was still the same as it had been in 1997, snickered some more while he continued to look up my info on his computer, let me go with a warning, and told me to slow down and have a nice day. I was 20 minutes late for my doctor’s appointment. My doctor still agreed to see me even though he had to rearrange his schedule. He did, however, require me to recount to him the details of why I was late and then as I was scheduling my next appointment he shared the story with his office staff, referring to my driving as being out of The Dukes of Hazzard. At least he didn’t call me Daisy.
Pink Popcorn
Ingredients
- 16 cups popped popcorn (about 1/2 cup unpopped popcorn kernals)
- 2 cups white granulated sugar
- 2/3 cup whole milk or half & half
- 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 to 3 small drops of red food coloring
Instructions
- Set popcorn aside in a large mixing bowl. Prepare a baking pan by lining it parchment paper. Set aside.
- In a saucepan combine sugar, 1/2 & 1/2 or milk, corn syrup and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar dissolves.
- Reduce heat to medium low and continue to cook the ingredients. Stir periodically. Use a thermometer to monitor the temperature. When it reaches 230 degrees F (soft ball stage), turn off heat source and move pot to a cool burner or to a protected counter top. Stir in 2 drops of red food coloring and the vanilla.
- Pour the pink mixture over the top of the popcorn and stir well to coat. Work quickly because this mixture sets up fast.
- Pour the mixed popcorn out onto the baking sheet, spread around evenly, and allow to cool completely. Store covered.
Notes
Nutrition
Be nice. Drive carefully. Own the things that you do wrong. Say your prayers every day. Eat pink popcorn.
You may also like:
Almond Caramel Popcorn
Cake Batter Crispy Rice Cereal Treats
Butterscotch Buddies
Oh no!! You poor thing. Getting pulled over by the cops is the worst!! I think most of us totally have been there and no one ever knows how to really handle the situation. At least you had a decent cop…even with all the snickering. 🙂
So glad this pink popcorn was there to cheer me up at the end of the post… it’s spectacular. I am making this for my daughter… she loves pink!!!!
PS… you have a ? for the milk… do you just eye ball it?
Oops, thanks for catching the error. I don’t know how that happened!. It is 2/3 cups.
Loved your story! Sounds like something I would do…but i’d probably get a ticket! I adore popcorn…especially a sweetened version. I need an excuse to make this when I won’t be alone or I’ll eat the whole batch myself!
The popcorn looks yummy–and I’m glad you just got a warning! 🙂
Hi Terri,
I can’t wait to try this fun Popcorn! Hope you are having a great weekend and thank you so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday.
Come Back Soon!
Miz Helen