Skillets & Apple Cider Vinegar

There are so many neat spots on the campus of Baylor University. When I was a student at Truett I became quite familiar with the special spots around Truett Seminary.

There are these tables outside in the courtyard. I remember when my friend Michelle and I began a singing flash mob of sorts of Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. (I LUH that song). We started in and several other students stopped pretending to be studious and joined. Our canticle activities coincided with the Waco Regional Baptist Association monthly meeting right on the other side of a  wall of (not sound proof) glass doors...oops.

Oh and I love the study table on the third floor. There are no collapsible legs supporting that handsome display of oak and glass. It is a straight-up ascots and Bourbon type of structure, if you know what I mean. I felt like I was doing something with my life when I studied theology on the beary quiet (SicEm) third floor. Also, I was always under the impression that the more seasoned seminarians earned the right to that table so I didn't sit there until my latter years.

And every building has the esteemed "poo" bathroom. Don't act like you are too good to poo in public because we all find this bathroom in our respective places of work. Truett Seminary...3rd floor...I needn't say mas.

My favorite places are public but deceivingly romantic. The bench right outside the doors of the narthex and the long couch on the inside. I spent many a last-minute hour formatting footnotes and cramming in those places. I had my first conversations with James in those places. I reverted to my gitty second grade self on that long couch when, flustered and not wanting our conversation to end, I blurted out to James, "So you wanna come to my birthday party in the park?" Mind you, this query followed a deep conversation about the ails of being a mature 30 year old in seminary...forever a pathetic nerd am I.

That brown metal bench on the outside...the one on the left...that was where James sat eating his lunch one day. I passed him three times (or circled him like a vulture, whatever) while I talked on my phone in utter disbelief that I might actually like this guy. He says he watched me pace. I still didn't know what in the world we could possibly have in common when I finally got the nerve to say "hi" and sit my butt down. We talked for an hour just like we did the first time we talked on the couch.  James explained to me the importance of cleaning and disinfecting with apple cider vinegar. My ears perked up and my heart began to stir but I knew I was in love, in love I tell you, with my Moody-man,when our talkfest veered a smooth right to the land of cast iron skillets. I have had a lifelong love affair with my family cast iron skillet...Mom will turn over to me every, last thousand-year old heirloom she owns but I best not touch that skillet that we have been cooking with for 30+ years. My present from my parentals for my dirty 30 party in the park...my very own cast iron skillet (I still want theirs). My Moody man told me that he could burn, clean and oil it for me...I just about died. He was killing me softly with his words (in the best way possible) . He was wooing me with his cookware prowess and I knew he had to be mine.