Lemon Bar Disaster

Today I went to the doctor for a well check and a Tetanus shot.  I had a little "incident" last Friday night, and my Mom really wanted me to get the shot and you've gotta do what your Momma says right?  Plus it's been almost twelve years since I fell down the basement stairs, landed on a nail and got the last one.  Oops.  As far as "the incident", Mike and I had been invited to one of his co-worker's homes Friday evening.  I made a batch of lemon bars to take and as I opened a bottom cabinet to look for a platter to arrange them on, a 2 quart baking dish came sliding out, hit the tile floor, and exploded into what seemed like a million pieces.  The pieces bounced up into the air and when I looked down, there was blood running down my leg.  If you don't like the word blood, I recommend you stop reading now.  I hadn't even felt anything hit my leg.  Now here's where things started to get bad.  I've had two babies, dealt with kids' broken arms and legs, and numerous other bruises, scrapes, illnesses, and just general grossness of raising children.  This is why I can't understand why my body responded the way it did.  I immediately yelled out "I'm bleeding" and covered my eyes.  Mike's 21 year old brother James is living with us right now and he and Mike came to check things out.  Then Mike ran off to the bathroom to look for first aid supplies.  James was just standing there as I was leaning on the counter so I said "Put some pressure on it James!"  He did, although I'm sure he was thinking he did not sign up for holding pressure on his sister in law's bleeding, probably in need of a shaving, injured leg when he moved in.  It seemed like it was taking Mike FOREVER and I could feel the blood pooling under my foot.  Luckily, Mike had asked James to remove my shoe as he was heading toward the bathroom.  Some blood had already reached the shoe unfortunately.  Finally Mike returned with of all things, a round eye makeup remover pad to hold on the wound.  Apparently he missed the large box labeled "First Aid Supplies" in the bottom drawer.  By this time I was feeling very, very bad.  I was nauseated and my head was spinning. Then he says "Hmmm, it won't stop bleeding."  Not the right thing to say at this point honey.  I said "I'm gonna pass out, somebody better get me a chair." Poor James went for the chair.  He wasn't fast enough for me, so I said "I'm telling you I'm gonna pass out, I need a chair!"  He brought the chair.  I sat down.  Didn't help.  I was feeling worse.  The girls were witnessing all of this excitement, as they had been sitting at the kitchen table eating their dinner.  I got a little taste of my own medicine.  When they get hurt, I hug them, put on a bandage, and say you're fine.  I don't let them drag out the drama.  Who wants to be around a kid like that right?  Well, here's the sympathy I got out of them.  "That's a lot of blood."  "Who's gonna clean up all this blood?" "Does this mean you're not going to that thing?"  They were really concerned about me as you can tell.  Anyway, I was doing everything I could think of to NOT pass out.  I just didn't want to.  I asked Mike to get me a wet rag to put on the back of my neck.  He did and I bent over with my head between my knees and the rag on my neck.  It did nothing.  He used one of those dish towels that don't absorb very well so I didn't feel a thing on my neck.  I said "Get me an ice pack!"  We have at least 6 or 7 ice packs in the freezer because I use them in the girls' lunchboxes.  But he didn't bring me an ice pack.  He brought me a bag of Tuscan Style frozen vegetables.  I put that bag on my neck, my face, my eyes.  It wasn't helping.  I finally said, "You'd better get me to the bed, I'm passing out."  He helped me up, my right eye went black and I knew I wasn't going to make it to the bedroom.  I crumpled to the floor in the dining room and kept the veggies on my head.  I laid there and he and James (bless his heart) cleaned up the mess in the kitchen.  I honestly didn't know a shin injury would bleed that much.  After awhile, I was able to get up and we decided to go on to his friend's place.  So much for the lemon bars being arranged nicely on a platter.  He just grabbed the 9 x 13 pan they were in and didn't even cover it!  And without my knowledge, he had snapped a photo of me as I lay sprawled on the floor, one shoe off,  with the bag of Tuscan Style veggies on my head.  The first thing he did when we reached our destination was pull out his phone and show the picture to his co-workers that were there.  Lovely.  He told me later, he really wanted to draw a chalk outline around me.  When you've been married 18 years, that's what happens. I really do love him though.  He's a good guy.  Thanks for not slapping me to my senses during all this honey! (I know he wanted to).  This has been a long post but I thought I'd end it on a good note with the Lemon Bar recipe.   It's from Paula Deen's cookbook, The Lady & Sons, Too!  I've made it many times and it has never failed me.  Also, I wanted to leave you with a tip.  The shoes I had been wearing were a Land's End cloth strap sandal.  I soaked the blood stained one in Oxiclean and it got the blood out!  Woo Hoo!

Lemon Bars

Crust

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup confectioner's sugar

Pinch of salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature

Filling

4 eggs

2 cups granulated sugar

6 tablespoons all-purpose flour

6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

For the crust, combine the flour, confectioner's sugar, and salt in a large bowl.  Cut in the butter to make a crumbly mixture.  Press the mixture into the prepared pan. Bake in a preheated oven for 20 minutes at 350.  While it's baking, make the filling.  Mix the eggs, granulated sugar, flour, and lemon juice.  Pour this over the baked crust and bake for 25 minutes longer.  Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar when they are done.

And there's no pretty picture of the bars because, well, you know.....