We Most Certainly Will NOT Be Making Lemonade!

I'm sorry (somewhat) that I've seemed so political lately and maybe I'll wind down now that the election's over, but I doubt it. I think I've been political (read: outspoken) most of my life. And in keeping with that, I'd like to state for the record how much I love lemons.

Yes, lemons. Lemon anything makes me happy. And lemons -- not limes! -- in many a Corona Light and her mini-me, Coronita, has made me a happy girl over the years. I don't know if it was due to preference or personal citrus stock, but when Todd Johnston (NPHS Class of 1984 and a major 1983 crush of mine) gave me my first Corona many years later, it was with a lemon. I loved it and never switched.

It's caused me to do the same ridiculous gesture at Mexican restaurants for 20 years:

May I have a Corona Light with lemon please? 
(server nods enthusiastically, albeit blankly)
With a LEMON, not a lime. 

It's here that I add my gesture for good measure. As I'm saying LEMON slowly and clearly, I hold up my thumb and forefinger to form a C as if I'm holding a lemon wedge and not a lime wedge.

The lime wedge C would be much smaller, silly. 

And then when my Corona Light arrives with a lime, we go through my personal Talking Charades once again. Then I usually get a little bowl with many lemon wedges which make me happy because one just can't have enough lemons. 

I've wanted a lemon tree for a bunch of years now. Preferably in a giant terra cotta pot on the stone patio of my Tuscan villa, but I digress. I've wanted a lemon tree and learned in the last few years that they can actually grow successfully where I live. And so, my girlfriend got me a lemon tree last year for my birthday. We asked the nursery worker if it would actually grow lemons and he scoffed at us. "Put it in a pot and watch them grow!"

Sure enough. They began to grow. My birthday is in May and we had the tree outside all summer. Dark green fruit began to spring up all over and get bigger and bigger and bigger and...

Green. 

I was beginning to have my doubts. We moved her inside to a sun porch about a month or so ago and noticed a slight nearly-imperceptible change taking place a few weeks ago. Without further ado, may I introduce........My first lemon!! 

Isn't she beautiful? Girlfriend keeps asking me what I'd like to make with the lemon and I keep telling her I'm going to shellack it and keep it forever. How could I possibly eat her?! It's taken her nearly six months to get here. Maybe we'll eat the next one. But not this one. I can't bear the thought of plunging a knife into her. My girlfriend is clearly a barbarian.