Lemon Accounting 🍋

My lemon month

I got fifteen lemons in the mail from a California friend with a lemon tree.

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This is what I did with them.

Gave two lemons to the librarian who recycled all my lemon packing box material since I picked up the lemon box at the post office and had to walk home. She also gave me a cookbook with a few lemon recipes. Now I have thirteen lemons.

I gave two lemons to my landlady who lent me a reamer, let me use her microwave, and who always leaves little treats for me on the stairs. Now I have eleven lemons.

I used one lemon for practice. Squirted some into my Diet Coke and my ersatz powdered lemonade. Now I have ten lemons.

I used one lemon to make a lemon butter chicken of my own devising. Now I have nine lemons.

Lemon + garlic + thyme and some butter. Very good.

Two lemons for a blueberry lemon pound cake which, to be honest, could have been even lemonier. Now I have seven lemons.

I made some more juice with the reamer.

I wrote a secret message with this lemon juice. Will try revealing the message at home first before using this technique to send a message to a young friend.

Blank piece of paper with some faint smudges on it.

Used the leftover secret message juice in a lemon sugar scrub (I am so sure I will regret bringing a slippery glass jar into the tub but here I go). Now I have six lemons.

Not sure this will get me clean, looks like it will get me oily.

Cut up all the lemon rinds and added some vinegar to make some future cleaning solution. Now I still have six lemons.

Peanut butter jar full of lemon rinds and vinegar. Very yellow.

Juiced one lemon in anticipation of making a dutch baby.

Dutch baby came out all that and then some.

Dutch baby on a colorful plate atop a colorful placemat. That is lemon juice not butter.

But it really didn’t use much lemon juice, so I had some left over to figure out what went wrong with my invisible ink. It didn’t turn brown over a warm light bulb, so I tried heating it over a stove burner and that just scorched the paper.

Second attempt, following instructions a little more closely (added water).

Little bowl of lemon juice near a piece of white paper with two cotton swabs nearby.

It worked! Mostly. I skipped the in-between image, where it just looked like a piece of paper. Now I have five lemons.

piece of paper with three little hearts drawn on it and the word LEMONS in sort of brownish… ink?

Went for a walk with a friend who always appreciates tasty fruit and has been a good person for feeding me vegetables and/or tea when I come to visit. I thought she would appreciate a lemon. Now I have four lemons.

Very yellow lemon in my friend’s hand, juxtaposed with what is still a lot of snow

Made some coconut lemon chicken on top of some lemon basil quinoa. Now I have three and a half lemons.

The progression from chicken in a pan, a half a lemon and chicken and quinoa in a bowl

Used real lemon juice instead of terrible supermarket lemon juice in my applesauce. Maybe I’m fooling myself but I think it tastes better. Now I have three lemons.

Lemon going into chopped applesauce. Stacked containers of applesauce in the fridge.

Lemon garlic pasta was pretty good but maybe could have been even more lemony. Now I am down to two lemons.

dry pasta, bread crumbs and lemon juice and nice bowl of pasta at the end of it

It is ten days later. I have finally finished the pound cake. I have finally finished the pasta. I have finally finished the applesauce. My lemon vinegar cleaner is smelling amazing. The lemon coconut sugar scrub I made is chunky but basically great.

I put the last two lemons in the fridge a while ago. They are looking a little rough. I remember my friend the Lemon Pig…

some sort of turn of the last century idea of a fun game, looks like a lemon with matchstick legs

I try a few things. My lemon pig looks morose.

a lemon with clove eyes and four pushpin legs

My circus pig looks even worse.

Lemon mouse says “Why would you do this to me?”

same as above, minus lights and with two little metal eyelets for ears

This thing is a blob. What is a good blob animal? I know… a lemon tardigrade!

a lemon with clove eyes, eight pushpin legs and some sort of weird metal thing for a mouth

Wait, don’t they have no eyes? Perfect!

a lemon with eight pushpin legs and some sort of weird metal thing for a mouth

I will play with it every day. Now I have one lemon.

I went away for vacation and came back to the tardigrade looking a little rough. Still smells good though.

[lemon tardigrade looking a little rotten]

However the weather is great and Spring is in the air. I remember a thing I used to do in high school, back when I met the friend who gave me these lemons. I have one pretty good looking lemon left in the fridge.

I slice it up. I am maybe going a little grey in the temples. I do the thing we did in high school where you rub a lemon into your hair so it will lighten up “naturally” while you spend the whole summer outside. I spent a lot of my high school summers at least partially outside with my lemon-giving friend.