In our house things tend to happen spontaneously or not at all. I mean, it’s not like we don’t plan, but it’s just that what we plan never seems to happen in a “normal” way.

For example. Our family planned to be together for Christmas. To many families that would seem like a fairly normal thing to hope for. But, as I said, for us, if there is a way to complicate, we'll find it.

Our daughter Morgan was in Baltimore to visit a college friend and colleague with meetings and conversations. Her husband, Andrei, was traveling in Bulgaria, Serbia, and Macedonia for work with a final stopover in Romania and Geneva to visit family. He would need to find his way home during one of the busiest travel times with some of the flakiest weather known to human kind messing about. Mae, our oldest, did manage to flee NYC via bus just before the mad rush, but her fiancée, Ben, was completely booked for Eddie Murphy’s “Saturday Night Live” confab not knowing how or when that project would finish up. We were hoping he could connect via Peter Pan to Boston and Concord home. He did.

Morgan brought an elegant cherry pie when she arrived with Andrei the day before Christmas when everyone left to pick up Ben or shop, leaving me home alone. The cherry pie, partially visited in the refrigerator, called out to me.

So, let me walk you through this process. As you can see from the accompanying photo there was some unevenness to the cut along the exposed pie edge, revealing whole dark cherries, glazed crust and enveloping syrup. Here is where our family’s ability to address spontaneous crisis kicked in, and who better than I, “Action Bob,” to manage the situation. I handled it, and well in advance of my returning flock. Crisis, averted, spontaneously, without a plan. Pie edge uniformity reestablished.

Please, hold the applause. Happy New Year everyone!