No, I don't want computer help.

I am having a hard time making really big cookies bake properly. Quite often they are over-cooked on the edges, and almost raw in the middle. I've changed the temperature of the oven, changed the level I put the rack on, tried making the cookies thinner/thicker....no unqualified success yet.


And where do we all head for tech help? Google, of course. Except there are computer cookies and cookie-cookies. And I don't have problems with computer cookies. Although apparently lots of people do, because there are a bazillion sites for help with those whose large cookies are making things crash. My cookies have never made me crash. Ever.

Back to the drawing board. Just felt like ranting. Who came up with computer cookies anyway? Why not make up a completely different word? Zooglies, or something. Messages that saw your zooglies are not enabled makes as much sense as cookies not being enabled. Ok, I'm done now. Honest.

Oh Mayb forgive me.

I...I'm a happy person. I know that the cranky people of this world (and no, I don't mean Mayb) look at us happy folk with suspicion and resentment*, but one can't change one's basic nature. I do, however, occasionally think how irritated some people might be when I am in a really REALLY happy frame of mind, particularly if there is no specific reason for said happiness. Because perhaps some things are beyond the pale.

So...Mayb, Jason and whoever else may read this blog I'm sorry. But this morning I was in the stacks singing out loud...to Aqua. Happy Boys and Happy Girls. Can we still be friends?

*I think because they don't believe that people can actually be happy and they're convinced that we're pretending to be happy while we secretly plot to rule the world.

Matchmaker?

It's good to try new things, yes? So I thought I'd give a shot at matchmaking. And where do I start? Trying to get a person who won't meet without emailing together with someone who won't email without meeting. Not my fault but I think the message here is that I'm not a matchmaker. I mean really, I should have started with something easier. Like some couple that's already together.

Rock a bye baby

I confess, I am a softy in the mornings. I make the lunches and if I think the day is going to be particularly hard for my babies (yes, they're teenagers but they're MY babies, so shut up) I will make them something special for breakfast. I made green pancakes this morning. What better use for the green sugar left over from the cookies we made for a bake sale? Anyway...

The boy thinks that his day has been starting earlier than it needs to. So rather than wake him up so that he is actually eating before I left for work today, I woke him up as I was leaving. Told him there were pancakes in the warming drawer, syrup in the fridge and he would have 35 minutes before I came back to take him to school. So did it work? Did he get ready in time?

Yes, but only because today I took the girl and her poster board and baking and things to her school before I came back for him. He got ready in the intervening minutes, pancakes uneaten. I knew, however, that he wouldn't be ready when I got there for the girl. How? When I phoned to say I was on my way, at the end of the conversation I said good-bye. He said good night.

And I thought I sucked at selling

I just finished a computer class. More than half of it was spent on what the software can't do. Why I need to spend time learning what I can't ever use is beyond me. Maybe that's why they're management and I'm a mere underling.

No knives this trip

So tomorrow morning I'm off on vacation, leaving boyo to house sit. Will he be watching the pets, or will they be watching him? Hard to say.

You'd think that I'd be more or less ready, right? I mean, I'm leaving in the morning after taking boys to school. And after assembling a three layer marble cake. And after delivering said cake. I'm not ready though. You're shocked, right? That I'm behind?

Not totally behind - I've borrowed two really big suitcases. Just don't know what I'm putting in them. I've mainly done the laundry, though, so I should be able to find something. This isn't a "I-hate-to-travel bit of procrastination. It's a cookie procrastination with a dollop of I-can't-believe-I'm-going poor planning. See, I'm bringing cookies. Which I haven't made. And I keep thinking of different types to bring. I also think I could make the dough for a pie in the morning and pack it and frozen Saskatoon's in my luggage so I can make a pie when I get there. I was even thinking of making bread in the morning (because what else have I got to do other than lunches, breakfast, packing, driving and cake making?) and bringing it as a carry-on. Because it is sort of a long term thing (I'd be starting it tonight) and I really didn't want to spend a day of my vacation hanging out in the kitchen. And I also really wanted them to try it. Howsoever:
a co-worker suggested that having freshly baked bread on a flight where the only food is either two dry cookies or a sack of some strangely shaped crackers would be akin to torture. I could auction it off, though, when everyone is suitably ravenous, thereby providing myself with a little more vacation moolah. I think she may be right, so we'll see about the bread. Maybe bread is even on the new list of things you can't bring on a plane. Who knows? What about sourdough starter? If it is liquid, does that mean I can't bring it? What if it is like thickish cake batter, can I bring it then?

I'm not completely unready. I have a list of things to do today, like get to the bank (I forgot to initial something when I got the loan) before it closes and get to the deli (I've ordered six really wonderful sandwiches for my baby to have while I'm gone) before it closes. And maybe the grocery store so I can get maple syrup for maple cookies. Which I'd have to make tonight, of course. 'Cept I'll have to pack at some point. Oh and money so my boy can't go on his date with three women while I'm gone. Aren't I the most permissive parent?

Also on the list, in giant letters - and circled in pink highlighter - is the phrase "Take the knife out of your purse!!. Because I don't think I have it in me to repeat the previous knife-at-security trauma. I just want the vacation, short though it is.

Lower than a Snake in a Wheel Rut

I'm not one for folksy sayings. Well, not often. And I would have told you that neither are my babies. I may not be able to say that any longer.

I talked to M., and asked her to check the San Francisco sour, to see if it was alive and well. She said it looked bubbly. Sadly, that wasn't good enough. I needed to know if it was truly alive and smelling like death. So I asked her to smell it. Yes, I'm a mean mom. Ask May-B., I'm pretty sure I can't get in trouble over getting a child to sniff a sour dough starter. Anyway, she did, and I asked did it smell? Her answer?

"Yes. Like a donkey in August".

How many?

You know what is very difficult? Not reciting "Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers" when you're making a grocery list that has pickled peppers as one of the items on it.

happyhappyhappy

I have a new oven. New new new! I don't think I could be any happier. Ok, yes, if I had a new oven, a million dollars in the bank, a new body (or even just the one I had years ago back) and a vacation with Naveen Andrews starting tomorrow I would be even happier. However... the point is that the new oven has made me incredibly happy. I hope that there are things that can make you happy too. Things in the realm of possibilities, that is. Now if I can just stay at work until it's time to go home and not use up precious time-in-lieu! Work can be ok but when there is a whole new world of baking out there waiting for me staying here is very difficult indeed.

And for an encore, alien kidnapping and flaming death

So, in the past little while, I have had:
My large (and new and HUGELY expensive) Kitchen Aid mixer break (not yet fixed)
My furnace die (now fixed)
My car die (now fixed)
My oven die (will have to replace. So off to the bank)
My Ipod returned from it's loan to my son only to be run over (by me. And my girl and a friend replaced it. So I'm going to have to find the $ to pay my baby back)
No kids arrive for the roast beef/potatoes/gravy/veggie Sunday supper I prepared

The first thing happened a couple of weeks ago. The remaining FIVE happened in the space of a week. It was a very bad week. However...

As usually happens when disasters pile up, right at the point where by all rights I SHOULD be having a nervous breakdown, it all starts striking me as being funny. And then everything is alright again. So I think I'm back on track.

Words to Remember

A line I read today:
It's never too late to be what you were meant to be.

Making cold colder

So what makes Saskatchewan in February feel even colder than it already does? A dead furnace, that's what. That and the dreaded cold lump in the pit of your stomach as you contemplate what it might cost you in the end to get heat going in the house again.

You may be tired, but I could have died

So we do occasionally travel out of town on business in this department. Not often, but it happens. Which brings me to a tale that clearly exemplifies how much my supervisor believes that everything is about her:
Travelling in small town, staying in a motel. Some idiot throws a burning cigarette into a trash can. Fire ensues. Alarms in the middle of the night, trucks come in the end one room is moderately burnt and by the end of it all water logged.

I, in my own room, with the gift of sleep (merci, papa!) slept through the whole thing.

Over breakfast the next day, everyone talking about the fire my supervisor is angry - yes, angry! - at me because I got a good night's sleep whereas her beauty rest was broken and she never really got back to sleep after that. Hence her tiredness and really it was all so UNFAIR that I got a good nights sleep.

She didn't see anything wrong with the fact that standing in the parking lot of small town hotel it somehow never occurred to her to tell someone that I wasn't there. I did ask, she shrugged her shoulders. I guess she was too tired to think about her answer when people asked if anyone was missing anyone.

Think before you name

Working in government one tends to see a lot of groups, committees, etc. with unfortunate names. I'm sure you've all seen groups that could have had a better name, something that said what the group was all about, what its goals were, its mandate.

What group name made me think about this topic? I am working on records from the Thrust and Probe Committee. I don't know what they do. Something to do with teeth, I think. But that's not the point. The point is that this name should NEVER have been allowed. IMHO

How much in Doggy Years?

In people years it takes about three minutes (in the winter when there is snow to negotiate) to take garbage out to the garbage bin and then roll the bin to the street for pick up. How much time in doggy years? Long enough to eat a three pound fruitcake. Minus one tiny slice.

Yup, dad got his fruitcake, my sister and her husband got theirs, my customer's got theirs but mine...mine was pelicanned down by the dog (or possibly dogs, but I think the little one is innocent this time) when I took the garbage out on the morning of Christmas eve. So no comments from you lot should I decided to get rid of the dogs. Instead I will expect murmurs of kind understanding.

Lint by any other name

Let me just state, fluff that gets up and walks away is a spider. And given my irrational fear of spiders, I'd like to make it clear that non-mobile fluff on the edge of the tub when I'm having a soak with a drink and candles is my preference. Always. You don't need to know everything that happened. Suffice it to say it was...not unexpected.

Yes, I know that spiders won't kill me kidnap my kids and ruin the laundry. But it's an irrational fear. If they could do all of that they it would be a totally rational fear. But they can't. YET!

The Rain of unfairness

Rudyard Kipling wrote:
The rain it falleth on the just and the unjust fella,
But mainly on the just because
The unjust steals the just's umbrella

Or as near as makes no difference. That is how my brain remembers it from elementary school, anyway. So don't go and tell me how wrong I've got it because that isn't the point.

The point is, I think I'm too old to still believe that the world somehow makes things come out fair. I find myself occasionally moderately surprised to find someone who is "unjust" doing really well and the just...just sucking, I guess. And then I am really surprised to find myself surprised by that. I mean, I'm not six. Not even sixteen, I know that the world isn't fair. And yet I still manage to hear myself saying in aggrieved tones "but that's not FAIR".

So where does this come from? Human nature or crazybarefeet nature?

Because you know what I can do

I'm getting used to all the ways people used to sign their letters: cordially yours, your humble servant, your obedient servant (as if), but the one that comes up occasionally (because I work with historical documents) is this:

Dear Mr. Doe;
Blah blah blah

Believe Me,

John McJohn

I love it. It sounds vaguely threatening. Like it really matters that you pay attention to what his letter is saying. I think I may adopt it as part of my email security signature. Yes I will. Believe me.

To laugh, to cry or to murder?

I am learning how to knit. I have, as all learners do, made scarves. Two only, which is pretty good in the view that I've heard of people that spend their lives making nothing but scarves.

I made a little blanket for my girl and months ago (maybe even a year?) I started something called a couch cuddler. Still really simple, as in all honesty in the picture in the book it looks like..well...a scarf. Six feet long and two feet wide but still. It's meant to go over the knees of people sitting on a couch watching a movie.

If you've read this blog for a while and remember things, you'll recall that I started and re-started a number of times. Then I came within one ball - so to speak - of finishing and decided that the mistakes would make me crazy so I undid it all and started again.

I almost finished during the Grey Cup game, but I was short having enough wool to cast off. When the kids came home, A. found one tiny little bit left over, almost exactly what I needed.

The kids left for a week at their dad's yesterday, so I got a movie from the library to watch while things cooked in the oven. (Two cakes, and they have long baking times), with the plan to finish off the scarf of great hugeness.

I got home yesterday to two very happy puppies. Two puppies who had been playing with the knitting. Which had caught on a corner of the board we put up to keep them out of half of the house. I would have paid good money for a camera at that point. There were lenghts of wool interspersed with bits of the scarf that were still together ...everywhere. Over the couch, over the bookcase in the hallway, under the coffee table, under and ON (?) the dining room table, over the dog cage and to go with it all small fluffy scraps of wool floating about.

The thing is, they looked so pleased with themselves. (The dogs, not the scraps of wool. The scraps of wool just mocked me in very typical wool-like tones). I've had them get into garbage and the don't come to the door when I get home and as soon as I'm through the door they both try to fit in the kennel. Don't tell me they don't know when they're in trouble! So clearly they know eating garbage=trouble. Too bad I didn't tell them that destroying knitting also equals trouble.

I gathered it all up and unravelled what I could but there is one entire ball missing from all the bits that were too useless to save. In all honesty I think I was as close to laughing as I was to crying. But hey, I guess I just start again, yes? Yes. Nil carborundum illegitimi.

Getting into my Pants

I was walking towards the elevator at work this morning (yes, stairs are the better choice but not when you're carrying a pot of tea and a precariously balanced plate of hot cinnamon buns) when I realized there was something pinching the back of my thigh. And not in a good way, I might add.

Not wanting to disrobe in the elevator...
OK, fine, not being allowed to disrobe in the elevator I continued on the journey put everything down on the first desk I came to and went to the womens washroom to see what the deal was.

Turns out there was a needle - a NEEDLE! - in my leggings. Leggings that I just bought, from a package that I opened, took leggins out of and put on. No stops, no resting in the sewing basket, nothing. The non-existent sewing basket that is. That line certainly implied that I sew, and do it in an organized manner whereas the truth is, M. is right: it's a pity I can't bake a dress, because then we'd be covered. Amazing that she things so highly of my baking skills, sad that she knows that I'll never be able to sew. Not even the hem of a towel. In my defence, my first sewing project in high school was a bathing suit, and the second - and most DEFINITELY FINAL - choice was a tartan skirt. Why the teacher let me start with something so demoralizing is beyond me. Unless she didn't like asking me for help once in the cooking half of home economics. Whatever the reason, that bathing suit made me anti-sewing forever. Except for buttons. If you held a gun to my head, threaded the needles and asked really nicely (despite the gun) I will sew a button back on to the garment it ran away from.