Spaghetti

 There was an incident. In the kitchen. Again. For those who are intimate with my culinary talents, this comes as no surprise. While I am a very good cook, things have a tendency to go sideways. Sideways, upwards, downwards, and pretty much wherever else.

Using the stand mixer? The side of the fridge has sampled many batters and loose doughs. I'm not the only one, mind you, Tammie had a cocoa explosion a while back and we're STILL finding evidence of it.

But the incidents do not hinder me from trying new things. Things like the Instant Pot. Mind you, I was opposed to drinking from that cuppa koolaid. Everyone I knew had one and loved it, but I was not about to shell out the dough for yet another damn appliance to clutter up the counter. Until we found a recipe for something wonderful and discovered that our old stovetop pressure cooker was no longer pressure cookering. Not even with a new gasket. It was something in the thing-a-ma-doo-dad. I couldn't even coax it into working with the promise of a new flux capacitor. Doing some research for a new cooker, we discovered the dreaded Instant Pots were now on a very good sale and our stove is having some issues being a stove, so perhaps we can make this work.

So, we said "cheers" and clinked the cups and quaffed the koolaid. Ok, we put it in the cart and shelled out the cash. We took it home, used it once, and fell in love. Then I made macaroni and cheese in it, and we both surrendered ourselves to the wonders that is the Instant Pot. I do most of my cooking that way (even spare ribs!) and it's not just because the stove doesn't like stoving any more.

It was spaghetti night and I figured, "what the hell. If I can cook elbow macaroni in this thing, I can surely cook spaghetti in it."

Elbow macaroni, when put in an Instant Pot, is a friendly pasta. It sits where you put it, and stirs nicely when you need to get things mixed up. It is quiet, and doesn't want to bother you when it's done.

Spaghetti noodles? Yeah, not so much. I put the water in the pot, and because I didn't want the noodles to soak in water while I finished prepping the veggies, I put everything in backwards. Water, veggies, noodles... Noodles. NOODLES!

No. The noodles did NOT wish to join the veggies in the bath. They would get one end into the water, then refuse to bow their heads for the lid. "The stupid veggies are in the way," the noodles whined. So I broke them in half and dropped them into the pot. They...fit. Sort of. The veggies were still in the water, and the noodles were not. I grabbed a spoon and began stirring. It was like sticking a spoon into a bowl of grasshoppers. Angry, ARMED grasshoppers. Noodle pieces were flying EVERYWHERE! I have noodle bits on the floor, on the kittie's stool, I'm pretty sure a couple pieces landed in my hair, and I know at least three of them tried to take out my eyesight, but my glasses saved the day.

Noodles were angry. Noodles no like spoon stir. Noodles kill!

I gave up. I tossed in a little more water, poured a bit of oil over the dry pasta, and all the hopes of my heart, because none of those noodles were in water. I had no idea what was going to come out of that pot once the timer went off. Five minutes cook time, then it was time for a quick release.

I fucking hate quick release. It's not so bad with some things, but pasta? Yikes, it starts out nice and clean, then WHAMMO! white, starchy, oily water is being sprayed around my kitchen like the noodles were having one last stab at ruining my day. I put the stirring spoon over the vent, but it was a slotted spoon, which simply divided the geyser into several parts, which bedecked more areas of my kitchen. Thinking quickly, I grabbed the nearest thing within reach, the silicone (and mostly useless) pot holders that came with the Instant Pot. 

No. No, no, no. Think garden hose when you put a finger over it. 360 degrees lateral spray of steamy spaghetti water. So I snagged the dish towel and dropped it over the damn thing. Success! It hissed and seethed, but it was no longer bedecking my domicile with the sticky, oily, nasty. 

While I was waiting for the hissing to stop, I though, "Oh, I can use this corner of the towel to clean off the top of the salt and pepper shakers.

Despite the towel being thin and permeable, when I raised the corner to wipe the lid of the salt shaker, steam rushed out and grabbed my hand. So of course, I did it again, after all, the pepper shaker was still funky and my first thought was, "Whyyyyyy?"

There was still the question of whether or not dinner was even going to be edible. I carefully opened the lid. Lo and behold, the pasta was perfectly cooked. There were clumps that needed a good, gentle stirring, but the fight had gone out of the food and I was able to get it all separated and looking grand. Sauced it, seasoned it and I was ready for food! That's when I realized I'd forgotten to take the rolls out of the freezer for the garlic bread. 

Yes, I did burn myself using the toaster oven.

Bonk! Bonk! Who's There?

 It was one of those mornings. Not for me, for Tammie. I was blissfully snoring the cobwebs off the ceiling, but the chihuahuas were restless and ready to get going. It was also the lovely hour of 04:30. Or maybe it was 05:00. Does it matter? I think not. I was asleep.

Tammie, on the other hand, had given up on all attempts at calming said doggos and hauled herself out of bed. She set Douglas-of-the-Wait-What-Are-You-Doing? on the floor, grabbed Teeny-of-the-small-bladder and headed for the front door. Douglas usually follows, because despite his reluctance to leave the warm bed, his bladder is also on the small side and as soon as he's awake, it's time to pee.

When she got to the front door, she wondered where Douglas was. There was no saucy-walking little prince hot on her heels. She looked around and asked, "Where's Douglas?" He licked her cheek from his position tucked tenderly in the crook of her arm.

"You're not Teeny," Tammie said, putting the little darling outside before going in search of the other tiny-bladdered beast. At the bedroom door, she could hear snuffling and snorting from underneath and gently swung the door open.

"Teeny?" she whispered into the dark room. Not that Teeny could hear her over the snoring from the bed, but that didn't daunt her from trying again. "Teeny?" As she stood in the darkened room, she could feel something bonking against the open door. Looking down at her feet, she saw nothing, so she peered behind the door. Lo and behold, there was Teeny, trapped between the door and wall, using her head like a curb-feeler as she tried finding her way out.

Bonk! Bonk! Bonk!

Mind you, this is NOT how the story was related to me later that morning. It took a very long time and was punctuated with many snorts, giggles, and long streaks of guffaws at the little dog's expense. It sounded something like this:

"I couldn't...hee hee hee...I couldn't...hee hee, hahahahaha, hoo boy! Anyway,...ok, ... hang on... hee hee hee *snort* I thought I had... ahhahahahahahaha! ohmygod Bonk! Bonk! BWAAAHAHAHAHA!..." and so on.

In other animal news, there are two kittens that were born under the neighbor's house. We made friends with the mother cat and a friend of ours managed to trap her and take her home. He got her to the vet where she was checked out and spayed, and now lives the life of a very pampered and well-loved house cat. The "babies," however, were still too skittish to join their mom (they were fully weaned and nearly as big as their momma when this went down), so Tammie has been doing her Snow White thing and drawing them into a sense of security. Foolish little things. But she's able to pet them both when she brings them gushy fuuds in the morning and evening. Seriously, those little feral goobers eat better than our own spoiled elder cats.

But this morning, I needed to take out the trash. I wasn't thinking when I opened the back door and was greeted with the alarming sound of something crashing and thumping around on the slick deck. Seconds later, one of the kittens managed to get down the ramp and give me the hairy eyeball of doom. Poor kitty had done a total Scooby-Doo, trying to run four ways at once when she realized it wasn't Tammie exiting the house.

Relating this story to Tammie, however, sounded nothing like what I've written here. It sounded a lot like, "wheeeze, holy shit! Did you hear that? wheeeze, giggle-snort, ohgawdI'mdying! Thump-thump-thumpity-thump, pahdump-pahdump-pahdump! hahahahahahaha! Scooby-Dooooo! hahahahaha..."

At least we're constantly working on our communication skills, although it's more like translating foley noises into speech. 

Seeking...Something

 If I knew what it was called, I'd try that, but I don't. Longing? That's close, but there's more.

On my writing blog, I mentioned that I'd been missing the blogosphere, that place where you could linger over the written words of a friend or someone else you liked and maybe leave a comment so they know how you felt about what they said. And most of the time, it was polite.

Then came facebook and other social networking sites and something happened. Instant gratification of expression, where you could check your account and see all these likes and comments that gave you instant feedback. Blogs are different. They take longer to read, resulting in people needing to pull out a square of time and devote it to you and what you've written. We had to think more, practice patience, and do our best to be interesting for more than a tweet or a paragraph of whatever we're thinking.

That instantaneous gratification of post-get liked-get comments RIGHT NOW! has done some damage to blogs. Even if you write the blog, you can link it to facebook (like I'll be doing with this one), and comments can arrive there, but they don't reach the blog itself). Blogs have become that special dessert that only your grandmother knows how to make, and while you can buy a slice at the store, it's not really the same. It's missing something important.

I checked out the links to some of the blogs I "follow" here and while they're still up, they're not active. They're the room after the party has gone, with echoes of voices and laughter. Some of them announced their departure because the author was moving on, but many just... stopped. No warning other than that feeling they were done, and a few, with even sadder endings, no longer have a door to the past, just a memory on my sidebar. 

I miss the blogs. I'm sure there are still many out there, but not the ones I want to visit right now. Ballpoint Wren, Corndog, Selma in the City, Notes from Botswana, Hannah, and the list goes on. 

I'm just feeling a little nostalgic at the moment. I'll get over it.

I could blame it on Tammie. We've been playing D&D for many years, and she has several more on me. There's one character of hers, a very tough fighter-mage who has managed to survive a great deal of crazy stuff the DM has tossed her way. But recently, Tammie had her character go into an old watering hole and place two items on the bar: a glove and a shot glass. The shot glass was upside down. That's what she used whenever she ordered "demon rum" that her character would drink. It's ugly going down and uglier going out. The glove is what she used to cover the top because it would spit acid at you while you drank it.

Like I said, her character was tough.

But things change. "This is for the shelf," Z said. 

The DM/Barkeep said, "Really? Why?"

"Because I have nothing else to prove."

It was a strange moment. I think the DM may have gotten a bit misty. This was one of his go-to characters for big adventures. Need a dragon removed? Call Z. Need a Litch taken down? Call Z. She didn't do it alone, she had plenty of help, but she had the most attacks and hit points and could make it easier for the rest of the team to get in and clean up.

Z was the one to call when the odds were next to impossible. And now... now she was sipping wine at a table and didn't even have to start a fight to get there.

And I realized things were suddenly very different. No more encounters in a bar where we would gather together and set out to thwart an enemy, or just go to start a fight and see what happens. I miss those days of "let's see what kind of mischief we can get into" and the game would run for hours with tons of laughter, inside jokes, and someone was always losing a die under the table. I miss THOSE days of sitting in the basement watching the DM draw the map on the laminated grid paper.

Now we zoom the game, and I am grateful that we can, since we live over three hours away which makes weekly in-person games a non-option. Still, we miss that instant comradery we had while savoring the game.  

I'm going to go look for a blog. Maybe... maybe I'll find an unlocked door and the party is still going.

All In A Day

 It was an exciting afternoon at Chez Chaos. My darling asked if I wanted to burn, and once I sorted out that she was referring to the burn pile and not punishment for some aberrant behavior on my part, I said, "Of course!"

While I was out there, I heard a noise that sets my teeth on edge. It was the sound of a baby bunny in distress. We have a cat that adopted us a while ago. She is very friendly and due to her incessant need to investigate vehicles, we suspect she was someone's pet that accidently hitched a ride to the beach and decided to stay. But she's a hunter. Despite being well-fed, she will not leave the wildlife alone.

Now, we don't mind if she goes after rodents, because damn, rodents. But she also goes after birbs and other delightful and entertaining critters and so far, we've not been able to get her to discern the difference between critters we like, and critters we'd like her to eliminate. She's not stupid, she's a cat.

So, when I heard the baby bunny SOS, I left my station at the burn barrel and went to see if there was anything I could do. My beloved was also outside and said, "she's heading your way with it." Fortunately, it was not in her mouth and I was able to distract the cat with a quick belly rub while the baby bunny dashed under my car.

What a stupid rabbit. It's not safe because the cat can fit under there, which is exactly what she did. Fortunately (at least for the bunny), we also have a storage pod on our property, which has space just big enough for baby bunnies to slip under but not cats or terriers.

Satisfied that all was well, I returned to my burning and my love went back into the house. 

My satisfaction was short-lived as I heard the familiar scream of terror. Looking on the other side of the pod, I saw the cat chasing the baby again. I was hollering for her to stop and for the baby to run faster and find cover. But baby bunnies are food, not geniuses and instead of heading for the lovely brush pile in the neighbor's yard, it headed for open ground. Once it reached the center of the yard, it stopped and hunkered down, pretending to be not-a-bunny. Maybe it was pretending to be a large turd, I don't know.

"Run, you stupid bunny! Run for cover! Kitty! Leave it alone! WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED???"

What did just happen, you might ask. Well, from out of nowhere, a red-tailed hawk swooped down and took off with the baby bunny, leaving both kitty and I stunned. Then I started laughing, because seriously, that damn rabbit was doomed from the start. Encouraging it to escape was like cheering for Golem.

My sweetie came out to see what was so damn funny and she gave me the oddest look when I told her. She doesn't always share my dark sense of humor. As we were standing there, we heard that damn distress call again and off she went, in search of a bunny to rescue. I remained at the barrel, as something inside had caught fire and it wasn't the cardboard box I had just thrown in. 

I looked up through the heat, smoke and rising ashes to see the love of my life coming around the corner of the house with A BABY BUNNY TUCKED INTO HER SWEATER! She was cooing at it, petting it, and wandering around the yard, looking for a safe place to set the baby down.

Of course I petted it, because there's NO saving throw when it comes to baby bunnies. Jeezoo, it was soft. It had snuggled down into the crook of her arm and allowed us to treat it like some tame creature instead of the wild thing it really is. So soft and tiny, and sweet, just snugged down looking so cute...

What? Where was I? Oh, yeah, so my soul mate proceeded to finish her portrayal of some animated theme-park princess and delivered the tiny bundle into the safety of "the stump" where many other denizens of the neighborhood like to hang out and hide from aerial attacks. In the mean time, the cat went across the way to the neighbor's yard where she'd spotted some deer.

It's going to be an interesting spring.

I Have...Nads

 Let me explain the title.

I am menopausal, which means, my body has decided that hair has no rules anymore including location. It can grow wherever the hell it wants, and it seems to enjoy being on my face, especially, the parts of my face that at one time, did not play host to hair. It was definitely time to make changes. That’s when I discovered that I fucking hate plucking. It takes forever, it’s painful as hell, and I end up covered with stiff bristles yoinked out of my face that migrate into my bra and make me itch.

So, I tried waxing. Now, the cold wax stuff that you can do at home is not only painful, if you misplace the post wax oil, you’re sticky, and there ain’t nothin’ that’s gonna get that sticky off. After the fourth or fifth time, I decided this was absurd and I called my favorite stylist. I knew she did waxing, so I made the appointment. Up to that point, I’d left the mustache area alone because OUCH!, so when she waxed it, I had to grip the arm rests to keep myself from punching her in the mustache.

She said, “You showed remarkable restraint.”

“You have no idea,” I told her.

Back to plucking for the next 20+ years.

Recently, I did a little research and decided to give a home hot wax thing a whirl. There are several brands out there including a few that you heat up in the microwave. Not wanting to wait for an online order to be shipped, I went to the only place that sells this sort of thing, and is also far enough away from where I live so I won’t be recognized. I don’t have much pride, but what I do have, I tend carefully.

Unlike online, this store only had one brand of hot wax.

Now, I don’t know about other places on the planet, but in my world, “nads” is a slang term for gonads. I do not have gonads. I have never had them, and I’m not of the mindset to get a pair. Not even for my car.

Yet, there I was, wandering around the department store on one of those motorized scooters with a box of nads in the basket. The scooter already attracts unwanted attention, now it was saying, “Look, everyone, she has nads in the basket!” Oh, and the Best Part? I’d forgotten my damn grocery bags, which meant I had to make my way out to the car, past all the folks coming in, clutching a bag of tortilla chips and a box of nads in one hand and wielding my cane with the other. The only thing that could have made the moment worse was if I’d purchased hotdogs at the same time.

The cashier took great pleasure in my predicament, asking if I wanted any help...carrying my nads to the car (she didn’t say that last part, but it was there, dangling overhead, and we both knew it). I declined her generous offer, although it might have been worth seeing the expression on the courtesy clerk’s face when they were handed a box of nads and a bag of tortilla chips.

When I got home, I gently placed my box of nads on the table and looked at my daughter, daring her to say something. She couldn’t, as she was too busy bug-eyeing the box clearly marked “Nads” on the table.

“I finally decided since I can’t grow a pair, I’d buy ‘em.”

“Oh, god mom, really? Are you going to go there?”

“Have we met? Do you not know me?”

“This is going to be one of those really long--”

“Hey babe!” I called to my wife, “I got some nads!”

(from the other room) “S’about time. Who’d you take them off of?” she asked, coming into the dining room.

“Got a box from the store! Didn’t even have to take them off some rude old fart who refused to move his shopping cart.”

“Convenient.” I showed her the box. “Oh, you’re not kidding.”

“Nope. Now, it says I need to put my nads in the microwave until soft.”

Daughter begins to snicker. Wife rolls her eyes.

“It also says if my nads get hard before I’m done, I can put them back in the micro—wait, that seems a little counter intuitive. I mean, well, it hasn’t been THAT long since I’ve had relations with a man, but I’m pretty sure soft is not what--”

“Jeezus, mother!”

“Oh, that’s right, I found you under a rock. Sorry. Anyway, I guess boxed nads are different.”

“Well,” wife says, “maybe it’s whatever makes them shelf stable.”

“Do you think I need to worry about my nads going bad?”

“Mother...really?”

“It rhymes. Bad nads.”

“Is it legal for me to ground you?”

“No.”

“Darn.”

“I taught you better than that, young lady.”

“Goddammit, mother!”

“That’s my girl! Anyway, I’m gonna use my new nads to get my facial hair under control, and I’m gonna do it tonight, so I’m off to nuke my nads!”

Any further conversation was of a similar vein, so I’ll skip it. But… I got my nads all warmed up, sat down at the table and checked the instructions again. They strongly suggested (in bold type, mind you) that I should cover the floor with newspaper. The last time I had to do that, was when we had a puppy that peed on the floor. Were they expecting this to hurt so bad I’d lose control? I was beginning to fear for my face, but everything was ready so I started smearing warm nads on my chin.

It was nice, actually, but lawsy, was it messy! I had that purple stuff EVERYWHERE, and it left these long, strange strings of stiff wax hanging off my face, making me look something like a demented catfish. Daughter looked away, thinking I wouldn’t notice her laughing.

“I have naaaaads,” I sang, “I just bought naaaaads. I stuck them in the microwaaaaave, and now they’re on my face.” That’s when I definitely noticed the laughter, because it was preceded by a spew of coffee.

The wax removal was surprisingly painless, and all the offending hair was in the wax, not my face. In fact, I did my whole face, including the mustache, with painless success. I was pleased. Best of all, it was...easy as… balls!

The Prince of Pettiness

 

There are some people on this planet who desperately need something. Something like their very own angry island in the middle of nowhere. That’s where they can be angry at everyone for anything, real or imagined, and live angrily ever after.

The bastid across the road is one of those people. When we first moved here, he was very friendly. Grumpy, but friendly. His daughter gave us her phone number, asking us to “keep an eye on him, and if we don’t see him for a few days,” to give her a call. She even gave him our phone number to call if he needed anything, or to let us know he was leaving for a few days and to “not worry.”

As if.

Fast forward through some seriously annoying and expensive shit, and some seriously false accusations, and other things, and voila, you have what we’re calling a pissing contest of pettiness. Tammie is the adult in this situation, because she’s not doing anything (as usual), but I have taken it upon myself to flip the bird whenever I drive past his house. I’m also the one who got sick and tired of his motion-sensing floodlight illuminating our house every time a deer or rabbit wandered through his yard, so when I went outside with the dogs (in our yard, mind you) and the light went off, I dropped trou and mooned it (did I mention, he also has cameras attached to those lights? Yeah. Big Bertha was shining bright that night on his video screen). He did change the angle on the lights and camera shortly after my one-woman show-it-all.

The most recent event in the contest is truly going to be difficult to top (although, I have several ideas). My daughter has moved in with us and parks her vehicle in our driveway. She backs in so she can park right next to the fence on the passenger side of her vehicle. In order to do that, she had to come “close” to his property line, which she did not cross.

So, he decided to park his truck at the very edge of the property (but only the part where she needed to safely maneuver her vehicle to make backing up easier). Then, because he decided that wasn’t quite tacky enough, he included an old patio table with something heavy on it, an old muffler tossed on the ground, and a “PRIVATE PROPERTY” sign taped to the table.

Seriously. How can anyone BE that petty?

When he was still talking to us, he told us that he’d caught certain neighbors in his house, taking his stuff and prowling around his garage. Now, he’s accusing US of doing that to the very same neighbor he told us had been doing that first. I’ve never even set foot on his property, much less been inside any buildings.

Methinks someone’s nut is a little loosed in the noggin. I have no desire to set foot on his property, much less inside any of his buildings. If he falls in his yard, and I see him, I’ll probably call 9-1-1, but I’m not going over there to assess him. Throw dirt on him? Sure! But not see if he’s ok.

So, yea, I guess I have joined the petty parade, but to be honest, it would be just like him to fake a fall to lure us onto his property, then accuse us of trespassing and press charges against us. I mean, this is a guy who dug a trench across someone’s driveway so she couldn’t get out to go to work; he took the door off some guy’s truck because he was parked on the “wrong” side of the road and left his vehicle door open. Mind you, the bastid actually had to cross to the other side of the road to take off the door, but that didn’t matter. To him, anyway.

All hail the prince of pettiness. We salute you by dropping trou and kissing our knees.

Catch-Up

 Once again, time has managed to get away from me and I've let the blog go fallow for a while. No big surprise.

Shortly after that last blog post, Tammie's mother passed away. Her last few weeks were really hard on us, as the level of care she needed had quadrupled. Thank goodness for hospice. Despite the emotional and physical exhaustion, we did get to laugh at one point when Tammie finally came out to her mother and confessed that she and I were a couple. "We've been a couple for a long time," she said. Her mother struggled to sit up, leaned towards her daughter and said, "I'm dying."

Ok, Old Woman, you win. Crossing over beats coming out.

Whatever.

Anyway, after that it was time to get things done. Like a nice long rest. Or several of them, because unless you're dead, a single nice long rest is not possible at our house. Not with those ridiculous dogs alerting us to every dust mote and sassy sparrow they happen to see (and damn, we have lots of both!)

We also decided to keep our current sleeping quarters and turn the main bedroom (the one recently occupied by the Old Woman) into an arts and crafts room. We have enough supplies to furnish it well into the next century, so what the hell, right? Why use one of the largest rooms in the house just for sleeping, when crafting is just as important, and we'd really love to have the dining room table back.

Unfortunately, there is a LOT of craft stuff that needs to be sorted and put away, shelves to be built (from scratch) plus there are holiday decorations, mystery stuff that will go back into the closet or wherever until I'm ready to deal with it, and family things that need attention.

Writing is happening, but not the projects I should be working on, but it is enjoyable, so I'll keep it. Tammie and I have been working on a project that has gotten a little out of hand, but we're having a blast, so once it's tidied up enough to read like it wasn't written by six-month-old kittens having a psychotic break, I can go back to the Citadel Chronicles and get Claire and Cole back on track. Gosh, that's a lot of C's...

By the way, I've stepped away from facebook again. I lurk about once a week, but I will admit I'm feeling a little less depressed now that I've stopped getting sucked into the bad behavior of others, and swimming in the backwash of drama that doesn't even belong to me.

Life is good. I want to keep it that way.