A Girl Can Dream, Can't She?

My friends Wendy and Sandy e-mailed me yesterday, ecstatic with the news that, Dave Matthews and Jack Johnson will be playing a concert at the Kokua Festival in Hawaii at the end of April.
In case you didn't know, Dave Matthews is my Rock and Roll Boyfriend, and I have the Mister's permission to walk out the door without looking back him should he ever come calling for me. (Mr. Matthews is married with three kids, so it's not looking likely that this shall ever happen. And he doesn't know I exist. And I might not really like him very much once I actually meet him. But how cool is Himself?)

Wendy and Sandy were thrilled with the idea that two performers of which we three are so enamoured will be playing together, and the fact that the concert will be somewhere warm and exotic is the icing on the cake.

After some investigation, Wendy was genuinely disappointed to discover that the tickets were sold out, and we were out of luck.

Because, of course, getting the tickets to this event was our only obstacle.

Things I Do That I'm Pretty Sure My Husband Hates.

The Mister and I have a lo-o-o-ong history.....we knew each other for 8 years before we dated, and we've been married for 15. We've worked together at the same establishment for 25 years, and managed to maintain a civil relationship for most of that time. I'm eternally grateful that he knew what he was getting into, with me, and took me on anyway.
Himself is very easygoing and even tempered and laid-back; so much so that I have been tempted to shine a light into his eyes on occasion, to see if his pupils react. It's hard to distinguish between "relaxed watching a movie" and "comatose".
Although I am usually thoroughly charming and delightful company, I know that there are times when my quirks and behavior rouse him out of his usual state of contented stupor and his ire flares for a nanosecond or so.

I Talk To Him In The Mornings: Himself really does not function on anything but a molecular level before 9 a.m. And yet, I persist in trying to engage him in conversation when he gets up, because I am a morning person and do not yet fully understand that he is not. When I ask him at 7 a.m. what he would like for dinner that night, I get a confused, irritated, slitty-eyed glare that takes up more energy than he possesses at the time. When I talk to him in the mornings, he has to go back to bed and have a nap.

I Lose Things: I am perpetually misplacing things around the house, putting things down while thinking about something else, and then utterly unable to find them again. It drives him crazy. (This is a function of having to think of too many things at once. I tell my family that my head is like a toilet; it can only contain so much shit at any given time.) The Mister cannot figure out how I can put down a receipt or a pair of scissors, only to forget where I put it ten seconds later.

I Take Off My Nail Polish: The Mister HATES the smell of nail polish remover, and when I take off the nail polish and put the little cotton balls in the wastebasket in our bathroom, he can smell it in the bedroom and it makes him dream of nuclear waste dumps and Soylent Green.

I Don't Understand Most of What He Is Talking About: When he talks about fixing computers, which is a skill I value entirely and I'm really very grateful he can do, my eyes glaze right over. I think he thinks that I'm not interested, (and he's right), but I'm so happy that he's talking to me at all that I will valiantly put on an interested face and nod my head. But he knows he may as well be saying 'blah, blah, blah' and I would have the exact same expression.

I Can't Seem To Follow Movies: I think "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy was pure torture for the man...."wait! is that the same guy from before?", "so he used to be a hobbit?", "how come she's not able to go there?", "is that the guy from 'Pirates of the Caribbean'?" and so on for nine hours.
It doesn't help that I cannot stay awake once I sit down to watch a movie, so it took me three attempts to get through "Oceans Eleven", and by then I had absolutely no clue whatsoever as to what was going on and had to have it patiently explained to me in detail.

I Refuse To Put Raisins in Anything: I hate raisins in things. On their own they are passable, but in baked goods they are forbidden in the Loudshoes kitchen. Raisins in buttertarts, in particular, are an abomination against God and man. The Mister cannot accept this edict, and occasionally will argue with me on it, like there is any chance in this lifetime that I will change my mind. I will not. (His mother makes very nice buttertarts with raisins [she makes 3 for me without!] and he will have to be satisfied with that.)

I Sing: Okay, everybody hates that one.

All things considered, we have a pretty good deal with one another.

Not Exactly "Parents of the Year".

We went out to Wal-Mart last week, because that is what passes for a family outing for the Loudshoes family. (I hate Wal-Mart, but when you need to get apples, a lottery ticket, shoes, a mop and milk, it's hard to find anywhere else you to go without making 43 stops.)

While Thing 1 and I were busy perusing the myriad of choices in the sock department, Thing 2 and the Mister were off in the junk food aisle, plotting their imminent decline in health. Thing 2 adores microwave popcorn, and was thrilled to find a case of this on sale for a ridiculous price:

I wasn't too happy with this nutritional decision, but since the Mister had already approved it's purchase, I relented. When we got home, I checked the label, to find that one bag of popped corn has 250 calories and 15 grams of fat. (By contrast, the same amount of hot-air popcorn has about 138 calories and 0 grams of fat.)

As she happily tore into a freshly popped bag, I remarked to Himself that we might as well just give her a cigarette.

Only Their Mothers Could Love Them

It was Pizza Day at the Things' school today, and I went to do my bit. As the Pizza Mom in the classroom, one's duties include handing out pizza to the correct children in the correct amounts ("No, you mother only paid for 2 slices, and if you want chocolate milk you are going to have to duke it out with her."), supervising the kids during the eating period ("The manufacturing of spitballs will result in me eating your pizza myself, and right in front of you, too.") and generally enforcing the rules ("Mrs. Loudshoes is a hardass. She makes you say 'please' and 'thank you' every single time.")
Today I had to help out in the other Grade 8 class, because there was no other Grade 8 mother around, and all the other mothers are afraid of the Grade 8's. (Some of those kids are huge.) I know most of the kids, and they are pretty nice, despite their size and the over-abundance of hormones. But, oh my God, they can be trying.
I asked one kid close by to hand out the napkins, and he obliged willingly. Except, we had been shortchanged on the napkins, and he only handed out the few we had and then just.....stopped. He didn't tell me, didn't go get more, didn't think anything of it. When I figured this out, I asked him why he didn't tell me, and he suddenly lost all intelligence in his face and became this slack-jawed, babbling idiot, who's reasoning abilities vanished altogether. I sent another kid down to get more napkins.
She came back in a minute or so and put the napkins on the table. She then sat down, raised her hand and said "May I please have a napkin?". I'm not kidding. She's not the type of kid who would do it just to yank my chain; she honestly did not connect the dots between the two things.
We also were not given the juice orders with our stuff, so I had to go down to the front lobby to pick up those. I asked who needed juice, and the kids missing it put up their hands, and I went off to get it. Except, when I came back in the room, one kid said "I didn't get my juice". To which I replied "why didn't you raise your hand when I said 'who needs juice'?". And he said "I didn't know you meant me." Of all the possible interpretations of "who needs juice", I'm not sure how he could have missed "tell me if you need juice".
The rest of the lunch period passed without incident.

I was amused at this exchange, though: Student #1 asks one of the Korean kids, of which our school has a large population "are you from North Korea or South Korea?". Korean Kid says (a bit snottily) "what do you think?". Student #1, a bit puzzled, says, "How should I know?" Korean Kid snorts a bit and says "South Korea. We're all from South Korea. Duh!" Student #2 says "Why all from South Korea?" To which I pipe in with "They're all from South Korea because the people from North Korea aren't allowed to get out of there." They all look at me like it was the cat that suddenly started to speak and Korean Kid said, in awed tones, "how does she know?"

I am reminded that my own 13 year old? Is a gem.

"Hey, You Know What We Should Make....?"

One of the things I love about cooking is the fact that there are few things you can buy at a store that you cannot make yourself, and better, too. The adventurous cook has little to lose by experimenting, and plenty to gain.

I've made lots of things that were infinitely better than what I could buy at a store, and also buckets of things that I would have been way better off paying someone else to make.

Bread: making bread is incredibly easy, not to mention cheap. Cheap enough to experiment a bit with the recipe, too. ("What if I put in olives!") The worst that will happen is that you will have a blobby loaf that weighs a ton. (Warning: Using all whole-wheat flour, instead of the recommended ration of all-purpose, is not recommended, unless, of course, you want give your digestive system a major workout.) The smell of baking bread in the house is worth the effort alone.

Cakes, cookies, pastries: Much better ingredients make for much better sweets. Besides, the entertainment factor for a bunch of cranky kids is unbeatable.

Pasta: I've made my own pasta a few times, and I honestly can't say that I see much of a difference between it and the stuff at the store. Now, perhaps if I was making ravioli stuffed with lobster and truffles, it might be worth it, but I'm not dipping into the mortgage payment to find out.

Taco Shells: I buy the soft flour tortillas, and fry them up into the requisite, crunchy receptacles myself. Totally worth it. It makes the Old El Paso ones taste like drywall. Once, when I couldn't get the corn tortillas, I over reached myself a bit and made them out of masa harina myself. I couldn't get them quite as thin as they were supposed to be and they fried up a bit thicker and chewier than they should have been. The Mister claimed it was like eating a wallet. So, I buy the tortillas, but make the taco shells.

Crackers: As I read in a book once, for maximum guest intimidation, you can't beat home made crackers. ("Would you like some crackers? I made them myself! Hah!") I'm not sure why they got the reputation of being something you just don't make at home. But, they are pretty easy to buy, too.

Sloppy Joes: For some reason, the Mister had been asking for Sloppy Joes for years, and I had refused to make them. One too many bad cafeteria experiences, maybe. Anyway, I relented, finally, and made them from scratch. My (then) neighbour, Wendy, and Himself, nearly hurt themselves laughing, as they incredulously asked "why didn't you just get the canned stuff?". I was gobsmacked....why didn't I just get the canned stuff? The next time I opened the can, slopped the stuff into the frying pan with the meat and whallopped the whole mess onto hamburger buns. Damned if I could tell the difference.

Salad Dressing. I almost always make salad dressing. I've taught Thing 2 how to make it, too, and she usually performs that task if she's nearby at suppertime. It is so much better than the bottled stuff, it's really not fair to compare them.

Spaghetti Sauce: Tomato sauce is probably the thing I've made the most attempts at with the least success. Yes, making your own sauce is pretty easy and cheap, but opening a jar is pretty easy and cheap, too. I've come to a compromise, of sorts: I doctor up the jarred stuff, making it better than it was. A glug of balsamic vinegar, (and red wine, if there's any open) a smidge of sugar, a bit of tomato paste and a bay leaf, and it's as good as anything I've made from scratch.

Pickles. My mother's friend, Mrs. Park, made the best sweet pickles, and I would happily sit down and eat an entire jar when she brought them over. I tried making them a couple of times, and although they totally worked, I'm not sure they were worth the mammoth effort. It took a whole day to make them, it was always stinking hot at that time of year, and I was the only one who appreciated them. Now I buy them or ask Mrs. Park if she has any hanging around.

Pizza Making your own pizza is, hands down, the best reason to own an oven.

Marshmallows: Today, with the help of my new toy, I was able to make my own marshmallows. Thing 1 and I have been scarfing them down ever since. They certainly delivered the maximum satisfaction with a minimum amount of effort. We spent a good 10 minutes fantasizing about the flavours we could use for the subsequent batches....chocolate! strawberry! maple! caramel! We can put marshmallows in the "Worth It" category.

I think part of being a good cook is knowing when to roll up one's sleeves, and when to hop in the car and drive to the grocery store.

A Charmed Life.

I was reminded today, that I really do live a charmed existance, most of the time. My stress levels are negligable most of the time, and any stress I do have is largely self-induced. (Note to self: put the car keys back in the same place every single time. Jeez.)
I did a young lady's hair back on Wednesday, and through my own stupid fault, it did not turn out the way she wanted. (I'd recount the whole story, but it's long and I don't come out of it well at all.) She was a very lovely, sweet and incredibly understanding girl, and I was lucky that she was so nice about the whole thing.
Yesterday, I got a call from the receptionist that she wanted to come back and have it done again today. Yay! I thought, at least she's giving me another shot, which, frankly, is probably more than I would have done under the circumstances. But Boo! My stomach started to do gymnastics at the thought of screwing it up again. And my digestive system proceeded to taunt me and jeer at me for the next 24 hours.

As I did the fix-up job today, I prayed mightily....."Okay, God, you have really not given me much slack this week; almost everything I've asked for, I've been turned down on. So, come on, could you please, please, make this one job turn out for both our sakes? Because I don't really want to quit hairdressing just yet, and I don't want her to stalk me and kill me, because she is much too pretty to be in jail." And God must have been in a very charitable mood, because it turned out just fine, and the young woman was very happy and I nearly broke down in grateful tears right then and there.

And as I drove home, with a whopping great headache, and my shoulders up around me ears and my belly growling because I hadn't been able to eat, I realized that I literally couldn't remember the last time I had been so stressed out. And I think a lot of people feel like this a lot of the time. And I'm okay with having the occasional reminder that I have it pretty good. Even if it does interfere with lunch.

Everybody's Happy

The Mister has done two things in as many days that have thrilled me to my toes and ensured that I will cleave unto him for good.

One is that he cleaned out the freezer. I mean cleaned it out, defrosted it, swept up all the frozen peas that had made a break for it, and wiped down the sides. (I have cleaned out the freezer myself before, and made a great big noisy fuss about doing it too. Hate that job.) Then he went and bought a couple of containers to organize the freezer and keep it that way, and I keep going in and opening it and looking at it with awe and wonder. It is beautiful, and I am beside myself with gratitude.

The second thing he did was order me a stand-mixer online and then went and picked it up today. I have lusted after one of those things for God knows how long, and could never justify splashing out the money for one. After our old hand mixer coughed it's last breath a few weeks ago, Himself set himself a task of finding a stand-mixer on sale, and by God, he did it. (The old hand-mixer was a shower present from when we got married 15 years ago, and now that I think of it, I can barely believe it lasted as long as it did.)

Here is my lovely new Birthday/Valentine's gift:

Note the shiny, shiny bowl and the pristine white casing. (Note also the lovely gold, floral, '70's tile backsplash in my kitchen, which is original to the house. I keep hoping that if I wait long enough, it will be considered "vintage".) It makes my kitchen look so much more.....swishy.

I made meringues in it right away, and it whipped up those egg whites to peaks as firm and glossy as Posh Spice's fake boobs in nanoseconds. I think I am very happy with my new aquisition.

Of course, I was not the only one happy with this new thing, because the new thing came in a box. And Toby adores a good box:

See? Everybody's happy.