I'll Bring You France

I have been trying to be better about getting to know my neighbors and making friends where I live. I made it a point to go to the mid-week church activities, including a quilting bee.

"A quilting bee?" asked Joe.

"Yes."

"Like a spelling bee?"

"I suppose...maybe it means a group of people getting together to work on one thing?"

"But wouldn't that be a spelling hive? Or a quilting swarm?"

"...You've got me on that one."

So it was, at quilting hive, that one of my neighbors discussed the newest chicks added to her brood of chickens. While the idea of keeping chickens is an anathema to me, I have no problems with any, or all, of my neighbors keeping them. They could even have a rooster; it couldn't be any worse than the outdoor parrot several houses away (that thing's cries echo off the mountains, my friends, piercing a Saturday morning like a gun shot.)  My neighbor, who is naturally energetic and a mile-a-minute, divulged her love of Pinterest and finding egg recipes. I volunteered a few ideas while composing my block. It was a lovely night and I'm glad I went. 

The door vibrated with a knock this morning, and I shuffled in my house coat, channeling Phyllis Diller, to find my neighbor holding a dozen fresh, very fresh, eggs. They were gorgeous: malt, seafoam, light moss, and cafe au lait. Little shavings of bedding crowned a few. When I broke them open, the orange yolks slayed me (like all good backyard eggs.) It's such a disappointment to crack a commercial egg after that, with its pale, sodden, winter sun of a yolk. 

My friend Becky posted Dorie Greenspan's French Lemon Cream Tart a few days ago. I couldn't think of a better use for those fresh eggs (and an obscene amount of butter, positively graphic.)

So I made two, one for us and one for my neighbor, because that's how I roll. Bring me eggs and I will bring you France. Bring me butter and I'll bring you England. Bring me chocolate and I'll bring you Mexico. Bring me sugar and I'll bring you heaven.

And wouldn't you know, when I left the tart,

she handed me a dozen more eggs for the walk home.

The Loss of Two Loved Ones

Thursday night EG casually mentioned over the dinner table that his new, week-old soccer ball was stuck in a hedgerow. The little bully had tried to kick it over our neighbor's 14 foot tall hedges and the ball had disappeared. J immediately left the table and took EG with him to retrieve the ball. They arrived back home 15 minutes later, J in a mood and EG crying. No ball. "How could you let him take the ball out?" J asked me. "I didn't know that he wasn't supposed to take it," I responded.

So in my guilt, I took EG, my belly, our long rake, and walked over to the hedges. I spent an hour and a half poking every square inch of that row. All along the top on both sides, in the middle, on the bottom, parting and looking, with no success. By the end, I was covered in dirt, old evergreen pieces, dust, and scratches. I found three balls, two drink containers, an old bird's egg, a shoe, and a frisbee, but no soccer ball.

I walked over to the bully's house to ask his parents to come search, but no one answered. Because of course not. My scratches began to well up into hives. EG looked 4 shades tanner from the dirt that coated him. I drew a bath and went to go find him a towel. When I went back into the bathroom, the tub was almost full and he was sitting between the tub and the toilet...
with my phone
on the edge of the tub
trying to unlock it.

I screamed.
He looked up, tried to grab the phone, and accidentally pushed it into the tub.
I screamed again.
I screamed some more.
I panicked.

J took over EG's bath. 

Phone insurance comes with a deductible, did you know that? And did you know that if your deductible is more than the phone is actually worth the insurance company doesn't care? It could be that the insurance company is even in the middle of a class action lawsuit for trying to make people pay more in a deductible than the phones are worth. But none of this will help you. So you call T-Mobile back and when the nice customer service girl answers, you might start crying. Which means they send you to Customer Care and give you a brand new, much nicer phone for almost the same price as the deductible.

The next day when EG asked me to text his friend's mom to ask if he could play, I got to say, "I can't."
"Why?"
"Remember when you drowned my phone?"
"Oh."
Proximo helpfully reminded me that I could just go get a new phone at the phone store.
"I hope they take pies," I thought to myself.

A couple months ago I had a funny feeling that did not turn out to be heartburn or my usual cocktail of guilt: time to start backing up my computer. My laptop stores all my work, my music, and years worth of my kids' pictures. I signed up for one of those automatic online backup deals.

So when my hard drive died on Friday and Saturday, I was frustrated, but not devastated, and there is a difference, I tell you what. Nick came over to my house Saturday night and gave me the diagnosis. He also offered to help me get it all up and running again, which is why he is going to win at life. Go buy his wife's album.


My phone and my laptop in 24 hours.

Oh man. It's like I'm a pioneer. A pioneer who has to use my husband's tower and barter for computer time. A pioneer who has to use her land line! (Only it's not really a land line, it's VOIP.) I'm trying to treat this constant downtime with some appreciation. Don't people preach all the time about unplugging and living in the moment? Well, I don't approve. Not being able to Google/tweet/calendar/text/call everything, all the time, and immediately, stinks. If I wanted to be in an old-timey re-enactment, I would have signed up for one.

Things I Don't Get: The New Nutella Commercials

Oh, Nutella, I don't get your silly Euro-style commercials.

Why are you trying to convince me that Nutella is a way to get my kids to eat a healthy breakfast?

WHO CARES ABOUT THE CHILDREN?

I eat my Nutella out of the jar, straight up. My kids aren't allowed to come near the Nutella.

Now, shh, you talky too much. Come play with mama.

I'm Pretty Much the Worst Mormon Ever

A few women in my neighborhood work with a homeless shelter in town. These women do great work, and I'm just lucky to live even near them. Every month they send around a sign up list to have a few of us make casseroles to be used to feed the homeless. That's our scene: I need to make a casserole for the homeless.

Let's make something clear: I am not a casserole snob. I just didn't grow up with them, my parents never cooked them. In fact, every year on my birthday my friend Jenny actually MAKES me a potato casserole called "funeral potatoes" which thrills me to no end (two months and counting.) Unfamiliar as I am with those peculiar American gastronomic beasts, casseroles are things of awe and confusion. I do not know how to make them. I can guess, I think, but really, they're stupefying in their complexity. How do you know what to put inside? What is the sauce? I'm at a loss. I'm the worst Mormon ever. What Mormon doesn't know how to make a casserole?

Which is how I ended up at the grocery store tonight aimlessly pushing a cart and having Petit Elefant, raised good 'n' right as a renown casserole expert, talk me through the experience.
"Are you at the grocery store?"
"Yes. I have to make a casserole for the homeless."
"Of course you do."
"Only, I don't know how."
"Seriously? You take a bunch of stuff, mix it all together, throw some cheese on top of it, bake it and done."
"Ooh! Cream of chicken soup, I use that don't I?"
"Yes, or mushroom."
"Oooh! I could mix cream of chicken and cream of celery together! Oooh! I could mix the chicken and the nacho cheese soup together!"
"It doesn't matter."
"I should get some frozen vegetables, right?"
"It doesn't matter. Sure."
"I feel like there should be sour cream. There's sour cream in casseroles, right? Should I get the full-fat or low-fat? Are the homeless concerned with calorie intake? Hey! I could make tuna casserole!"
"No."
"I like tuna! That sounds good."
"No, you can't make tuna casserole for the homeless, promise me you won't."
"What about Canadian bacon! Is that a thing? I could do Canadian bacon in a casserole! That could be yummy."
"It doesn't matter."
"What kind of pasta should I use? Egg noodles, rotini, radiatore..."
"*Snicker* What kind of pasta...EGG NOODLES."
"But what about a nice penne?"
"Listen to you. No. EGG NOODLES."
"I need a topping. All I have at home is Japanese Panko crumbs."
"Stop it."
"Should I buy corn flakes? That's a topping, right? You know, if it was me, I'd toss the flakes in a bit of butter to help with the browning and then sprinkle them evenly on top."
"*SNORT*"
"Do the homeless like season salt? I think I'll put some in, that could be good. I should buy cheddar cheese because I only have gouda right now."
"Do the homeless..I can't take this."

I piled all the ingredients into the store cart, paid, and made it home. I started opening cans and packages, stirring, trying to taste the beige glop as I went. I have to say, cold canned cream of chicken soup is not tasty, not even with season salt. No measuring, just stirring. Weird. I figured out that I would probably need to cook the pasta first (right?) I did make sure the noodles were drained a touch before al dente so they don't lose all integrity when baked. Wow. I'm hopeless. You casserole people are so mysterious.

Anyway, I hope the homeless like my casserole. Maybe next time I'll go bananas and put tater tots on top. That's a thing, right?




Read what happened the next day here.

The Alternator

The car is having trouble again. A new battery didn't fix it, which means we're looking at a new alternator. It would be better to do more than just look at an alternator, since looking won't make the car run any faster than it is now (which is not at all.)

The funny thing is that the car having trouble is not my twenty year old car, it's the ten year old car. No, my car, with its hole in the floor, no airbags, cracked dash, cassette deck, oxidized paint, rusting side, ripped upholstery, power nothing, and volume control issues, runs like a dream. E.G. informed me the other day that my car was "old" and "falling apart." I tried to turn it into a teaching/gratitude moment. "You know, we decided to get you a new house instead of a new car, don't you like our new place?"
"I liked the condo, you could run around the back of it."
"But you have your own room, and a yard, and a huge playroom!"
"I liked our old house. And you could have gotten a new car."
"Our car may not be nice and shiny, but it gets us where we need to go, doesn't it? Lots of people don't have cars, and we do!"
"I guess," he mumbled, unconvinced.

E.G., dude, if you're reading this in 15 years, I was faking it. I want a new car real bad.

Instead, I'm going to try to bribe a man.

You see, I make pies from scratch. I make a great deal of things, but I really like to make pies. I'm going to take this pie-making prowess and bribe petit elefant's husband into putting in a new alternator. Her husband, for those of you who keep up on these things, was separated from my husband at birth. They are the same person, in humor, temperament, inability to care about things they deem inconsequential, the level of fear they are able to induce in strangers for no reason, and acting in complete disregard for social niceties, only one can fix things and the other does not.

You can get in on this action, too--if you are handy, can fix things around the house, can do minor installations, or tile work, electrical wiring, know how to change oil, whatever, really--I will make you pies. I could even make you cakes. You ask nicely enough and I'll throw in a pot roast. I can't think of a reason this wouldn't work: you know how to install a light fixture, and clearly, you are also in need of pie. I forsee a new world order, based entirely around the free flow of baked goods as currency.

(That's got to work, right? Because mama doesn't want a new alternator for Christmas.)