Random Friday

~ Jenny

I need to post something insightful for a change, or at least interesting, but it’s taking all my energy just to put up with the normal little stuff I’m dealing with here, so you’re getting random little stuff.  You can just skip this post.   It has no fiber or vitamins whatsoever, probably because of that bastard, Tom Hiddleston.

 

It’s early in July, but it’s already in the high eighties.  That’s fine, I like the high eighties, but then comes August and oh dear god, we’re gonna broil.  Krissie made me buy a swimming pool for the dogs which may be a splendid idea, but given their attitude toward baths and rain, I’m thinking is going to be more of “You’re kidding, right?” experience.  Although in August in New Jersey,  they may discover a fondness for water after all.  Or maybe I’ll fill it and I’ll sit in it.

You may have noticed that every now and then there’s an extra period in. the middle of a. sentence in these posts.  It’s because my laptop has developed an independent streak and just puts them in.  I try to catch them but sometimes they sneak through, so next week I. go to the Genius Bar and say, “My laptop. is haunted, please fix.”  I’m betting it’s because there’s dog hair in there.  There’s dog hair everywhere here.  

I need to go out for mini peppers, rye bread, and sour cream (three different recipes) but I can’t because I taunted a very dear friend of mine.  I. should have known better, her gun has always been swift.  I wrote Pat Gaffney yesterday and said, “Do you know we met twenty-three years ago?”  And she said, “That’s right, was that NJRW?” and I said, “No, that was at Penn State and you ate my ice cream.”  So I get an e-mail minutes later that says, “Stay home tomorrow, you’re getting something in the mail.”  I said, “Is it a pony?” and she said, “Yes, it’s name is Clogged Arteries.”  So now I have to put off the peppers,  et. al, because Clogged Arteries is coming and evidently it shouldn’t sit outside in the upper eighties because it melts.  Never taunt Pat Gaffney.  

Also never taunt Anne Stuart.  I took her with me to my therapist’s last week, and my therapist adored her, of course, and thought we were amazing together (we’ve both been in therapy a long, long time, we know the ropes) and afterward, when we got in the car, Krissie said, “You did something that hurt me the last time we were together.”  And I said, “Oh, god, what?” and she said, “When I told you how great I thought Tom Hiddleston is, you told me you’d heard he was a terrible person in real life.” And I knew just what she meant: you tell somebody about something you’re really happy about and they shoot it down unnecessarily and you think, “Why? WHY?”  It just sucks.  So I apologized for my thoughtlessness because that was just an unnecessary, mean thing for me to do.  But then, about an hour later, she was teasing me mercilessly. about something, and I looked at her and said, “Tom Hiddleston is a bastard,” and we both cracked up, and now “Tom Hiddleston is a bastard” is our go-to payback phrase.  

I made Sesame Orange Shrimp yesterday, except being short on shrimp, I used chicken.  And then I picked up the salt shaker, opened the wrong side, and dumped about a quarter cup of salt in.  I just stood there screaming for a moment and then I scooped out as much of it as I could and tasted it.  Salty.  Not inedible salty, but still salty, and of course as a heart patient, sodium is Not Good For Me.  So I dumped in the last of the chicken broth and another half cup of wild rice and more mushrooms and squeezed in another half orange (juice of) and a glop of apricot preserves and stirred like a madwoman, and that did it.  The stuff is really good.  But I’m putting tape on the side of the shaker that is not a shaker.  That was almost as a bad as the time I absent-mindedly dumped a huge pot of stock and kept the vegetables and bones.   Pay ATTENTION, Jenny.

Today I am going to be savage with Act Two.  Savage, I tell you.  Huge chunks of it must go.  Like sixty pages.   I can do this.  And then, once the pony gets here, I’ll go out for the peppers, rye bread, and sour cream and sock myself in to cook and cut and clean for the weekend, while trying to placate the dogs who are upset about Carl leaving for three days and taking Jackson with him so there are no walk-to-Carl’s-for-treats-and-smelling-Jackson’s-turf-excursions at two o’clock every afternoon.  

I’m really getting sick of stopping to take out those damn random periods.  I blame that bastard, Tom. Hiddleston.

65 thoughts on “Random Friday”

  1. I’ve got to say, the funniest thing about this is that Tom Hiddleston is famously nice. Like, seriously, people rave about how charming and kind he is. He’s said that his time as a waiter made him resolve never to be rude to anyone. Google!

    1. You know, I. don’t even. remember saying that, or why. It had to have been a year. ago because. we hadn’t seen. each other in person. since June of 2018.

      Also, the fucking periods are killing me.

      1. Also, the fucking periods are killing me.

        <Tom Hiddleston>Spotting, do you think?</Tom Hiddleston>

        (I hope the embedded html works.)

      2. Some panadol, a hot water bottle and chocolate might help 🙂

        … maybe that’s what your computer needs?

        1. Or maybe your computer needs the FTB (Fluffy Teddy Bear)engaged, like Pratchett’s HEX?

    1. I am terribly excited about these kinds of posts! Just a little snapshot into your life. 🙂

  3. I’m loving the extra periods, myself. It makes for interesting rhythms.

    I, too, have also dumped all the stock and kept the bones and bits. But one of my most famous moments of inattention was when I used icing sugar instead of flour to make fried chicken. Candied chicken – yum!!!

    1. On a related note, my keyboard is now stuttering with P’s. Or ppppppp’s. It did this a while back before the p key keeled over entirely and I had to get another keyboard…and now it’s happening AGAIN. ARGH.

      2. All the Chinese restaurants that sell sweet and sour chicken think it is a good one.

    3. I did that but with beef stroganoff!!!! The damn thing wouldn’t thicken so I kept dumping in white powder from an unlabeled container.

      I’m in the dump-the-stock club too.

        1. As a newlywed, I assured my bride that dinner was wonderful by eating seconds – at which point she realized that she had substituted baking soda for corn starch. She was torn between Best Husband and Biggest Idiot. I’m still not certain where she settled.

          1. Best Husband for sure. Paul ate my sweet stroganoff without complaining (I complained, it was gross) and he is a Best Husband.

  4. I have burned boiled eggs because I wondered off, probably to the garden and started deadheading or weeding or just admiring it in general and when I came back in, I forgot I was cooking until the smell of burned sulfur took over the house.

    Or the time I was heating fudge topping for my husband who was not feeling well and did the above trick again. I wrapped a towel around the jar before I slightly loosened the lid to keep the jar from exploding and the hot fudge came out and rolled down over the hand. We were cleaning fudge out of corners and off the sink for weeks.

    Or the time we went away for the weekend and came home just as my SIL arrived because she thought that was the day she was to come for dinner. She walked into the kitchen, saw a covered pot on the stove, removed the lid and it was full of mold. Really, I am legendary for how competent I can be. Really.

    2. Be grateful it wasn’t caramel sauce. That can pull the hair off your arm and is much harder to clean off the wall-or ceiling.

  5. Thanks for the laughs, Jenny! I had a healthy soup recipe failure last night, and managed to stab my thumb with an Exacto knife this morning, so laughter was welcome.

  7. Five pints of Zimmerman’s gelato and ice cream just arrived. FIVE.
    Still no pony.

    Oh, and I got the peppers, sour cream, and rye bread. Along with some onions, chow mein noodles, and packs of Klondike Neopolitan and Klondike Heath ice cream bars. I’m not leaving the house until next Thursday. Hell, I can live on ice cream alone until Thursday.

      1. Sculpting a pony out of ice cream sounds like fun. I played with Play-Doh for the first time since early childhood at a baby shower recently; I’d forgotten how enjoyable it is. Doing it with something edible sounds like it could only make it better.

        1. Yeah, but the stuff they put in to stabilize the texture (at least in the case of modelling chocolate) doesn’t do anything for the taste. Put the ice cream in a mold if you want to, but don’t mess too much with the good stuff. Experiment with mix-ins instead- or toppings.

    2. The bears would get the pony and then you would REALLY be bummed. Forget the pony.

    5. Hey, Jenny, have you ever read “There Must Be a Pony!” by James Kirkwood?

  8. It’s a build-your-own-ice cream-pony-set, Jenny. You’d better get started before it melts!

    I loved this post, btw. More randomness would be a good thing. I get loads of new perspectives to look at the world from when you randomize this place.

    On the failed cooking-note: My grandma ones made the mistake of putting instant cocoa powder into the cream sauce she was making instead of the flour she should’ve used. According to my big sister she refused to throw the stuff away and ate it with the kroppkakor* we ate that day.

    Ooor the time my stepdad mistook the vanilla sauce package for cream and put that in the onion sauce to make it more creamy. Onion sauce with a slight vanilla flavour is… not inedible, but I wouldn’t recommend it either. My stepdad is the best, but his cooking is…uneven.

    *Kroppkakor: Direct translation would be “bodycakes”. I have no idea why they’re called that. You can make it in a couple of different ways, but my grandma always made the white ones and those are made from peeled and boiled potatoes that you mash, mix with egg and flour, make into balls with fried bacon and onion in the middle and then boil again. Feels ike you’ve eaten led when you’ve had a couple of those. You can eat it with whatever you like, but we mostly used lingonberry jam, melted butter, cream, or this white sauce that is some kind of creamy sauce-thingy or bechamel-ish. I’m not sure because I have never made it myself, but I am quite sure it does not normally contain instant cocoa powder. 😉

  9. I’ve been slogging along writing about mine dewatering (pun unavoidable), and then this post appeared like a whooping parade flinging candy and confetti. Thank you!!

    I think I’ve previously related my best cooking inattention story – when our son asked for a peanut butter, jelly and cinnamon sandwich, and I grabbed the jar of chili powder.

  10. Thank you for this post. It allowed me to put off adulting for five more minutes.

  11. I’ve proofed a scanned book. It wasn’t the half sentences floating pages apart that ruined me, it was the fucking periods.

  13. When I was young (about 9 or 10, I guess) my oldest sister asked me if I wanted some hot chocolate. Of course I said yes so she made me some. It wasn’t until I had finished it that she told me she had used Gravymaster in place of cocoa and I didn’t catch on.

    A few years later I was making chocolate bread pudding for dessert when I realized we didn’t have enough cocoa. Remembering the trick my sister had played on me, I added some gravy master to the ingredients and finished baking it. As my family were eating it, I asked if they liked the pudding and they all said yes. I then confessed what I had done. I don’t remember there being any repercussions so my siblings must have thought it was funny enough not to need revenge.

  14. The random periods would drive me insane. The keys on the keyboard at work have developed an obnoxious tendency to stick lately, and that’s more than enough to make me want to thrown office supplies. And it’s never the same key, although most often it’s the Tab. Once the A got stuck and it looked like the computer was screaming “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa” until I managed to un-stick it.

  15. I am altering bridesmaid dresses in a house haunted by dog hair. I sweep, turn around, and there it is again. I’m hoping the bridal party is so sloshed they don’t notice.

    I’m in a random MOOD. Very unhappy with myself and thinking WTF I don’t need a car. The trouble is I live in the middle of nowhere so no car is going to be very challenging. I’m so sick of how much the damn things cost. GAs, insurance, brakes.

    I’m hopeing I wake up in a better mood tomorrow.

      1. Is this official “car trouble” week? Mine is in the shop due to the “dripping of mysterious fluids” in combination of the “making of mysterious sounds”.

        That will be $3K please. Budgeted for, but still annoying. Think of all the books that would have bought.

        On the plus side, when the technician leaned it to note the mileage on the car and saw it was over 326,000, the expression on his face was almost priceless.

    1. Kate, that’s me every day lately. I’m having the month from hell at work, I had to go to a funeral a couple of weeks ago, and I keep asking myself why I chose this path, this life, etc. I’m sure it will pass, but there’s been a whole lot of wah happening here. I hope you feel better tomorrow.

      1. Hope you feel better tomorrow too, Georgia! It’s good to question our path (I think) but sometimes our poor brains just need a rest.

  17. I would just like to observe that keyboards and mice from Amazon are relatively cheap and/or inexpensive. I have several spares in original boxes about the garage, because I anticipate dribbling coffee/soda/ice cream into one or the other, and trying to rinse them out with distilled water never, ever works.

    Jenny, give me a POBox or agreeable friends address to ship to, and I’ll have Amazon send you one. Alternatively, an email addy usable for an Amazon Gift Certificate.

    1. I’ve been working with a mouse on the other laptop and I hate it. So nope, no peripherals. It’s the Genius Bar for me. But thank you for the offer.

  18. Also, I don’t know for sure about Apples, because I’ve never had one, but the keyboard on my last laptop went and my guys were able to replace it with a new one for $40. I had no idea you could do that, and it was like a damned miracle.

  19. My favorite inattention story is when my brother put 4 times too much sugar in the hamentaschen dough and they had to quadruple the recipe to even things up. He and my sisters were singing and baking until 2 in the morning and the whole family ate well for a long time.

    1. Gotta ask: Where were you when the singing and baking commenced? Presumably, you were there for the eating.

      1. I, the youngest, was up in bed, but I could hear could hear their voices through the heating vent. Since 1/3 of the hamentaschen had prune filling, they sang the prunie song and laughed hysterically. For those of you who don’t know it, the lyrics are as follows.
        “No matter how young a prune may be, its always full of wrinkles. A baby prune is like his Dad, but he’s not wrinkled half so bad. We’ve got wrinkles in our face. Prunie’s got them every place! No matter how good a prune may be, he’s always getting stewed.”

        1. The brother in question is 10 and a half years older than me and was home one spring break.

  20. Random periods are bothering me, too, right now, but maybe it means menopause is coming soon. #can’tWait.

    1. My co
      rst thought random periods and menopause. But I’m a nurse in my mind 50’s. (I thought I had typed mid but mind works, too.)

  21. I miss Hiddleston doing movies and tv for grown ups. But he’s all tied up doing Loki tv series, no sign of proper acting. Phooey.

  23. I had planned a great family activity today: a puzzle/follow the clue/ treasure hunt thing the info centre in town has as a school holiday activity. The instructions said ‘allow 1-2 hours’. We took 19 minutes. Apparently it’s a new record, we totally deserved the ice cream after.

  24. My inattention story is tech related because it happened recently, not because such things haven’t happened (multiple times) in my cooking adventures.

    To set the scene, I work for a company with multiple offices and just one IT Department – located several states away. The person who is the first point of contact is famously a total tech moron. At a mixer with colleagues from other offices, we entertained ourselves with multiple anecdotes of the “poor little idiot” type.

    So I come in one morning and boot up the computer, but I couldn’t get it to accept my password. Tried and tried, got some coffee and tried again, but nope. Heavy sigh. Guess I have to call IT. She did about 5 different things which were frankly a total shock to see she could do, but no luck. Then suddenly the light bulb went off and I realized I had turned off my wireless keyboard at the end of the day before to clean it. No wonder it wasn’t accepting my password! Forehead slap! Look who’s the tech moron now.

    In penance, I vowed to think better of her, which is challenging for me, but it’s important for me to practice remembering everyone is doing their best and thinking bad thoughts about others just infects me with negativity. (Admittedly some people ::cough Trump cough:: deserve being called a moron often and in multiple languages because, hell, I’m not going for sainthood here.)

Comments are closed.