Must be Christmas...

So here it is, the keyboard Hubby gave me two years ago for Christmas, up in the livingroom with the book of Christmas Carols, ready to go.

That book of Christmas carols, my Grandmother gave me when I was 14 years old. And I still can't play them!

Every year I drag them out and give it a go. They're written as hymns - 4-part harmony.

I'm not very good at reading music. Hah! That's the understatement of a lifetime! I never learned how to properly read music. Interestingly enough, I can teach it though! So I struggled with any music, but 4-part harmony was a nightmare for me. See, that means you are playing four notes all the time, using four separate fingers, all going in different directions. Every beat of the song, no letup, no respite. Your brain has to direct four uncooperative fingers in four different directions from start to finish. 

Imagine trying to read four lines of text, grouped one above the other, all about different subjects, in one continuous process from the top to the bottom of a page, and be able to tell someone what each of them were about when you reached the end. Here, I'll try a sample:

Merry Christmas to us all, see the doggie chase the ball, wagging his tail down the hall.

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy-ass Red Bull dog while barking his head off.

Lorem Ipsem something-or-other Latin phrase that's used as filler and here as example.

Boom-boom, ain't it great to be crazy? Well that depends on your point of view though!

Go ahead, read all four at the same time. That means you read "Merry the Lorem Boom" and "Christmas quick Ipsem boom" etc. (Actually if you're going to do it properly, you start at the bottom and read to the top. So it would be "Boom Lorem The Merry" and "boom Ipsem quick Christmas.")

And don't forget,  you have to do it in the correct amount of time, since people are singing along. Yeah. New respect for the church organist!

Grandma used to listen, not particularly patiently, while I struggled with the Christmas Carols. Then she'd pontificate on the one thing she'd ever heard from someone-or-other about reading music.

"It should be just like reading a book!" she'd parrot away, frustrated with my inability to get through a christmas carol without stumbling numerous times. "Smooth and continuous and seamless!"

She never could understand what the problem was. 

With 20/20 hindsight, there was a solution to this, except I didn't see it at the time. I should have offered to teach Granny how to play the piano. I should have begun her instruction in the names of the notes and the placement on the staff, and stuck her down in front of the piano with the all-intimidating "C-D-E, has a tree, full of apples as can be!" from (I think) Teaching Little Fingers to Play.

That would have shut her up. There's nothing like trying to coordinate fingers, which are remarkably stupid and uncooperative, with symbols printed on a page 2.5 feet away from where your fingers are. And "C-D-E" is only three notes with one finger each. Music doesn't stay that simple for long.

But I digress.

I actually love this book of Christmas carols. My favourites are "O Christmas Tree" and "Good King Wenceslas," and "Silent Night." That's because they're the easiest to read, with the fewest number of changes in chords. "Deck the Halls" is a nightmare - it changes chords every single word. It's dizzying!

But I love playing them all, nevertheless, despite the annoying memories of frustrating years enduring Grandma's sermons on a topic she knew nothing about. Despite not being a Christian - heck, Christmas is a pagan holiday from start to finish anyway! (Spoiler alert!) The pagans are celebrating the birth of the god from the Mother Goddess. Sound familiar?

Anyway, another reason I like "Good King Wenceslas" is because of the story. "Ye who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find blessing." Unfortunately it comes after five verses and doesn't often make it that far in today's fast-paced world where we sing one verse and move on to the next song.

So I play all five verses. Actually, at some point during the holidays, I play all the verses of all the carols. Just to be...I don't know...pedantic? Thorough?

Have a good time? Yes, I think that may be it...I enjoy playing them. Badly, yes, but I'm so glad I'm not a concert pianist and I can thump away and sing at the top of my lungs and scare the cats, because it's actually f u n !

Separating the Men from the ... not men ...

It snowed today. It started late last night, on our way home from Boyfriend's office party. Boyfriend was psyching himself up for a day spent shovelling. I laughed at his angst, because I do a good deal of the shovelling. I said he wouldn't be alone, that I'd be out there doing the stairs while he took care of the snowplow pile in front of the tempo.

Apparently, I lied.

I did get the Christmas cards done. All new addresses duly stored - physically, in a book, one of those things you use pencils and pens in, remember? Everything stamped and ready to go to the post office. It takes hours to do christmas cards, even when you're not writing a personal message in them.

I wasn't actually feeling quite up to snuff today either. Got a bit of a cold. I was actually surprised that Boyfriend came out to get groceries with me. And right up to the last possible minute I was still deluding myself that I was going to in fact go skating today, in town, at the Principal's Skating Party - a McGill tradition.

But I pulled the plug on that and went to bed for the afternoon instead. And felt much better for it.

Just before suppertime, "Untold Stories of the ER" was on. Boyfriend suffered quietly through one of them, but drew the line at eating his dinner in front of the tv to watch the second one. So even though he'd done all the shovelling alone, I let him eat by himself in the bedroom while I stuffed myself through all kinds of medical procedures.

And then Downton Abbey came on, and the rest of the world slipped away. Basically, the world does cease to exist for me when Matthew and Bates and Anna and Mrs. Hughes and Lady Mary are onscreen.

At some point Boyfriend got back into his snow shovelling clothes and made a good deal of noise outside, scraping and hitting the railings. I even had to get up to turn the light on for him. Fortunately, it was in a break from the show while they were running the Ralph Lauren and Viking River Cruises and Kells Academy ads. He did the deck too, for Bijou's sake, who wasted no time in enjoying the fruits of his labours.

I even poked my head out to encourage him. "Such rampant enthusiasm!" I cried. When he came in a few minutes later, he assured me he was far from enthusiastic. I've never seen him so drenched in sweat! He pointed out, pointedly, that he was only doing his duty.

I reminded him that occasionally I do my duty as well. But he didn't get to chuckle for long, because Lady Sybill was busy dying in childbirth and the world, and Boyfriend with it, was fast disappearing.

He's a Downton widower.

You know, how people say "golf widow" or "fishing widow." Well, he's a man, so he can't be a "widow," he has to be a "widower."

Hey, I got dinner made, and the dishes washed, and the cat food made, and the dishes washed again, and two loads of laundry done too.

But I have to admit, he wore the (snow)pants today! 

A Quilt for Attawapiskat

Well, the First Nations community of Attawapiskat has suffered yet another blow. On the CBC, they reminded us of how, two years ago, the sewage system suffered a fatal breakdown, and the response was to install temporary housing for the families there.

Two years in temporary housing. Well, to some people that doesn't seem like such a bad thing. But have you looked at a map? We're talking just about Arctic here.

Families. That means old women and children. Babies.

One working toilet for 80 people. One working kitchen for 80 people.

I would hate to share my bathroom with 80 people. And I can barely tolerate my Boyfriend helping me in the kitchen, much less having 80 people trying to get meals going.

I'd be discouraged. Wouldn't you?

Then two months ago the power went off. Did Ontario Hydro rush to the scene? I mean, this is sub-Arctic climate here. Was it an emergency that all these people had no power?

Apparently not.

When we had the Ice Storm here, people started using fireplaces, Coleman stoves, candles, anything they could to stay warm.

And of course, that's what the people of Attawapiskat had to do.

Here, we had people burn their homes down in trying to keep warm. And two weeks ago, that's what happened in Attawapiskat.

Of course it happened. 

Now, I'm not a historian or a specialist in Aboriginal affairs. I can't begin to guess at how this situation got the way it has. I'm sure of one thing - there has been bad faith, mismanagement, lack of understanding and lack of trust, maybe on both "sides," more likely on "ours."

But I am a mother, a daughter, and a quilter. And I'm 56 years old. I've had experiences that have taught me that a little compassion goes a long way. That nobody gets up, yawns and stretches in the morning, looks in the mirror and says "Today, I think I'll become a statistic."

I've learned that life throws us curves. That some of us are luckier than others. We got born into a relatively affluent society, on the right side of the color-and-creed barriers.

And others weren't so lucky. The cynics would say "So what, that's life, it sucks to be you."

I'm pretty sure that if any of us had to live in these kind of conditions, we'd squawk. I'm also pretty sure that if the power went out here, they'd be working hard to get it back on.

Because. We. "Count."

Well, I could go on about this forever, but in the interests of getting to the point, I'm going to send a quilt to one of the persons who has been displaced by the fire.

It's nothing. It's a drop in a sea. It will actually be a large investment of my time and will take determination to see that it ends up keeping somebody warm, because I don't actually know anybody from Attawapiskat.

I'm well-placed in my job to have some contacts, and earlier this week I met with two Aboriginal women to discuss the way I could somehow get a quilt to one of these displaced persons. I'd like the label I will put on it to eventually read "You are not alone." Or "you are not forgotten." Or something like that. But that's even harder to figure out, because then not only does someone have to point the way to a displaced person, it means finding someone who speaks their language and can write the syllabics for me to embroider or appliqué onto the quilt.

One step at a time. If all I can do is send one person a quilt that will keep them warm, that's one thing I can do.

So, has anybody had experience with wool batting? I have a feeling it's warmer than cotton, but I wonder about shrinkage.

All kind comments are appreciated.

Here, suet suet suet suet suet...

I am an anachronism, a relic, an antique, a has-been...

I am trying to make a fruitcake from scratch. I've done this many times in the past, but I learned today that there is a province-wide shortage of suet.

Suet is beef fat. It's supposed to be fat specifically from around the kidneys (because of the texture). And every other year I've been able to get a 500g bag of it, nice and white and fine and made by Maple Leaf, to put in my fruitcake.

This year, nuh-uh.

Who knows why - I throw my arms in the air in a gesture of hopelessness. Because I'm in a primarily French province, and suet-based cooking is primarily English? Because people are watching their weight and cutting down on animal fats, or becoming vegetarian?

Besides the fact that I've driven all over Hell's half-acre today in a vain attempt to get suet, I'm depressed about more than that one issue. See, somebody suggested I go to Adonis, in the 10/30 mall.

I avoid the 10/30 like the plague. It is huge. It is a small city. It makes no sense for Canadian weather. You have to drive from one store to another, it's impossible to be a pedestrian, they don't even have sidewalks through most of it.

Whenever I'm a passenger in a car going to the 10/30, we get there without incident. However, "Granny" here got herself well and truly lost.

How hard can it be? The thing is visible from Mars! I've always, always returned safely from the 10/30 by way of Lapiniere, so to get there today, I took Lapiniere.

Turns out, that doesn't exactly work.

I saw many sights today. The graveyard where my grandparents are buried. Leon's furniture warehouse. The Ikea distribution center. Signs pointing to the 30 East, heading to Sorel. Signs pointing to the 30 West, heading to Vaudreuil. A manufacturing and commercial center I didn't know existed, where they're still paving the roads. There was even a Boulevard du Quartier - which convinced me I was in the right place at last, because that is the name of the main road in the 10/30! Must've been a different "Quartier" though, because I made it as far as St. Bruno before I gave up and turned around.

Unfortunately, this 10/30 mall, visible from Mars, is not visible from the 30, East or West, or from Lapiniere. 

Eventually I did manage to see great big signs advertising the existence of the 10/30, and proceeded to get lost in the maze of unnamed streets that meander meaninglessly this way and that through the most mind-numbing tedium I have ever encountered.

If I ever become a terrorist, the first place I'd take out is the 10/30 mall. But I digress.

I did, eventually, find Adonis. They didn't have any suet either. They also didn't know what it was, but the manager was keen to make me some. Unfortunately, I think the process involves chopping, heating and melting, cooking, and more chopping.

And I got lost coming home. Nearly wept when I found Boul. Rome, coin Taschereau.

All in all, not an experience to put me in a festive mood for making fruitcake.

And of course, there was the internal monologue the while this was going on. "You're the fruitcake, Deb." "Go on a diet." "This'll teach to you become a vegetarian!" "Why do you persist in routinely giving yourself the trouble of doing s--t from scratch! Buy one at Costco and get on with your life!"

I was not feeling particularly happy. Then I realized that my Daughter had left me a message. I had tried to call her while I was going both ways on the 30 and she was returning my call.

She had been visiting my Stepfather in the hospital. Stepdad has just had his second leg amputated.

Okay, I may not be able to find suet this year, but at least I've got two legs. Kind of puts things a teensy bit in perspective.

Not Dead Yet

I have just received the most wonderful news.

My Stepmother isn't dead yet.

To fill out a few more details, she has a lump in her breast. They've been going through tests to determine if it had spread, and it hasn't.

It can be removed with a lumpectomy, and there will be no chemo or radiation.

She's quite elderly, you see, and wouldn't survive general anesthesia, or radiation or chemo. The surgeon believes it will be relatively simple to remove the lump, and Stepmother lives to fight another day!

My Stepbrothers and Stepsisters have not been telling either Stepmother or my Dad about her condition, because both of them are so far gone with Alzheimer's that neither could comprehend the situation or the implications.

And if Daddy couldn't understand those, he certainly wouldn't understand what had transpired, should she have passed away.

For now, the two old folks continue.

The Saga of Hubby and the Dishwasher

Part One
About a decade ago, my friend R was redoing his kitchen, and we bought his dishwasher from him for $100. It had served R well for about ten years already, but it's grinder was no longer functioning, and R and his wife C were upgrading. Our old dishwasher, going on twenty, was noisy, didn't hold much, and had only the top and bottom sprayers, not like R's newer model which had a third sprayer arm in between the two levels.

This was in the days when we had 3 kids at home, 2 of whom were mildly cooperative, and 1 of whom was not particularly. We explained rinsing, we demonstrated scraping, at least once a week. Every second week the holes in one of the arms would plug up and I'd go at it with tweezers and get something huge out - usually the clipped-off corner of a milk bag, or the plastice tie used to hold bread bags closed. Large seeds, string, entire pieces of saran wrap... There seemed to be precious little cooperation from the crew concerning getting the crap off the plates before putting them in the dishwasher.

But the dishwasher was quiet - for it's time - and it had electronic controls and adjustable height on the top rack, and we were thrilled to have it.

Well, a couple of months ago, Hubby reported that it was making an awful grinding noise. He knew he should have dug it out, opened it up and cleaned it out, but he was dreading doing that, so he let it make it's noise, till one day, predictably, it quit altogether.

The last time I spent the night at Hubby's was, in fact, the evening of the very day it had quit. So the next morning began with the attempt to clean out the dishwasher and see if he could get it running again. I yawned and scratched and padded to the kitchen only to see both racks of (dirty) dishes sitting on the counters, with Hubby on his knees surrounded by his drill and various other tools, holding a flashlight in his mouth while straining to reach the innards of the machine.

A couple of hours later, the first-aid attempt having failed, the work began in earnest to disconnect the hoses, turn off the power, remove the trim from the countertop so he could slide the dishwasher out of its hole and lay it on its back. Whereupon he began to pull out the motor so he could then lay it on the diningroom table and open it up. All sorts of fiddling and lubing went on. I went home. I received a report two days later that he had rebuilt the motor, re-inserted it into the dishwasher, re-attached the plumbing and the electricity, righted the machine and put it back in place, only to discover that it was toast.

Part Two
So, Hubby's brother had had an accident with HIS dishwasher - a very expensive, hoity-toity dishwasher. There had been water leaking on Brother's counter, which had leaked into the electronic controls of his upscale machine and fried the electronics. Two weeks after Hubby's dishwasher had first been laid on its back, Hubby picked up the fried dishwasher from his Brother and hauled it home to see if he could repair it.

Hubby hunted online and found that the fried controls for this very posh brand was a common complaint. Now, he COULD have ordered a new control box for it, for around $400, but he opted instead to order a $24 controller and attempt to program and wire it himself.

This would also entail, should he prove successful, cutting through the face of the machine, as the new controller was a different size and shape than the one that came with it.

Hey, Hubby is a real do-it-yourself-er! This held no fears for him!

Then he discovered he needed an electronic clock mechanism as well, and had to wait for that to arrive. That's so he didn't have to tell the computer chip to do forty million nanoseconds per cycle. A clock meant all he had to tell it was "wash ten minutes, then rinse." Much easier than coding nanoseconds. He got the controller to display "Good Morning Deb" successfully and was thoroughly enjoying tinkering with his new toy.

And in the meantime, his hands were getting nice and soft, too!

(Still no cooperation from the other member of the family, who refused to stick his hands in the sink.)

Oh, and so now there were TWO dishwashers apart in the kitchen/dining/livingroom, and the upper dishwasher rack was being used to hold the hand-washed dishes on top of the diningroom table.

Part Three
Hubby went to Future Shop's scratch-and-dent section, looking for something else, and guess what? There was a brand-new dishwasher - same Exclusive Brand as Brother's - on sale for $400! It had been returned by a customer. So he bought it. (This was a telltale sign that even Hubby was beginning to tire of the Dishwasher Marathon.)

He got the other dishwashers out of the way. He moved the plumbing, got everything attached, rolled his new baby into place.

It didn't work.

Apparently, the controller was fried.

However, this time, it was under warranty.

So today the technician came and fiddled and poked and got it partly working, then realized it was never going to succeed and ordered a new controller.

So, it'll be a couple of weeks...

On Ovens and Mysogeny

Well, I finally solved the problem of the oven drawer.

The oven drawer, you see, was continually falling off one or either side of its rails. It has bothered me since Day One, and today I figured it out.

I figured it out, because I had to clean the oven, which is a fate worse than death.

Let me explain. I don't know how a man cleans an oven, (probably gets his wife, girlfriend, mother or sister to do it for him...) but when I clean an oven, I want it clean.

Everywhere.

That includes the roof of the oven, where you can't get at it, because the stupid top heating element is wired in place.

The can of oven cleaner says clearly, "Do not spray on oven elements, oven light, or themometer."

It fails to explain how you're supposed to clean the oven without spraying all those things which are WELDED into place!

I remember, in my 20s, I dutifully took out the oven light bulb and wrapped everything I could see in tin foil before spraying the bejeezuz out of the oven.

F**k that! Life is short! Besides, that was THIRTY-FIVE years ago! There weren't even computers thirty-five years ago! You mean to tell me there's been no progress in all that time?

In all that time, only the self-cleaning oven has made a difference in how an oven gets clean. But I digress.

The oven roof. The back of the oven, the sides, the bottom, and the door. They all need to be cleaned.

And in between where the door meets the oven wall, and the (unseen) bottom of the oven door and the sides of the oven door.

I tried to get the oven door off. No luck. There are little clips to hold the hinges open when you take the door off, but door wouldn't budge.

So I cleaned it with the door on.

Oh, bliss.

So, when you get up in the morning, after you've sprayed the oven the night before, (gag, choke, cough, sputter), first you wipe and wipe and wipe with paper towels, then you wash and wash all the surfaces. And the stupid part is that you have to get your hands and fingers jammed in between the oven elements and the oven surfaces, stuffing the paper towls and wet rags as hard as you can to wipe/scrape the gunk off. It's awkward. It's hard on the back - even if you CAN get the door off. And it takes hours to do it completely from start to finish.

The biggest innovation in oven elements since I was in my 20s is that you can now lift the front end of the bottom element about an inch and a half off the bottom of the oven, so you can wipe beneath it.

Let me tell you something. In cooktops, before they made them ceramic, there used to be coils.

These coils were removable for cleaning underneath them.

Hey! Why don't they make the oven elements removable, so you can clean under (and above them?!

What a great idea!

Why don't they?

Because MEN, who MAKE the damned ovens, have never had to CLEAN one in their lives, that's why! Because MEN don't care if the top of the oven is clean, WOMEN care.

And women don't count. Women's work is unpaid, and unappreciated.


You know when, and why, the self-cleaning oven got invented? It got invented after men's wives divorced them and they had to clean their own f*****g ovens.

Before women could divorce, there were no self-cleaning ovens.

And the drawer? Well, after I took everything out and washed it and washed the rails it sits on and the wheels that it runs on, I lay down and took a good look at the structure of the oven and the structure of the drawer.

There's a little lip of the oven drawer that hangs over a little wheel, and that's what the drawer runs on. The wheels on the bottom of the drawer itself are only for balance (read - decoration), the actual weight of the drawer is carried by that little lip sitting attached (at the top of the drawer run) to the oven. And when I say little, I mean it's about an eighth of an inch deep. So it comes off real easily if you lift the drawer even an eighth of an inch.

So, all these years, when I had carefully been lifting the drawer because I thought the bottom wheels were sliding off, I was in fact lifting the tiny lip off the wheels that actually hold the drawer in place.

In other words, I need to push down while pulling the drawer out and pushing it in.

Down.

Not what kind of ass-backwards brains would come up with a scheme like that?

Oh, yeah...

Getting Granny on the Bus

I went to the clinic this morning. Boyfriend drove me there, and I took the bus home. Boyfriend asked me, knowing my tendency to be light-headed, if I had my bus pass, and I assured him I did.

Every single time I use public transportation, I have an adventure. This morning was no exception.

On one of my last trips, I had purchased a new OPUS card, because I'd seen the signs posted everywhere that they expire. I had loaded it with tickets for both Montreal and the Longueuil lines. I had thrown out my old card and used the lovely hard case for the new card. I had verified that it was, in fact, in its particular spot, in my purse.

When finished at the clinic, I walked to the bus stop where there was a shelter, fortunately for me, since it choose today to snow 27 cm. I had my cell phone out, and it assured me a bus would be along in a few minutes to take me to Longueuil, where I would transfer to one of several buses I could take to get home.

Imagine my surprise when I tapped my card on the reader and it loudly proclaimed "Carte Expiré." (Expired card.)

I tried again. Same message. I uttered something out loud, a cry of disbelief, in which language I do not recall. I explained to the driver that it must be my old card, and I had a new one. He urged me to take a seat while I dug in my purse so that I did not fall down. Good thinking.

Digging proved to be futile. I must have thrown out my new card, after all.

Searching in my purse, I came up 25 cents short of the fare. But the driver allowed me to stay anyway, since I was heading to Longueuil and could sort myself out there at the terminus.

Well, the terminus has changed a bit since my public transporting days, I must say! Where once there was a stark cement building barely large enough to hold the two metro tracks and two outdoor aisles where we stood in the cold to wait for the buses, there is a small city now. There are hundreds of snack shops, whole wings of buildings with large letters of the alphabet to denote which one you're in, with mutiple bus parking spots neatly arranged the length of them.

It's a bit unnerving if you don't know quite where you're going. I headed towards the metro, because that's where I used to buy my tickets. I searched in vain for the STL "Billeterie" inside the familiar gloomy building, so off I went down to Metro level to buy a new pass there. I loaded it up with tickets. The fellow had to take a few tries to get it right, so when I was done I went back out into the new terminus to one of the machines to put my OPUS card in its slot and verify that what I expected was there.

It said I had six tickets, and that my card was set to expire on March 31.

I checked it again. March 31.

Stepping back from the machine in puzzlement, I now finally espied the official "Billeterie," beyond where the entrance to the metro was, and made my way there. I explained to the young man what had transpired and that for some reason the card was set to expire on March 31.

He nodded, after verifying the card. "Yes, Madam, March the 31, 2017."

Oh. Silly old woman! I laughed and thanked him, and, when out of his sight, checked the card against the machine once more. March 31, 2017. Ok then, "Read the Screen," echoing in my mind, I had a good laugh at myself and went for breakfast at MacDonald's.

Hot cakes and sausage is my guilty pleasure.

Sated and refreshed, I lumbered toward Aisle C and found the spot where soon the number 13 bus would arrive and whisk me home. There was even a seat. I calmly read my book.

The bus arrived, I got on. I tapped my shiny new card on the reader, and it was refused. It said the card wasn't valid for this zone.

What?

The driver began a long explanation. I had purchased my tickets at the Metro, not at the Billeterie.

The fares are different.

Right. Of course they are.

I knew that.

The courteous driver allowed me to plunk in my $2, a full $1.25 less than the fare, and encouraged me to find a place to buy STL tickets. I barely understood a word he said. I was completely confused.

Granny needs to get with the program! I'll be trying this again by Friday, since my usual lift into work is taking his Fridays off to use up his allotted vacation time.

I'll report back then.

Don't Answer That

My Daddy had a few funny expressions I picked up over the years.

The one that first struck me as hilarious I heard when we lived on Gimli Air Force Base in Gimli, Manitoba. We were in the PMQs (Private Married Quarters) which were reserved for servicemen with families.

The PMQs on this particular base were made of sheet metal. There were constructed to look like normal houses, but there was no insulation, they were just large pieces of metal welded together. We didn't have a basement, so I don't think there was a foundation. Probably just a concrete slab. They were painted regulation yellow or regulation green or regulation beige on the outside (we lived in a yellow one), and the inside had properly finished-looking walls, but I'd be surprised if the insulation value reached R-2.

So, one autumn day, Daddy and I were headed out somewhere. He exited ahead of me, I took up the rear. As so many parents throughout the ages have done, he glanced in my direction and said, "Close the door! What do you think we live in, a barn?!"

And then he added, "Don't answer that."

I nearly doubled over. I've used that expression many times since, and this morning's usage brought it back to mind.

I'd seen my friend L's announcement on facebook that she had attended a Zumba class this morning. I commented, "What's Zumba?" And she replied "It's an exercise class."

I phoned her up and said, "I KNOW it's an exercise class! I meant what kind of exercise! How stupid do you think I am?!" 

Then I thought better of it, and added "Don't answer that!"

The Trip

A week ago, Boyfriend and I went to Ottawa to see my cousins. Since Maggie the cat needs pills three times a day, we asked our neighbours, C and N, if they would take care of our "pride" of kittehs. We actually debated some time about asking them - they had had two cats who lived into their twenties and had been heartbroken when the last one passed away last year. N took it particularly hard, and we weren't sure if it would be too painful for her to be near our cats. But they accepted instantly, and it was fun for A and me to be able to go away together.

We showed them where to find Pixie the kitten (in my sock drawer), where to feed Bijou (on the diningroom table - and don't forget her daily saucer of evaporated milk!), and where the brush was, since Maggie ADORES being brushed. Showed them all the toys, and they quickly returned with new toys of their own they had not given away.

They opted to keep all cats inside while we were gone, wanting to make sure all three were alive and well for our return.

I did notice, during our discussions, that Pixie curled up in N's arms and went to sleep - something she doesn't do for me. I'm her favourite chew toy, you see. Apparently, my fingers have "Eat Me!" inscribed on them. But for N, that seemed to be a different matter.

So off we went to Ottawa, and had a lovely time seeing my cousins. We went to the LCBO and bought C and N a bottle of wine you can't obtain here in Quebec, one of my favourites. It's from Sandbanks winery and it's called "Dunes."

Then we came home.

Instead of racing to the back door and howling to be let out, Maggie and Bijou came and sat down in the livingroom with us and Pixie. Rather expectantly. They waited.

"Can they not see us?" grumbled Maggie to Bijou.

"I AM flicking my tail," Bijou replied. (Sigh.) "Okay, I'll roll over and show them my beauty, see if that elicits a response."

Moments passed. A and I were still busy on our computers and flicking tv channels.

"I'm going to hop on Daddy," Maggie offered. She walked over A's keyboard and nuzzled his lips.

A was laughing. "Maggie!" he said, petting her and pushing her off his computer. I bent down and kissed her and petted her. She jumped down in disgust.

Pixie wandered into the centre of the room. All three cats sat within ten feet of each other. Pixie, being young, didn't know not to stare a hole in our heads. Bijou and Maggie both discreetly pretended not to notice us, which is cat-language for "Get off your big arses, we want something you ninnies!"

After a few more minutes, Bijou said "I give up," and skulked down to the basement. Maggie curled up in the boot tray, and Pixie hid in the sock drawer.

The next morning was a repeat performance. Only this time, as Bijou scratched at the door to be let out, I swear I heard Maggie say to her as they ran out onto the deck, "When do you think they'll go away again?"

It appears that Daddy and I have paled by comparison to our neighbours. We are dull and uninteresting, we don't entertain them well at all, and we fail to observe proper feeding protocol.

We have a lot to learn.

A Great Day

Great days like today don't come around very often. At least, they haven't, in the past.

I began the day with laundry, before I put on the coffee. I did my reflection time, played Words with Friends, played my free game of You Don't Know Jack, and wrote some emails to friends.

I vaccumed. Upstairs and down, even the sewing room, even under the beds, even the STAIRS!

I did nine loads of laundry, and they are ALL put away.

I made two loaves of oatmeal bread, and - get this! - I made CROISSANTS! Yes, from scratch! And they are as delicious as you think! Yummm!

I made dinner for tonight, and dinner for tomorrow night as well, since tomorrow night is a quilt meeting. The dishwasher is humming away, the kitchen is clean.

I started some quilting for tomorrow night, and as soon as I've posted this, I'm off to finish it.

I had time to pat my cats and watch Star Trek too.

This is a red-letter day!

Yay!

Disaster Averted

So, today I thought I'd make some bread. Oatmeal bread. Have mixer, will knead.

The first time I used my new mixer for a yeast product, I made pizza dough. That only required 3 cups of flour. Today's recipe for Oatmeal bread required 2 cups of oatmeal and 6 1/2 - 7 1/2 cups of flour. Which I reduced to 5 cups of flour, recalling 2-ton loaves from my past...

I received my mixer as a birthday present last summer, and have been soooo thankful ever since - royal icing is a breeze, buttercream decorator icing just mooshes together so easily, I thought I'd basically diead and gone to heaven.

Today, my second day off this week (I only work 3 days a week) I thought I'd make oatmeal bread. Making bread has such strong memories for me, the smell wafting through the house, the basic-ness, the earthiness of it, the "rolling my sleeves up and bellowing ethnic folk songs" of it... (If you want to know where the quote is from, leave a comment at the end of the post!)

Well, my mouth was watering as I read and re-read the recipe. I had made notes in the margin of the recipe book (The Canadian Cookbook) and I couldn't remember why I had reduced the amount of oatmeal without reducing other ingredients... In the end I went with my gut instincts, reducing the oatmeal AND the flour content.

I stood and watched the dough hook do its magic, incorporating the flour into the bread. I could watch that thing all day! Then I heaved a sigh of contentment and continued doing other chores while the mixer did its thing - went to the basement, switched laundry from the washer to the dryer, put on a second load, and got some sausages out of the freezer for dinner.

As I came upstairs again, I smelled something unfamiliar, and thought, "My, that recipe is fragrant!"
I placed the sausages on the counter and turned to look at the mixer and see how it was doing. The microwave timer told me it had one minute of the ten minutes left.

And then my mixer just stopped.

I blinked my eyelids a few times in blank uncomprehension.

Slowly, realization dawned on me that something had gone amiss with the mixer. I reached out a nervous hand to put the switch back to the "off" position.

That's when I saw the smoke coming out from the side of the machine, from the slot where the speed controls are.

I quickly unplugged the machine.

And stood and watched it smoke.

Like everything it does, the mixer smokes quite well... So THIS was the source of the "fragrance" I had noted.

I touched the top of the mixer. It didn't feel that hot!

I stared another minute, then, since there were no actual flames, went to get the instruction manual,.

The first thing I did was curse my miserable disorganized existence, as the FIRST page of the manual says in plain, clear, black and white, "Put your proof of purchase HERE, you ars**le!" Of course, I hadn't done that. And no, it doesn't actually say "ars**le," but it SHOULD...

I was looking for a "troubleshooting" page, but there weren't any, because this mixer is reliable. It's not supposed to have trouble. I'm the trouble!

I touched the top of the mixer again. This time it was hot - really hot! I could hold my hand on it, but only by effort of will.

I returned to the manual. It had an 800 number for Canada. I called it, waded through the "if" list (If you are calling for x, press 1, if you are calling for y, press 2, if this and if that, etc..."

"Mindy" was very pleasant as I read the model and serial number to her and supplied her with my name, address, social insurance number, IQ, shoe size...

But when I told her what the problem was, that nine minutes into a ten-minute knead smoke had started coming out of my mixer and it had stopped, she asked me,

"How much flour did you have in your dough?"

I quickly checked the recipe book - both mine, and the one that had come with the mixer. She put me on hold while she checked with technical services. I compared recipes while I waited. I had reduced the amount of flour...I had more oatmeal than the recipe in the mixer book, which would make it heavier...Everything seemed to balance out. But I had used the mixer on level 1, the bottom speed, and their book said to mix dough on 2.

When she came back, Mindy said to keep the mixer unplugged for 12 hours and then try it again. I thanked her, and phoned Hubby.

Hubby said "I think it's a mechanical switch."

"Yes?" I said.

"Well, it's not electronic,"  he explained.

"And that means," I led...

"It means it's a piece of metal that snaps open when it's too hot. It'll snap back when it cools. You haven't "fried" anything."

Aah - something I could understand! I might NOT have fried my mixer!
.........
Epilogue
The mixer isn't broken.
The bread was heavy, but delicious.
I'm buggin Boyfriend to get the recipt stapled into the book.