10 December 2001
With weekends like these, who needs weeks?
Seriously... I mean, nothing especially disastrous happened, but the little things piled up until I was ready to call it quits.
Friday night was Matt's office party. I'd meant to have Matt take a picture of me all dolled up in my new dress and such, because I was pleased with the effect, but I forgot. As such events go, this one was tolerable - pretty good food, an open bar, and I got to see friends that I haven't seen for a while.
And I got to dance, which is always fun. But I have got to get me some new dress shoes. I danced for maybe an hour, altogether (and including such minimalistic "dancing" as the Chicken Dance) and when I got home, my feet felt bruised. I couldn't even sit up, because resting my feet on the floor hurt. I gave up and went to bed, scootching down the mattress until my feet hung off the end.
Saturday morning, I discovered that my feet were bruised - there were red lines where the shoes had cut across the top of my feet that were swollen and tender to the slightest touch. For that matter, though it's improved, they're still bruised and swollen this morning, two days later.
Definitely need to get some new dress shoes.
Saturday afternoon was a blur. That evening, we met up with K.T. and Colleen and Richard and the five of us squished into Colleen's truck (well, the three of us in the back seat were squished; I presume the two in the front were comfortable) and drove around to look at Christmas decorations.
The Christmas house wasn't there - alas, alack, and alay! But there was an entire street more brightly lit than the original Christmas house, so the evening wasn't wasted.
Sunday, I decided I was going to distract myself from an annoying allergy attack by making cookies. There were some new recipes I was going to try from the Martha Stewart cookie magazine Karen had given me for my birthday.
First up - Brandy Snaps, an English rolled cookie, almost more candy than cookie. The recipe calls for them to be baked on parchment or baking paper, which I couldn't find. But I've had good luck in the past substituting waxed paper for baking paper, so I tried that.
That didn't work. The cookies stuck to the wax paper and refused to be lifted off. Scratch one batch.
Another excellent substitute for baking paper is to cut up brown paper grocery bags.
No dice. They stuck to that even more than to the waxed paper. Scratch two batches.
I gave up on the brandy snaps.
Colleen and Carl and Richard came over, and while Matt and Colleen were out getting dinner, the two boys got absorbed in a Discovery channel special. A three-hour special, so after dinner, I went back into the kitchen and started in on the macaroons. These, I felt sure, would be fine on waxed paper, and Colleen agreed.
No dice. They stuck. And while the macaroons, at least, were big enough that what we pried off the paper was edible, it crumbled too much to be considered a cookie. Scratch three batches.
Next batch - I moved to the cut-up paper bags again. It took us a while, but eventually Colleen stumbled onto the trick for prying them off the paper without losing too much of the cookie in the process. I got perhaps 3/4 of a batch of cookies for four batches made.
While the second-to-last tray of cookies was in the oven, I looked at the recipe for macaroons on the back of the bag of coconut. It didn't suggest paper in the cookie sheet at all - it suggested a greased sheet.
Martha Stewart is the spawn of Satan.
And it was about the time that Colleen and her boys were gathering themselves to leave that I realized it was nearly bedtime on Sunday night, and I could barely remember the weekend. I felt cheated.
To make matters even more exciting, the battery in the guest room smoke alarm started dying, which meant that every 20 seconds or so, it would emit a brief "chirp." The first couple of them I incorporated into my dreams, but I couldn't ignore them for long. Eventually, Matt got up and went to look at it, but it stopped before he could do anything.
This was, of course, at about 4:30 in the morning. Why can't these things ever happen during the day?
It started chirping again this morning while Matt was in the shower. I climbed up on a chair and poked at the thing until I figured out how to get the battery out. We'll get new batteries tonight.
I was this close to calling in sick this morning, just so I could sleep in and then spend a few hours relaxing. If we weren't going to be going to Chicago for Christmas, I may well have done it. But as it is, my vacation time is going to be depleted enough.
But it's not fair. I want a weekend.
Word of the Day:
menorah - a candelabrum with seven or nine candles that is used in Jewish worship
Song of the Day:
The Superman theme
Currently Playing:
Diablo II