Tales from the Shark Tank

We are going to a gathering in Michigan next weekend. It’s sort of a chosen-family reunion, though in this instance we aren’t among those doing the choosing, we are among those invited. But like most such gatherings, a lot of what people do is talk and eat. That, of course, is where I come in.

Last year I offered to bake, and ended up bringing brownies, fudge, and two or three kinds of cookies. This year, once we received our invitations, I offered to do it again, and was taken up with great enthusiasm. There’s a theme, sort of: Germanic and/ or monster-inspired foods. So I’ve spent the last week or two baking, with no sign of slowing down.

I also bought a freezer. I’ve wanted one for quite awhile, but it took some doing to figure out where we could put it. And since I knew I’d be baking like this, I saw no reason to delay the acquisition. We’ve certainly got a use for it, but its getting its first usage on my goody-making spree. It currently contains several loaves of rye bread, a large challah, 4 dozen brownies, 6 pounds of fudge, 3 pounds of penuche (brown sugar-butterscotch fudge), 4 dozen almond butter cookies, and 7 dozen oatmeal peanut butter cookies. Dough for mohn (poppy seed) wafers is chilling in the fridge. (Yes, I came up with another recipe.) I’ve kind of lost track of how much butter I’ve gone through, but I know I’ve completely used up 1 1/2 bags of sugar, 5 pounds of chocolate and 10 pounds of flour. And I’m not done yet. I’m making an apple-honey cake and a poppy seed sour cream cake. My son has plans to turn them into monster-cakes, with marzipan tentacles coming up at the base and twining round the cake, and I don’t know what all else. Those will get done tomorrow and Tuesday, so that we have time to freeze and then decorate them.

So that’s what I’ve been busy with. And I’m having a fabulous time!

A friend of mine just posted an entry on her blog talking about helping one of her teachers extract a jammed ball from a flint-lock rifle, because she had expertise and tools he lacked. It ends well; she not only got the ball out of the barrel, but was able to tell him why it got stuck in the first place.

What it made me think of, though, was of an adventure in muzzle-loading weaponry that ended…differently.

A friend of ours who lived in our apartment complex was an aficionado of most types of historic weaponry. Swords, muzzle-loading firearms, long bows, you name it, he thought it was cool and wanted to get his hands on it. So at some point, he acquired a muzzle-loading pistol. When he first told us about it, he was intending to take it out to a firing range and try it out.

Patience was not his distinguishing characteristic. He couldn’t wait. Disassembling, assembling, cleaning and oiling was only satisfactory for so long. He knew he couldn’t shoot it in the city, but he thought he’d just try loading it.

The problem was that he really hadn’t thought it through. Unlike a modern weaporn, a muzzle-loader can’t be unloaded without special equipment once its been loaded. So he loaded it without a problem, to then find himself with a dilemma. He couldn’t transport the thing safely while loaded because flintlocks don’t have a safety as we know it. He couldn’t unload it, and he couldn’t fire it in the city. What to do, what to do?

Finally he concluded that the only safe thing to do was discharge it in a way that would not allow the ball to travel any distance, feasible because musket balls do not fire with the same force and modern rifle bullets. So he put the muzzle up against the sidewall at the foot of a king-sized mattress and fired.

He and his wife continued to use that mattress – with the hole with slightly charred edges at the foot – until it wore out. She was fairly philosophical about the damage to the mattress. The thing that really annoyed her, though, was that he didn’t take off the sheets before he committed mattresscide.

When I was in sixth grade, I had to do a diorama.  I still remember it, because my mom came up with the idea of sprouting grass seed in a shallow pan, so that instead of green-painted cardboard I had real grass for my little people to sit in.  I made figures out of  clay, and I don’t remember what all else.  It didn’t fit in a shoebox, though; it ended up being free-standing on its cardboard base.  I don’t remember how I got it to school, but I suspect strongly that I had help.

Now it’s my son’s turn.  His does fit in a shoebox.  He’s supposed to do a diorama about France, and so chose to do the Eiffel Tower.  I had visions of him trying to construct the thing out of clay, popsicle sticks and/or toothpicks, with associated howls of frustration because while he builds amazing things from Legos, things not intrinsically designed to fit together give him fits.  I asked him if he wanted to build a model or if he wanted to put a picture as the background in the back of the shoebox.  To my relief, he thought that the picture was a fabulous idea, but wanted it painted rather than as a photograph.  Hmm.  We found a good photo to work from, and I drew a pencil sketch on watercolor paper.

I helped with the painting of that, and then it was time for modeling compound.  Crayola makes something that can be modeled like clay, air dries very quickly, feels rather like marshmallow, and is paintable.  That’s what we used, and he now has a seated human figure holding a dog on a leash, a cat and another little person sitting cross-legged, two wee chairs and a pedestal table.  They’re all drying on the card table, and will be painted tomorrow before being glued into position.  The table and chairs aren’t particularly in proportion to the people, but hey, he’s 12.  Now he’s painting grass and a sidewalk while I keep him company.  I suspect he’ll remember this as long as I have the Indian Village.

He’s also answered some factual questions, done a written report on French history, and prepared an oral report.  He’s looking forward to presenting the whole thing to his Social Studies teacher.  Me?  I’m looking forward to his teacher’s response.  It’s his project, but I don’t feel at all bad about helping with it.  All I’ve done is mechanical execution.  The plans and ideas have been all his, and that’s the important part.

I am much amused. A young woman (18), the daughter of a woman I mentored when she was in her teens, just e-mailed me. She has started up her own Pagan coven, and was looking into what foods would be appropriate for a harvest festival, as she would be hosting their Mabon Circle. (I keep telling people I’m not the Encyclopedia Galactica, and they keep not listening. But I digress.)

So I did a little hunting, and e-mailed her a bunch of Sukkot recipes. There’s a vegetable stew, and roast chicken with root vegetables, and a barley bread with dried fruit, and eggplant stuffed with mushrooms and barley. Best source I could think of for harvest-festival recipes, y’know?

The appliance wars are over, and House Deer is victorious.

The saga began on the Friday before Labor Day.  I don’t know where in the appliance code it is written that failure must take place on or immediately before a holiday weekend, but it’s got to be somewhere.  I’ve had a microwave die the day before Thanksgiving with a full feast to cook, my oven thermostat go on strike with bread rising and cookies on the tray for a 4th of July party, and my dishwasher turn up its toes while I was making a Passover Seder.

This time, though, they outdid themselves, with two dying on the same day.  First we found that the refrigerator had stopped refrigerating.  The thermometer inside read upwards of 60.  So I called until I found a repairman (crochety old man; he really knew his stuff and was both willing to explain and far less crotchety when he found out I would actually listen.)  He came out, did what he could, and warned me that it might not be sufficient and why.  Then he left.

That accomplished, I went to move towels from washer to dryer, only to find that they were still water-saturated.  So I set them to spin again.  More water came out, but not much, and the sound was odd.  Opened the lid to smell something hot, and found when I moved the towels that the tub was indeed extremely warm in one spot.  Tried to move things and check, and figured out that what the last repairman had told me was coming had indeed arrived; the bearings were gone and the motor burning out.  Okay then; it’s New Washer Time!

Meanwhile, the refrigerator still hasn’t come back on.  Not good.  Checked again a few hours later.  Silence.  Go to bed.  Checked again at about 3:00 a.m. when I made my usual pilgrimage, to find that it was finally both running and cold.  Yaaay!  So as soon as practicable (Monday), I went out and committed an act of washing machine.

I had rejoiced too soon.  The refrigerator continued to operate for a whole 48 hours.  After that, the freezer worked fine but the fridge wouldn’t chill below 55.  (I found that very strange.)  That is not a temperature that prevents spoilage, to say the least, so we started helping it along with bags of ice, acknowledging that life support was not a terribly satisfactory solution and that it was simply time to say kaddish for the poor thing.  I also started cooking so that there would be no leftovers after I had to throw out a quart of chicken corn soup.  And so the next hunt was on.  Have I mentioned that appliance shopping is an element in the set of things which is no fun?  No?  Well, permit me to rectify the oversight.  But I finally found one, buying it, in an amusing small-world twist, from the young man who had purchased our house in Indianapolis in January 2006.

So we now have a full complement of working appliances.  The washer was delivered last Thursday, and the refrigerator today.  I’ve done a whole lot of laundry, and filled the new refrigerator with the things that survived the demise of the old one.  So ended the appliance wars.  We even won, but as is the case with any war, victory wasn’t cheap.

Some days move too fast to do more than note the high(?) points.  Yesterday was like that.

• Box arrived bearing large Lego kit, a gift for my son.  Opened box.  Son began screaming in delight: “yes, Yes, YES, YES, YES!” while dancing madly around the kitchen.  When shrieking and attendant maternal laughter slowed down, called to thank grandparents for gift.  Son managed the call with restraint and dignity, then went back to dancing.  Babbled about new kit for half an hour before he actually calmed down enough to, oh, say, open it? (Note: next morning, greeted the day with more thoughts on the wonderfulness of the kit. *grin*)
• Mid-morning temps in the mid 70s made a perfect day to go ride my newly tuned and adjusted bike.  Removed bike from garage.
• Heard plaintive laments from roofed cat.  Sophia, this time – usually it’s Tornado (sometimes multiple times in any given day.  Up tree = fun.  Down tree, not so much.)  Went in to retrieve Sophia via attic window.  Cloud got behind me, then jumped blithely out window using nearest human shoulder for springboard.
• Now two cats on roof.  Sophia came to me two minutes after Cloud’s escape.  Cloud took another 40 minutes or so to coax in, finally lured by opening can of cat food in her sight.  Came to sniff and was duly nabbed.
• Actually took bike ride, with boychild jogging alongside.  Temps now in low 80s and muggy.  Fortunately bike creates own breeze.
• Came in, drank water, took shower.
• While drying off from shower, heard prolonged and alarming thumping from kitchen.  Shouted inquiry as to cause.   Son’s response: “I’m trying to climb the wall.  I can’t do it.  I guess I need climbing equipment.”  Boy was serious.  Eeek!  Mr. Literal was trying to enact common figure of speech.
• Took wall-climbing boy swimming as suitable outlet for energy.  Listened to chatter about wonders of new kit and plans for same for duration of drive.
• Came home, listening to chatter about wonders of new kit and plans for same for duration of drive.
• Greeted husband on return from overnight trip.
• Talked to friend.
• Mommy fall down go boom.

We’re home from spending the first half of my husband’s vacation in Indy, catching up with friends and making it possible for grandparents and kidling to spend time with each other.  We went to services Friday evening, required now that J. is into formal bar mitzvah preparations, and then Saturday morning betook ourselves southward.  After spending some time chatting with my wonderful in-laws, we went another hour south to catch Wild Mercy’s first gig since their harpist had her baby.  (She said she was still wearing maternity jeans, but I swear you’d never guess she had a baby about a month ago!)

The show was at a winery, where people spread blankets and brought picnics, and kids and dogs ran around on the grass.   For those who hadn’t brought their own they had pizza from a local eclectic pizzaria, fruit and cheese plates and, of course, wine.  I had occasional sips from my husband’s, but only half a glass of my own – something about not wanting to fall asleep.

They did a marvelous show.  That isn’t solely my biased judgment (the band members being good friends), but both comments I heard from people sitting near us and inference from the fact that while a few folks left at the end of the second set, they seemed to be mostly those with very young children getting sleepy and cranky.  Almost everyone stayed to the very end, and they were listening as well as chatting.  I’d guess there easily 400 people there, maybe more, and they were holding the audience perfectly well.  It was fun, too, hearing songs by people I know being appreciated by folks outside those for whom they’re usually performed.  The designer pizza didn’t appeal to Mr. Picky, but his dad went out and got him something from McD’s and he found some kids to romp with, so that was all good too.

We got back to my in-laws tired but happy, and then I had to tell His Boyness that no, he couldn’t put showering off until morning; it was kind of urgent.  His legs were visibly grimy and his feet flat out black on the bottoms, courtesy of a soccer game and an extended adventure in rolling down a nice, long hill.  But that was accomplished, and so was sleep for all and sundry, and we went onward.

Sunday I took boychick over to my mom’s for the afternoon.  He sat down in the den with mom and me, and laughed at stories and talked and generally shared the conversation, following the topic without dragging it back to something familiar like weather or disasters natural or un.  It was another quantum leap in social development, seen for the first time, and I was enormously proud of him.  Sunday night we caught up with friends.  Boychick wanted to come along, but bed needed to happen sooner than we’d get home; bless my in-laws for offering to babysit!  Monday I took Mom to get some things that required both of us taken care of, which took much of the day but isn’t newsworthy.  What was newsworthy was her ability to keep track of a conversational thread or an explanation from beginning to end.  The medication her doctor put her on is clearly helping, for which I am tremendously grateful.  I don’t know how deep the improvement goes, but this alone is enough for now.

And Tuesday we went to see the current King Tut exhibit.  My husband had seen it years earlier in Chicago, the first time it came to the U.S., but I never had.  All I can say is wow!  Yes, there was a lot of gold, but the gold wasn’t what made it.  It was the sheer beauty and craftsmanship and intricacy of the pieces displayed.  You can see a picture of a hawk with outspread wings with the feathering done in inlay of lapis and carnelian and gold, but it doesn’t begin to convey the reality.  A photo of the gold death-mask that covered the head, chest and shoulders of the mummy itself does not show that they caught the details in the shape of the features, or that it would be so clear how young the King was when he died.   The photo is an empty mask of Pharoah.  In person, you almost expect it to open its mouth and draw breath.  Then there were fun touches, like the cat legs on a bed and a chair.  The front legs of the pieces were kitty front legs, and the back legs had the bend a cat’s back legs have.  They were delightful.  The emphasized that because Tutankhamen had died suddenly and very young, that his tomb and funerary arrangements were hasty and scanty and so got lost.  While other, grander pyramid tombs were raided by grave-robbers repeatedly, Tut’s was mostly spared, because it was relatively insignificant.  If that was insignificant, I can’t even imagine what the tombs of the other pharoahs were like.  And I’m tremendously glad we went.

Some months back, our temple started adult Hebrew language classes. They were far more basic than I’d anticipated, but I figured a review couldn’t hurt me. What I wanted from it was comprehension – vocabulary, grammar, that sort of thing. When I was a kid, we were taught the alphabet, and how to sound out words, and that was all. It remained meaningless phonemes. To me, that was pointless. It’s not supposed to be an incantation to be recited without any understanding.

But somehow even with the Titanic-sized holes in my knowledge, I turned out to be far ahead of the others. So rather than sit there and be politely bored, (a thing I have never done gracefully) I started helping the woman who was struggling the most, pointing to each syllable (sometimes each letter) and reminding her of the sound of it when she asked. The rabbi, teaching the class, worked with the other five people and mostly left H. to me. I thought it made perfect sense. H. needs more than all the rest of us put together, and even if it isn’t saying much, I’m still the most advanced of the group.

It seems teaching is teaching. The rabbi took me aside this morning, said she’d been watching me with H. and that it was clear I knew how to teach, and asked me to take the intermediate Hebrew class for the Hebrew School. She’d thought of everything, including arranging someone else to take the class once a month so that I could go down to Indy when I needed to. So I’ll be doing that, and teaching the kids the songs as well. Not a thing I ever envisioned myself doing, but here I am. It’s a good thing J. is going to be in the bar mitzvah prep class as of this coming year, because he really doesn’t want to be in Mom’s class. And the real challenge? Staying one jump ahead of my students. At least I won’t forget my Hebrew again.

Took my mom to see her doc last Friday. The purpose of the visit was to review the results of cognitive testing that was done about six weeks ago. Guess what? The psychologist’s office that performed the test hadn’t sent the results! So I arranged for J. to spend the day at a friend’s house (usually it’s only a few hours) and drove down to very little purpose. A friend has pointed out it wasn’t to no purpose, that being in the loop counts, but I must admit it still feels that way.

But the doc said that the test hadn’t been to determine if there was memory loss to the point of impairing mother’s ability to take care of herself, only to determine how far it had progressed. She’s quite sure of what she’s seeing, and talking to me had evidently confirmed something she’d already suspected. So she started Mom on a medication intended to slow memory loss and help keep what’s left, and we made a follow-up appointment, at which we should have those test results. And if this is going to work, ultimately, I need to get into the habit of calling and checking on Mom daily. I’m sure I’ll find other new habits I need as we go on, but that one will do to start with.

My lawn resembles a scene from an African veldt movie, with tall waving grasses through which slink graceful, deadly feline predators. Of course, the local feline predators are on a scale to be deadly to small rabbits, frogs, mice and birds, but the fact remains that the grass is as tall as only spring rains and returning sun can make it, and has yet to be mowed.

This is because when I went out start the mower, it was deader than the proverbial doornail. That takes doing, since a doornail was never “live” or moving to begin with, but that’s another matter. So I had to arrange to have it picked up and hauled off to the shop (transportation provided under the warranty, thank goodness), and let them figure out why it wouldn’t so much as click over.

It seems the problem was the battery, with bad gas a close second. Gas left to sit in freezing conditions gets sludgy, almost gelatinous. A car engine is big enough not to get clogged by that, but a mower is not. Normally I’d have put fuel stabilizer in the last time I ran the machine in the fall, but it got so cold so early and so abruptly last fall that it took me by surprise, and the planned final mowing and leaf-mulching never got done. (I’m going to be very glad we have a mulching mower when I finally can get out there.) So the fuel jelled, and had to be drained out and the carburetor cleaned.

But I should get it back tomorrow, or Wednesday at the latest. They have promised me it will run without need for carb spray or any other sort of encouragement. Given that it was new in fall 2007, that would be good. As soon as it comes off their trailer, I’ll be turning it on and taming the jungle back into a lawn. I wonder if my cats will still be speaking to me when I’m done?