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operation fruitcake and other stories
November 14, 2011
Friday's OT kind of messed up my weekend schedule; the SOP is to do the miscellaneous
shopping and errands onf Friday afternoon and do the groceries on Saturday morning,
then hit miscellaneous to-do list stuff on Saturday afternoon, and spend Sunday cooking
and doing laundry. (Yeah, I don't get a lot of actual "off-time" in my time off.)
So instead, I worked in the afternoon, and Spouse made dinner--crockpot BBQ ribs,
steamed rice, and broccoli for me, because he didn't want a veg. Do dishes, relax a bit, go
to bed. More like a week night.
Spouse hit the rack early anyway, as he had a plan in mind for the morning. Which he
carried out! He got up ungodly early, went down to CJ's Coffee House in Zion, and
picked up fresh donuts and coffee beans for breakfast. I had talked up those donuts to
the point where he was starting to doubt that they could really be that
good...but they blew his mind anyway. I certainly enjoyed my share, too. I was not as
impressed with the coffee beans. The house blend was a little bland and mild for my
taste. But then, I brewed it Spouse-style, as I usually do on the weeked. He like it a whole
lot weeker than I do. Maybe it just needed more coffee in the coffee.
After coffee and donuts, I had to get moving--since this was the BIG FRUITCAKE
WEEKEND, I had a lot to do in the kitchen. And while I was in the kitchen making it,
my beloved was on the phone with my mom, giving her a play-by-play and making her
laugh. It didn't go too badly; I have my methods when baking, and I was taking my time
as much as possible. Spouse, my wonderful engineer, had already tackled the fitting of a
parchment paper lining to the loaf pan, which saved me from an hour of hell and an
almost-certain meltdown. It was absolutely perfect and didn't even take him very long!
He also (praise his name!) did ALL the cleanup & dishwashing for the entire show.
I handled all the prep, assembling my ingredients, plumping my raisins in a bit of brandy,
grating my nutmeg, picking out some pretty bits of fruit & pecans for the top, chopping
some of the fruit that needed a chop, measuring, sifting, and combining my dry
ingredients, and finally getting out the Kitchen Aid and getting it into gear. At that
point, everything went pretty quickly, and in no time, I had it in the oven to bake for
105 minutes.
After cooling it in the pan for 1/2 an hour, I turned it out of the pan, and it came out
beautifully! Not only did it not stick to the pan, it didn't even stick to the paper! By the
time it was done baking, Spouse had moved on to talking to AUNTIE on the phone,
and she was astounded to learn that her fruitcake was no only already cooling, but there
was a picture of it waiting in her inbox. We tend to blow her mind on a regular basis
with the speed of our actions. ;)
It took pretty much all day to cool down to the point where we could soak it and wrap
it--them fruitcakes is DENSE. But I thoroughly wet the cheesecloth with the VSOP
Napoleon brandy I bought for the project, wrapped it around the loaf, then wrapped it all
in foil and sealed it up in a rubbermaid container and shoved it in the back of the fridge.
DONE. For the time being, anyway.
I wasn't allowed to let the day go at that, though. After we had the sacred object in it's
final cool-down, we got cleaned up and set out to do the shopping and errands. And
while we were doing htat, Spouse decided it was such a nice day (we had lovely
weather--for November, anyway--this weekend) that he wanted to cook out. So "we"
decided on grilled brats, coleslaw, and baked beans for supper. Brownies for dessert.
You get where this is going? I came home from shopping, put everything away, and
then had another chunk of kitchen time. Made the coleslaw first, so it could meld and
chill, then whipped together a pan of brownies and shoved it in the oven. While that was
baking, I put together a small pot of my special baked beans and as soon as the brownies
came out, the beans went in (at a lower temp, of course). And then, I went and had a bit
of a lie-down, because I was whipped.
Of course, this is all stuff I enjoy doing, but one thing my husband will seemingly never
understand is that while he is sitting down, and not expending much energy, I am
actually working. Bustling away, making his ideas a reality, requires me to expend effort
and energy. And I cannot do that for hours on end on the strength of two donuts and
some coffee at 6:00 AM. I need to eat, I need to replenish fluids, and I need to sit down
and rest once in a while. He would never in a million years treat the dog that way, but he
takes it for granted that I can cruise along like the old Energizer Bunny. without even
noticing it.
He actually did get some exercise this weekend, though--one of our Saturday errands was
to Petsmart, to pick up a Sporn harness for the
B. Spouse has decided that it is time to supplement B's weight-reduction diet with regular
exercise, so he decided we needed this to control any pulling B would be likely to do on a
walk. I thought it was unnecessary, because B really only pulls when he thinks he's going
for a car ride. But I kept my mouth shut, because if this is the "magic ticket" to get both
Spouse and B out there walking, I'm all for it!
Verdict on it: they went walkies both Saturday and Sunday, and Spouse said that it
worked perfectly--the B's behavior was exemplary both outings. YAY! I really want to
take him out on it and go walking now.
The rest of Saturday went breezily--dinner turned out great, and in the evening, Spouse
and I watched some more of VietNam in HD, had a nice discussion about the war and
how America handled and/or mishandled things, and then Spouse went to lie down and
read while I watched some QI. before turning in.
Sunday turned out more laid back than I had anticipated, because JR didn't want to go
celebrate his birthday, and E didn't want to go to breakfast, so I stayed home as well, and
just Spouse and P met to eat and get next week's pet/house-sitting figured out and nailed
down. So I just fiddled around, getting the laundry started, having coffee, and doing
some library management on my hard drive & my e-reader. I also worked on my "slush
pile" spreadsheet; I have a list of authors and titles available online from my hobby
time-period, and I keep it in an Excel sheet and add to it whenever I browse through PG
or Manybooks. It needed some tidying and organizing, so I played with it a while. After
Spouse got home, I decided I was tired of running up and down stairs with the wash,
and decided I would just do the last two loads at the laundromat when I went to do the
drying. So I got cleaned up, and I asked Spouse to move his car so I could load up and
run to the laundromat. He said he was going with me, so I said fine, well let's load up and
go then.
Well. I have certain expectations from you if you tell me you are going to the laundromat
with me. I expect you to HELP me. Instead, old bright-eyes decides it would be vastly
amusing to sit on his ass in a corner and smirk at me while I try to negotiate various
washers and dryers and toothless, half-witted laundromat patrons just to get his skeevey
old drawers washed. I ended up mega-pissed, because I missed adding another two bits
to the towels before the buzzer, and they didn't get dry. I was way too pissed to pay the
TWO quarters it took to restart the machine (yeah, their dryers have a 50-cent
minimum!), so I jammed them all back in the basket and finished them at home, in Old
Clunky.
He could tell he'd really ticked me off with his crap (well, mainly because I explained to
him how he'd really ticked me off with his crap), because he was trying to jolly me out of
it by running me all the way to the other end of town to buy the nylons I'd forgotten to
buy on Saturday. But he really wasn't going to win at that point, because that managed
to screw up my schedule for making dinner in the slow-cooker, and pissed me off more.
(I was glad to get the nylons, though!)
It wasn't that big of a deal; it wasn't like I couldn't make the pot roast just as well in the
oven. Which I did, and it was fine. Rest of the day was event-free, really.
Before I go--a short, commute-related rant:
Didn't want to get up this morning--did something I NEVER do. Hit the snooze. I
didn't mean it, though. Pried the large, sleeping dog off my legs and stumbled out of bed
to get showered & dressed. Eventually shook the slugabed mutt out of the blankets and
shagged his ass outside. Noticed the flashing red & blue lights out front and went to
investigate. Looked like a simple traffic stop--unfortunately, my driveway was located
directly between the pulled-over vehicle and the squad. And they were there for OVER
35 MINUTES. When I should have been leaving for work, I had time to snap a photo
out the front door, fire up the laptop, upload the pic, and make a snide comment about
it. And check my feed. And even play FarmVille a little! Between that, and having to stop
for gas, I ended up missing the magic time and having to fight the great stream of leave
at 5:30 people all the way to work. I wasn't late; since I am always meg-early, this delay
merely put me in the office on time. But what a stinking pain!
Wow. For an unspectacular weekend, I sure nattered on, didn't I?
Reading:"The Semi-Detached House" (1859), by Emily Eden. A bit outside
my usual range, but this was a recommendation and the time-frame isn't a noticable
thing, really. A pleasant and gently humorous comedy of manners. Also still reading
"Nedra" (1906), by George Barr McCutcheon. I ignored it all weekend, but will try and
get back into it this week.
Listening: The Airborne Toxic Event, Bauhaus, Robert Gordon with Link
Wray, 10,000 Maniacs.
Surfing: just browsing at
Manybooks
At Random:
click here
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