Monday, February 22, 2010

Bad Habit

Every night when I am too exhausted to read any more, and my wrists ache from holding the book up, I put it down, and turn off the light. Immediately I get too hot to be comfortable in bed, and outside of the bed, the heat has been turned down to nothing, which generally registers somewhere between 54 and 61 degrees Fahrenheit (just in case).

I try to drift off, but my mind starts dictating prose that it thinks I should write, and often, I get up, and those words are no longer available to me, so I write whatever comes to mind.

I should not get out of bed, but when you cannot sleep, it is hard to stay put.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Shopping

I could not stand being bound by the snow any longer. No, I was not buried under a mound of snow, but was just stuck inside because I don't think slogging about in 30 inches of snow is a lot of fun. Plenty of people do enjoy it, and when I put it that way, it sounds fun, but no thanks.

So, I went shopping. I am too big, I know it, you know it, every one is aware that I should not be buying clothes in this large size, but I've been good all winter. Not a thing. Not even from the Sal (salvation army). And I bought odd sale type items, and was fairly happy.

Then I went to Bloomingdale's. I saw stuff I loved alllll over the place, but even though I had mad money, I just could not spend 300 bucks on a blouse, jacket or anything else, for that matter. I am not a millionaire, and I tend to ruin my clothing almost immediately. It broke my heart, but I left all the flowery flirty, ruffled, chiffon peasant blouses in the store.

I came home and put on my new mud colored skirt that I would never have bought at regular price, or even on sale, but I had two different 5% offs, 50% on all sale items plus a $20.00 cupon, so the skirt was dirt cheap.

I went running up the stairs, and the skirt made the sound of a sail unloosed, luffing, as they call it, in the wind. Yeah, that's why they go on sale.

Saturday, February 06, 2010

More about Brownies...


The Che sera Cook February 6, 2010

Here’s the thing. I used to go to this place in Philadelphia that had giant brownies. they were over 2″ tall and about 3×3 square. They were the best brownies I ever had, and I cannot for the life of me reproduce them. They were very moist but not fudgy,and also not cakey and they were consistent all the way through. Of course that place closed, but I did ask for the recipe and they acted like they did not know where the brownies came from. But I know, they came from heaven.

Friday, February 05, 2010

Appliance Mutiny

I don't know what's going on these days, but my kitchen seems to have a grudge against me.

I have had some trouble baking for about a year, and finally invested in an oven thermometer.It tells me what the actual temperature is, as opposed to what it says on the dial. Just as I suspected, it was at minimum 25 degrees lower than it should be and at max, 75 degrees lower.

The interesting part of that, is that it is not consistant, and coincidentally neither are my baked goods. I have tried adjusting the temp to match with spotty results.

The refrigerator has also started to act up. Suddenly the lettuce is frozen in two days. Ever see frozen lettuce? It does not stay frozen for long. It turns into green slime. Nice. BUT: when you turn the refrigerator to colder the freezer gets warmer. I think that's okay because the freezer was making things frostbitten. But this time, the freezer was too warm so I changed that, and then the refrigerator got too cold, and I am stuck in a circle, never having anything at the right temperature. On the other hand, and this is my go-to these days, I don't live in Haiti, so what's the problem?

The dish washer front fell off on my foot about a year ago. Turns out the crappy almond color that my husband made me buy all appliances to match, and which are going wonky, was actually just paint. The dishwasher (with the permanently stuck soap dispenser) is Harvest, Gold, a color which I presume was popular in the '70s. Swell.

The Water company has been doing a lot of work lately, and I caught one of them in the driveway with one of those wheel counters. I said: why don't you fix the pipes here?

WG: We have been fixing the pipes that are concrete from 1905, yours are cast iron from 1926, so it's going to take a while for us to get to it.

Our water is slowing down to a trickle, and guests won't stay because out of 3 showers, only one gets enough water to use. No baths, nohow.

Used to be I only had trouble with watches, and then with doorbells, two other stories. I don't know what's going on, but as long as they work marginally and stay rooted to the floor instead of roaming the house at night, I can probably deal with it.

I love the night lights..


I went to the dollar store where I loitered, goggling at brightly colored gee-gaws and mylar ballons, tube sox and amazing stacks of multi-colored plastic crap of all manner until Marilyn could extract herself from the long line in the Acme, and stalled in front of a Johnny Depp - Captain Jack Sparrow Pirate night light, realizing suddenly that I was listening to Gloria Gaynor singing "I like the night lights, I love to boogie, yeah...) and realized it was night life, but that it worked for me.

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Etsy Blues


Sales have slowed down to a trickle though I have listed my heart out.

Okay, lame Valentine joke, but really, I gotta do more. They suggest the dreadded facebook or Tweeting, but I don't know about that.


So, I reduced the price of 3/4 of the shop to around five bucks. I may be taking a bath, but it might motivate all of you to spend your little pockets off. I sure hope so.