Celine Needs To Eat More

If being furloughed is a precursor to my retirement next year I am going to be in a boatload of trouble.  No, not a boatload – a shipload.  I am going to be in a shipload of trouble.  I am going to be in a sinking shipload of trouble.  I’m just not used to having all this time on my hands and I don’t quite know what to do with myself.  Sure, sleeping nine or 10 hours a night uses up some of the time, and chasing fur balls with a dustmop is fun for about … actually it’s not fun at all.  Reading in the middle of the afternoon, or watching Love It Or List It at 10 in the morning, or doing laundry on a weekday just doesn't have the same feeling of cunning triumph when I am pretty sure I am going to be able to do that the next day and the next and the next and the next.

What’s a furloughed girl to do?  Turns out I bake.  Yep.  Bake and bake and bake – banana bread, cinnamon rolls, sandwich bread, rice pudding – and then I eat and eat and eat…………………….and eat some more.

Before the weightiness of this furlough pushes me down into the oceanic depths though, I’m going to share a recipe in the hopes I will have company.  I got this from Abby and it’s awesome.  It’s very moist and very flavorful.  I followed the recipe exactly the first time I made it but if Congress doesn’t send me back to work soon I’m going to try it again with a little coconut added.  

Abby says it doesn’t taste nearly as good after about three days, however I cannot attest to that because mine didn’t last that long.  I also only let it cool for approximately one minute (not hour) before serving –– if hacking off a piece and shoving it into my mouth counts as serving.  And I don’t have a photo either because………….well, you figure it out.

 See you at the bottom!

Low-Fat Banana Bread

4 large ripe bananas

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

½ cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

¾ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

2 ounces fat-free cream cheese, cut into 4 pieces and chilled

1.  Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees.  Bake bananas on rimmed baking sheet until skins are completely black, about 20 minutes.  (Do not turn off oven).  Cool bananas completely, peel, and mash with potato masher until smooth.  Measure 1 ½ cups mashed bananas and discard any excess.

2.  Grease a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.  Whisk eggs and vanilla in small bowl.  With electric mixer on medium low speed, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in large bowl until combined.**  Add oil and cream cheese, one piece at a time, and mix until only pea-sized pieces of cream cheese remain, about 1 minute.  Slowly mix in egg mixture, then add mashed bananas and beat until incorporated, about 30 seconds.

3.  Scrape batter into prepared pan and bake until golden brown and toothpick inserted into center comes out with a few crumbs attached.   50 to 60 minutes.  Cool for 10 minutes, then turn onto wire rack and let cool at least one hour.  Serve.  (Bread can be stored at room temperature for up to three days).

**Use a deep bowl if you have it.  It’s a little dry and chunks may fly out of the bowl with the mixer. 

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Celine Needs To Eat More

Bartholomew Cubbins Met A King

The other day Abby sent me an e-mail asking if I knew my blog profile said I was a daughter.  I thought it was funny that she didn’t think of me as a daughter.  It didn’t enter her brain.  In her mind, SHE is the daughter and I am the mother.  After I thought about it, though, I realized thinking of my parents as somebody’s son or daughter had never entered my brain either.  I never thought of my dad, who I once (but only once) defied by refusing to call home and tell him what I would be doing after a high school football game, as a son.  That night when he, normally in bed well before 10:00 p.m., was waiting up for me, alone, in the living room, at midnight, I definitely did not see him as somebody's son. 

When I was a gangly, awkward kid who had bottled up and buried experiences I didn't want to remember, my dad married a woman who brought order, warmth and security into my life.  But it didn't occur to me she might be somebody’s daughter.  She was my mom.  Actually, she was my life-saving super mom.  Unfortunately, as much as I wished for it, she never did put those super powers to work and transform me from the nerdy kid who spent Saturdays at the library into one of the cool kids who spent their Saturdays downtown or hanging out at the local burger joint.  I guess maybe she was a smart mom too.  

So I can understand how Abby doesn’t think of me as a daughter.  But we are all daughters or sons.  Some of us just happen to also be mothers or fathers.  And as sons and daughters and mothers and fathers we are watching out for, and taking care of each other.  And it’s not necessarily the fathers and mothers taking care of the sons and daughters.  Just ask my Dad how much he loved having me take care of him after his knee replacement as I forced encouraged him to do his physical therapy exercises three times a day.  Ask him how thrilled he was to receive the shoestring with beads I’d made so it would be easy for him to count his repetitions after I’d gone home.  Unfortunately he’s not “here” for you to ask him.  But I’m pretty sure I know what he would answer if he was.   He would say, “Thank you, Cathy.  That was very thoughtf  …”

What was that, Dad?  What’d you say? ... I'm not quite catching it ... 

Was ... days ... ntil ... yo ... lea ...!
 

Anyway, I’m sure he enjoyed the beads and I was happy I could be there for him.  And my “help” during his recovery gave us a chance to see another side of each other; just like Abby will now also see me as a daughter, not just a mother. 

I answered Abby’s e-mail to me about my blog profile with this response:

“I AM a daughter, goofball.  Unless Grandma and Grandpa just painted a face on a volleyball and stuck arms and legs in it.” (Which now that I am reading it back to myself makes absolutely no sense to me.)

To which she answered:

“I KNOW THAT, silly, but you don't spell it: daugher”*

And now she also sees me as an idiot.

*which I have fixed.  Thanks, Ab.◦

Bartholomew Cubbins Met A King

“Come This Way My Pretty” She Directed The Greedy Fool”

Do you ever have one of those days where it seems the world is determined to put up a road block no matter what you try to do?  Days when the simplest thing becomes a giant mountain you try and try to climb but just as you reach the top a mountain troll pops out from behind a glacial boulder, reaches out his hand to help you, and just as your fingers touch, he smiles wickedly, places his big white snow bunny boot on your chest and pushes you back down the mountain.  

Here’s the deal.  The past few times I have talked to Abby on Skype she’s been breaking up, or I’ve been breaking up, or the call just goes dead.  Our phone conversations have been a lot of  “and then a__er we got to Mia_i … h_llo?  __by?  Are you th___? … mo_?    I can al___ he__  y__.  Hel___?  A__ Shou__ we han_  __?  __o?  Damn.  Lost her.”  The weird thing was, Leslie didn’t have that problem when she talked to Abby on her Skype phone so I thought it must be me.  Maybe my internet needed a kick in the butt.  So last Saturday I booted up the computer, got on the Qwest site and discovered I had the slowest internet speed offered.  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to come to the conclusion I just needed to increase my internet speed.  How hard could that be, I thought.  I’ll just ask for faster internet, they’ll flick a switch and boom!  I’ll be surfing and Skyping at lightening speed.  So I opened up the on-line chat window because thought it would be easier to refuse any other “deals” if I was typing, not actually talking.  All I wanted was faster internet.  15 minutes tops, I thought.  

It went smoothly for a while but 15 minutes turned into 25 minutes and it turns out I am not immune to sales pitches even when they are written in a chat window.  I believe internet/phone folks and car salespeople all go to the same “sucka!” school and though their techniques are somewhat different, they are basically the same.  The car salesman leaves you alone while he goes to “speak to the manager” and the internet/phone salesperson makes you wait while they “wait for the page to load.” All the while, you, the unsuspecting “sucka!”, get bored while you’re stuck waiting so your brain starts considering other options just for something to do.  I guess another $250.00 to get the car of my dreams isn’t all that much more….okay, just for future reference, while we’re waiting, go ahead and tell me how much money I’ll save if I bundle everything with Qwest. 

Guess what?  “Sucka!”  

But that’s not the worst part.  Just as “Miss Sneaky” was finalizing all the details in the chat window, before I realized what was happening, Miss Maisie the kitty walked across my laptop.  And she froze the chat screen.  And I could not get it back.  And I have been on this chat window for nearly an hour now.  Yes.  15 minutes was now nearly 60 minutes.  Of course by the time I gave up all attempts to salvage the session it was later in the day and more people were waiting to chat, and because I have the slowest internet available it took longer for the window to load up so then I thought something must be wrong with my computer.  So I restarted, loaded up the chat help, waited, closed it, loaded it up, waited, closed it.  Finally on the third try I forced myself to physically walk away from the computer and just let it run to see what would happen.  In between all these restarts I tried calling the Qwest help line but of course they could not get me back to Miss Sneaky and there was no way in hell I wanted to start the whole process again.

As I paced around the house, checking the computer every 15 seconds, mumbling unprintable things under my breath, somebody finally answered the chat window.  My techno-angel must have been watching out for me because I had written down the name and Identification number of Miss Sneaky so when I was finally in another chat window with Mr. Sneaky I asked if there was any possible way  I could be connected to Miss Sneaky again because I had the slowest internet available and I had just spent an hour in a chat session with her and we were almost finished with all the details because I had decided to bundle everything when my cat walked on my keyboard and froze the session because I hadn’t seen her coming and she just seems to love the computer because of the hot air coming from the fan I think but I’m usually able to keep her off however I was so distracted with all the details of internet and TV and phone that I didn’t notice her and I just didn’t think I could face starting all over again but if he could try to connect me otherwise I think I would just have to give up and try this another time or maybe a slow internet isn’t so bad after all …….  He couldn’t.  But he got my phone number and she called me. On my Qwest landline phone.

And that is another whole side of this “the trolls are out to get me” story because she had tried and tried and tried to call me when Miss Maisie froze the session but my phone didn’t ring.  And this, my friends, is when the bells and whistles should have gone off.  But, of course, I was just so happy to actually speak to her again that I didn’t pay any attention to that little tiny “why DIDN’T my phone ring?” thought that had started swimming forward in my head.  I was distracted by bundles of internet and TV and phone and getting back to Miss Sneaky and rejoicing that I didn’t have to start completely over.  But, in a way, I did have to start over.  Because since Maisie froze my chat window and my phone didn’t ring and it had taken me so long to get back to her because I had the slowest internet offered, she had to cancel my order.  However, it went much faster the second time because I didn’t have any more questions and she remembered what we’d done and next thing you know (as in two hours from the time I began this process) I had ordered lightening fast internet all bundled together with my phone and my cell phone and I was going to get a dish on my house and save all kinds of money.  This was last Saturday.

Fast forward to today.  Today is Friday.  I left work at noon to be here for the TV guys who were scheduled to come sometime between noon and 5 p.m.  They called me at 1 p.m. and said they would be here between 2 and 3 p.m.  I am typing this in Word because I have no internet.  Why?  Because I have no phone.  Why?  Who knows.  I got my nifty box of Qwest installation stuff yesterday---a new modem, cords and simple directions and a letter that said “do not install before 5 p.m. on Friday, July 8.”  But here’s the kicker.  My internet was not working at 1 p.m.  So I thought, “hmmmm, I have at least an hour before the TV guys come, I wonder if they’ve thrown the switch and I can install this new modem get my internet running while I wait.  I’ll call Qwest and make sure that’s what’s going on.  That’s a simple question.  Is my internet not working because you’ve already  ‘pulled the switch’ so I can go ahead and install the new modem before 5 p.m. today?  Or should I still wait until after 5:00 p.m.   It should be easy.  They’ll say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.  Five minute phone call tops.”

Fool.  Fool.  Fool.  In the middle of what I thought would be a simple, succinct phone call, my phone died.  Yes.  On a call with Qwest, my Qwest land-line phone stopped working.  I had to call them with my cell phone.  Now I had two questions.  Can I hook up my new modem early and why is my phone not working?  I “suggested” that maybe it would be pointless to try and install the new modem because “don’t I need a phone line for the internet?”  Oh, no, she said.  Go ahead and hook up the cables while I’m on the phone with you.  Well, of course it didn't work!  I had no phone service!  But she did not believe that until she did some troubleshooting with the modem.  I had to carry it, plus my computer, plus the cords to ANOTHER phone jack (which also did not work) to be sure it wasn’t the modem.  I had to try EVERY Ethernet connection to make sure one of those connections was not bad.  Finally, she decided she’d just have to transfer me to “the phone trouble” people so they could tell me, “you’re right.  Your phone doesn’t work.  And yes, you’re right.  You are unable to get internet without phone service.”  Duh.  

So tomorrow morning “sometime between 8:15 a.m. and 8 p.m.” a phone guy will come and figure out why my phone isn’t working.  If only I would have heeded that niggling in my brain way last Saturday I could have probably possibly  hopefully had the phone repaired before today and MAYBE I would have internet now.

In the meantime, the TV guys (who finally arrived at 3:05 p.m.) are busy attaching a dish to my house, hooking up TVs and doing whatever it is Direct TV guys do.  If we don’t have a huge windstorm come through and blow off the dish, or the electricity doesn’t go out I should plan to hope to be able to watch TV tonight.  Because I won’t be able to post this.  Because I have no internet because I have no phone service.

At 5:05 p.m., as the TV guys were STILL here working, I held my breath, picked up my land-line phone and clicked the on button.  Guess what?  I have a dial tone.  It’s 5:05 p.m. and I have a dial tone.  If only I would have waited until 5:05 p.m. to attempt installing the modem (just like my letter said) I would have spent the afternoon planting flowers, or sitting on the deck with my feet up or gosh, even, I don’t know, posting photos of our trip to Ecuador.  

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Update:  It is now 6:54 a.m. Saturday morning. I am up because Shadow still does not sleep past 6:00 a.m.  As you may have surmised by now, I do have internet again.  But if you think getting that up and running went smoothly you are sadly mistaken.  And if you think the Direct TV installation and subsequent viewing went without a hitch, you are a candiate for the “Land of Fools”.  The saga continues and will be documented in another post.  In the meantime, I'll give you a small hint:  The Bresnan guy is scheduled to come  “sometime” today.

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“Come This Way My Pretty” She Directed The Greedy Fool”

A Snake, A Shower … Any More Surprises?

It’s been raining a lot here lately. It’s been raining so that much part of the river was sandbagged over the weekend. It’s been raining for so many days in a row that I started to think I was living in a rainforest. Well, a rainforest without the trees … oh, and it’s not exactly warm here considering we had the fireplace going four days ago … and we don’t have any tropical birds or monkeys or giant insects … but it HAS been raining a lot here lately.

During this rainy weather I took a couple of days off while my Dad was here visiting. This morning I went back to work. I walked into the office, headed toward my cubicle and saw this:

When I got to my cubicle I saw this:

You might think I was surprised, but I wasn’t. I have watched the wet spots on the ceiling tiles above me grow for many, many months. Every now and then some of us would pop our heads up out of our cubes and participate in a discussion about the wet spots.

“Do you think that spot is bigger? I think it’s bigger. I’m not sure if that one over there is bigger but I’m pretty sure that’s a new spot. We should draw a circle around them so we know if they’re growing. If we can prove they’re growing maybe somebody will believe us when we say the roof is still leaking and fix it.” I was pretty sure nothing was going to get fixed until the whole ceiling fell in. My only hope was that I wouldn’t be sitting at my computer when it happened. It didn’t completely fall in, but I wasn’t here when the bulging and cracking tiles reached the point of no return, so I guess I got my wish.

The motto for this office seems to be “Why Fix Something Before It’s An Emergency?” When people complained about dead bug body parts falling out of the ceiling vents a few years ago (I had so many on my counter one day I could write my name in them) nothing was done about it. I even started collecting those little bug bits and pieces.

I’d sit at my computer dreaming about having the nerve to sprinkle them all over the desk of WhoeverIsInChargeButWon’tDoAnythingAboutAnyBuildingProblems. It’s probably a good thing I never got up the nerve ... but boy……..what a rush of in-your-face-power that would have been ... even if I wasn't positive which desk I should pour them on.  I suppose we, the lowly worker bees, could have waited until the situation was dire and were all suffering from clogged-bug-lung. Maybe something would have been done then. But we were impatient. We “solved” the problem by stuffing the vents with furnace filter stuff. If that filter stuff is ever removed it’ll be a waterfall of bug parts and pieces. There will be bits up the nose, in your eyes, and floating through the air. I don’t want to be there that day either.

Anyway, since I neither saw nor heard any dripping water, my first action of the day (even before my first cup of coffee!) was to climb up on my countertop and pull off the plastic. Then I figured as long as everything had been moved I may as well clean the piles of dirt and surprise! bug parts that were on my window sill, so I climbed back up. After everything was nice and clean and had I started putting things back in their places, I noticed drips hit the counter so I was back up on the countertop to tape plastic over the hole.

After I had put all my belongings back in their places, I heard drops hitting the counter -- again. So I crawled back up once again to make sure all the edges of the plastic garbage bag were sealed with tape. By then I was an expert at climbing up and down from my counter so I figured I may as well grab a nice big black magic marker, climb up again and draw circles around the water stains (plus a few new ones) even though now we didn’t really need proof that they were expanding.

About an hour and a half later I finally poured my first cup of coffee and sat down to work.  Mid-morning, to my amazement and surprise, two guys actually showed up, climbed up onto the roof and walked around for a while.

All the walking around they did shifted the delicate water-dripping balance and it started again. I figured five times up on my countertop in one day was enough so I decided precisely placed garbage cans would just have to do. Then they left. Nobody ever came to tell me if they found the leak, fixed the leak, are coming back, or just gave up. To quote Gomer Pyle “sur-prise, sur-prise”. In the meantime, I spent my day listening to the slow plop … plop … plop of water hitting a plastic bag intermixed with the softer drip … drip … drip of water landing in a garbage can.

When I left at the end of the day I did this.

 Because in the skies there were these.

Maybe that furnace filter stuff up in the ceiling vent will let go tonight and it will be like a rainforest....insect parts all glued together into monster bugs, stuck to ceiling tiles ... floating down the hall ... into the warehouse ... picking up bull snakes along the way ...◦

A Snake, A Shower … Any More Surprises?