I must have this not a paper cup. And also a not a knife block.

I am getting better at making coffee with the new espresso machine. My tamping needs improvement, but it is coming along slowly but surely. Next week, when I go back to work, I will be taking coffee drinks to go, and I need a suitable vessel. I have seen these "I am not a paper cup"s before, and thought that they were sorta cute. I like how simple they are. Now, I must have one. I am stopping at the kitchen store tomorrow to get one. They better have one, or this is going to become a full-on Mission.

While I am at the kitchen store, I also am going to get a magnetic knife strip to replace the knife block on my counter to make room for the espresso maker.

No wonder my dad got rid of this thing, the cost of ownership is ridiculous!

Eight Things I will remember about 2009

Every blog and magazine and newspaper column has to have year-end best-of or worst-of list, right? Well, I am not one to limit myself, I'm just going to do a eight-of. That's how I roll.

* Balloon Boy- One afternoon while sitting at work, this kid captivated me. Or rather, the idea that there may be a small boy in a box attached to a mylar balloon, floating away from Denver captivated me.

* My first, but hopefully not last, novel. Hoo boy, it's a stinker- but I will never forget it.

* facebook- 2009 was the year I joined facebook. I'm glad I did, I reconnected with a lot of friends and family.

* Spring Training- I had a really nice time in Phoenix with my dad and Grandma. I'd like to go again next year, but it might turn out to be a 2011 thing.

*Hope and Change- I remember how excited I was for the new president back in January and February. I didn't cry at the inauguration like I cried at Hillary's speech at the convention, but I still had high hopes. Back then I did anyway. I would be happier with a lot less war and a lot more socialized medicine.


* 2009 was the year that Michael Jackson redeemed himself in death. Funny how no one blamed Joe Jackson for Michael's uh, issues, until Michael died. Out loud, anyway.

* 2009 is the year I gained weight, or, if I want to put a positive spin on it, the year I got all new clothes. I am hoping that 2010 will be the year I lose weight. I'll be re-reading "YOU! on a diet" and hitting the WiiFit daily.

* I will remember 2009 as the year of my blog. I've got three more months left on my contract. Then, I will assess the probability of keeping it up if I don't post daily vs. poor quality. I'm pretty sure I will keep blogging- it's become a habit now.

Things I learned this week- Holiday edition

Here's a CBL secret: There is an ORDER to my posts. If there is going to be an image, it must be chosen and uploaded first, then the post is titled. Only then can the blogging begin. Originally, I had titled this post "Things I learned this year," but then I realized that was an awfully ambitious title. So here's what I learned this week:

* I learned how to cook a prime rib roast. (preheat the oven to 500. Liberally season the roast. Put it in an uncovered pan and put it in the oven. Turn the oven to 350 and let it cook for 3 hours). My mom has been doing this for years, and I guess she had me fooled into thinking it was difficult. I also thought it was terribly expensive, but I got mine at Safeway for $3.99 per pound, which is not much more expensive than ground beef. My roast was 'select' grade, so technically not a prime rib, but it was delicious and I couldn't tell the difference.

* I learned that I am never buying bread crumbs again! I found a recipe on-line for "deviled prime ribs" when I was looking for ways to use the bones from the Christmas roast. The recipe, which turned out sorta so-so, called for the ribs to be brushed with spicy butter, then rolled in fresh bread crumbs and broiled. I found instructions for making fresh bread crumbs- put fresh bread in a 300 degree oven for a few minutes until it is crusty, then tear it into hunks and run it through the coffee grinder. It worked like a charm, and I did not get bread puree like my husband predicted. Each piece of bread made about 1/2 cup of crumbs.

* Of course, I learned that the difference between cappuccino and latte is the ratio of milk to coffee.

* I learned how easy it is to use Red Box to rent dvds. We stopped at a McDonald's after Zoo lights, and the cashier forgot a couple boxes of fries, so they gave us (along with the fries) a couple coupons for free dvd rentals. I have had these coupons before, but I was never really interested in renting from Red Box because I thought they had primarily straight-to-dvd releases. But on the 23rd, we thought it would be nice to have a movie to occupy the kids, so we took a look. We rented the sixth Harry Potter movie and Up a couple days later, which we actually paid a dollar for because Spencer forgot to use the code. Still a good deal, and it's easy.

* I learned more than I probably ever will need to about lightweight golf bags- the kind you wear as a backpack as opposed to the kind you strap into a push or pull cart or a motorized cart- after spending about an hour at Fiddler's Green comparing all the models that just wouldn't satisfy my dad.

* The best thing of all that I learned is that Trader Joe's is coming to Corvallis! The store is built and the signs are up, all Joe has to do now is load the shelves with pad Thai and fresh bruschetta.

It all started with gift cards.

Last year, or maybe it was the year before that, my dad asked for my help researching home espresso machines. He had found himself in the market. I thought it was an odd request, since my dad doesn't even have a coffee pot at home, but he had recently acquired a new girlfriend, and even though she was a proper British tea-drinking lady, I thought maybe she enjoyed espresso as well.
So I turned to my friend the internet, looking for the best value in home espresso machines. I found a couple good choices for him, I thought.
Then, he told me that he wanted to buy his machine from Starbucks. (Why I did research when he knew what he wanted and where he was buying it from is beyond me. But that's the way things go for me and my dad. He makes me suffer.)
He wanted to buy a machine from Starbucks because he has Starbucks gift cards, which he had been saving for a year or two. He is a milkman, and his residential customers give him small gifts at the holidays. Over the past 5 years or so, gift cards have usurped cookies and Hickory Farms packs as the gift of choice, so Dad had a stack of Starbucks cards three inches thick.
Now, a normal person might see a stack of gift cards like that and think,' HEy! I never have to buy coffee again!' But not dad. Even though he does stop at Starbucks EVERY DAY for a non-fat latte, he paid cash and saved his cards, until he had enough for the Ascasco Dream Espresso Machine, which retails for more than my refrigerator. He reasoned that it is better to get something durable for free than something disposable, like cups of coffee.
We shopped around for the perfect Dream. It took about 3 weeks and multiple calls to stores from Eugene to Bellingham to find the right finish, and to get it transferred to Oregon, where *I* would trade the stack of cards for the machine, saving 10% sales tax.
We did the deal, Dad took his coffeepot home, where it looked fantastic on his counter. He made exactly one cup of coffee with it. He did not use it because 1. He worried that caffeine would affect his heart. The daily latte at the Starbucks store seemed to not figure in to this worry. Evidently. only caffeine consumed at home is harmful. And 2. There are a lot of steps involved. Espresso is complicated.
So this year, he brought the machine to me. I have to admit that I was intimidated by it. It is the fanciest thing I own beside my husband's truck. This morning, I unpacked it (Dad saved the original box, of course) and all the accouterments he supplied- pre-measured espresso pods, shot glasses, tampers, a frothing pitcher with thermometer, and an extra handle for the machine. (I remembered tracking that extra handle down. I think it came cross-country.)
Here is the whole shooting match. Isn't it gorgeous?

And here is the first cappuccino I made with it. It is delicious, even though I used the Starbucks pods and Starbucks espresso is not my favorite. Maybe some day I will get good enough to make foam art. Maybe soon I will learn the difference between cappuccino and latte.

Like a kid at Chrsitmas

We had a really nice Christmas. Two of Madison's cousins spent the night on Christmas Eve. We woke them' up at about 7 to pack them into the car and drive them an hour to Grandma's, where the gift-opening production began. Opening gifts with my husband's family is an annual source of amusement for me. As opposed to what I became used to during my formative years, his family goes for quantity and elapsed time instead of quality or 'that personal touch'. Since his grandpa died about 10 years ago, the job of passing presents out from under the tree has become Spencer's. The children must all wait patiently as gifts are opened one at a time. The opener must announce who the gift is from, especially if it is from Great-Grandma, who sits in the corner and takes a mental tally of who bought what for whom.
This year the whole thing took two and a half hours. Even though everyone under 10 got a dollar-store gumball machine, they all needed to be opened one-at-a-time.
Surprisingly, I only got one scarf/hat/glove set. For the first time in a long time, I got lots of toys for Christmas. I must have been good. I got Band Hero, which I will share with my family since it isn't Solo Artist Hero. We played with it a little yesterday, and it is really fun. Way better than Guitar hero because there are not terrible noises when you miss a note. It turns out that we need another remote for the wii so that the three of us can play together, so we will go get that today and start rockin'.
My Dad came for dinner, we had prime rib and potatoes au gratin crab louis and steamer clams- but no crusty bread because there wasn't room in the oven. It was the first time I had ever roasted beef, so now the bar is set pretty high. Everything turned out really good, which may be a first- usually something is not-quite-right when I make a big holiday dinner.
After dinner, we went to the hotel where Dad is staying and sat in the hot tub, which was a really nice way to end a hectic but fun day. He gave us a wii fit plus, which I asked for. After we got home, we played with it a little before we went to bed, and it is fuh-un. There is a game where you are a bird and you have to flap your arms in order to fly from landing pad to landing pad. How does that little board know when our arms are flapping? I may never know the answer to this mystery, but it sure is fun.

Zoo Lights

Last night we went to Zoo Lights at the Oregon Zoo. Our group was thirteen strong- 6 parents, 1 19 year-old, and 6 kids between the ages of 7 and 14, one of whom had to use a wheelchair due to his broken leg. It was everyone's first trip to Zoo Lights, but most, if not all of us, had been to the Oregon Zoo before.

We arrived at about 4:00, while it was still light. Our intention was to get there at about 3:00, so that we could see some animals in the daylight, but when 13 people need to get ready to take a trip together, departure times are really just estimates. It turns out we really didn't need to hurry-most of the animals have indoor enclosures where they hang out when it is too cold and dark to be outside.

We saw an otter, a sea lion, a crocodile, an ocelot, three anacondas, two lemurs and about 6 monkeys that I would call 'baboons'- but they had another name I can't remember- and two elephants before it got dark and we decided that we should go get in line for the Zoo Lights train.

Oregon Zoo's website led me and another mom to believe that the Zoo Lights experience would be incomplete without a ride on the train. So we found the end of the line, where a zoo volunteer dressed as an elf told us we would need to wait for about an hour and fifteen minutes.
At this point, my husband and his brother and most of the cold, hungry kids revolted. They campaigned for a warm McDonald's. They were persuasive, but my brother-in-law's girlfriend (Who has the same first name as me- weird!) and I held fast to our resolve to get the entire Zoo Lights experience. So we waited. After all, I thought to myself, this must be an awesome train ride- just look at all the people in line!
It probably took us between 30 and 45 minutes to get onto the train. There are actually two trains that run at the same time, and the loop takes about 10 minutes. My very rough calculations are that each train holds about 200 people- so every 5 minutes, 200 people are moved out of line. It goes pretty fast. But. The train ride itself was not worth standing in line. (it wasn't even worth that couple bucks extra for the ticket) Although there are some light displays that are only visible from the train, the bulk of the lights can be seen better on foot as you visit the animals. The lawn where concerts are held had some cool lighted animals, and in the center of the zoo, all the trees and pathways were lit, and the zoo felt like a wonderland.

Look at my bread!

Look at my bread! It turned out really great. I made three loaves like this and I have another loaf in the fridge ready to bake. It's very dense and chewy.

I am an artisan!

I made the artisan bread, and I took a picture of it, but I can't upload it because my brother-in law and his girlfriend are sleeping in my computer room. In a twin bed! Ah, romance.

8 Christmas gifts I remember

Today, I thought I ought to come up with 8 things about Christmas. There were a few directions I could have taken this, but I decided after about 30 seconds of intense deliberation that I will share 8 gifts that I have received that I can remember. At this very second, I am wondering if I can do it. Here we go:

* My mother gave me an oil painting of my daughter, I think it might be my only prized possession. It's the only "thing" that I can think of that I would grab if the house were on fire.

* The first gift that ever brought tears to my eyes was from my sister-in-law, a waitress who saved her tips all year for Christmas presents. Usually, that meant she didn't have a lot of money to spend at Christmas, but one year, she had a really good year I guess. She gave me a print of the St. Mary's McGowan church where I was married, painted by watercolor artist Charles Mulvey.

* I remember I got a hair dryer one year from my mom. It must've been my first non-toy present- I remember thinking it was an odd Christmas gift, but I was excited because it seemed like a grown-up thing to have.

* I remember that 16 years ago, I was pretty certain that the box under the tree from Spencer was the sewing machine I had asked for. Instead, it was the stereo he had wanted.

* I got a sewing machine a couple years ago. I picked it out myself.

* 13 or 14 years ago, I was at my step-sisters house, and I admired her Christmas Village. She gave me the very same village that year.

(this point marks the end of the "easy ones")

* Madison sewed a hat for me last year. I love it.

* When I think back to my childhood Christmases, I remember that I always looked forward to gifts from my uncle Chris. He shopped at Radio Shack, and we got electronic gifts, like Merlin and a tape recorder.

These aren't necessarily my favorite gifts, or the most meaningful or anything like that. They are just 8 gifts that I can think of tonight.

Madison and I made bread dough this afternoon, but we didn't get it into the oven tonight. We will make a loaf tomorrow.

Things I learned this week- Birthday Edition

Today I turn 37 years old, which seems a lot older than 36. I still feel 23. Here is what I learned this week:
(Once again, many of the interesting things I learned this week are tidbits that I cannot share until after Christmas. And, of course, by then, I will have forgotten them.)

* I leaned that sometimes, embalming involves removing internal organs, soaking them in formaldehyde (or whatever) and then returning them to the abdomen in a thick plastic bag before the abdomen is closed. This reminds me of a bag of gizzards, and I say no thanks. (just to the plastic bag.)

* I made eight of something. I used the same pattern for all eight items, and the same fabric. The items are remarkably dissimilar. So, I learned that I could not work in a production setting. My quality varies.

* I learned that I can catch up all the work I have put off (at work) in a year if I apply myself and work hard, no interneting or anything, for 7 and a half hours.

And I did not start the bread today, I will start it tomorrow. I had to buy flour. When I got home from the store to put the flour away, there was a brand-new, unopened 15 pound bag in the pantry. Things like that are not uncommon in my house.

Our daily bread

For the past few weeks, I have been preoccupied, trying to figure out what to feed my brother in law and his three kids when they come for a week, beginning Monday. Since we don't spend a lot of time at home, I need foods that are easy to prepare. Quantity is important.
I am so happy that I found this recipe for no-knead artisan bread from Mother Earth News. The recipe is special because you prepare enough dough for 8 loaves at once, and store it in the fridge. Each day you want bread, you remove a portion of the dough and bake it.
I am going to give it a try, I'll let you know how it turns out.

Nature versus Nurture

My daughter's room is a mess. I know, that doesn't make her unique. My room is a mess, too, and there are messy rooms all over the world. Tomorrow is a big day for my daughter's dirty room. It's a make it or break it day.

A day or two before Thanksgiving, I told her to get her room cleaned because her cousins would be coming over in a couple days. She became angry with me because I didn't give her enough notice to clean her room. After all, she reasoned, her room is a disaster. It takes a long time to clean a disaster zone.

So her cousins came, and waded through the clothes and books and toys and paper and God-only-knows what else in her room and they all had a great time. No one was lost.

On or about December 1, I asked her how long she thought it would take to get her room clean. She thought about it and answered, "two weeks."

So, I gave her until the 19th to get her room clean. I promised no nagging, no yelling, no pressure. Her dad and I have reminded her, but I think we have done a pretty good job refraining from nagging. But, if her room isn't clean tomorrow, all bets are off... and I don't have to have a house full of kids because her cousins won't be allowed to sleep in there.

Will she do it? I really don't know. She has been working at it steadily for a while, but her progress seems to have stalled. It's as if she is unable to tell the difference between garbage anything else.

Christmas Caroling

Last night, Madison and I joined other girl scouts in Albany to go caroling in the neighborhood around the program center.

Caroling with young girls is very difficult, because they sing so high, but I really enjoy it because the girls sound so pretty when they sing Silent Night. Just like angels. I just hum the parts that I can't sing.

I also enjoy seeing our audience's reactions. Since we sing in the same neighborhood every year, some people are expecting us and sing along. Others, maybe renters or homeowners new to the neighborhood, are shocked that anyone goes caroling anymore. They take pictures, or call for their family to come to the door. Everyone- absolutely everyone- seems to really enjoy being sung at.

Movies we love

There are some movies that my family will watch every time they are shown on television, even if we have just seen it a week ago. It just so happens that most of them are on heavy rotation on AMC and TNT and Encore...I wonder if they know what we like, or if we like what they show. It's the couch potato dilemma. Anyway, here they are, in no particular order:

The Green Mile- Lots of good God symbolism and a circus mouse.

The Mafia collection: Goodfellas, Casino, and the Godfather movies. Once or twice a year, one of the networks will run them all in a weekend. That's a lot of monkey-freakin entertainment.

The Shawshank Redemption- I assert that this is Morgan Freeman's finest narration work.

The Truman Show- More God symbolism, and I just love this movie, because when I was little, I used to think of my life in terms of a TV show, I guess.

Jackass- I'll admit it.

Tin Cup

Tombstone, and to a lesser degree, Wyatt Earp. And of course, Lonesome Dove, which requires a pretty hefty time commitment.

8 people I get to spend the holidays with

I have some crazy relatives. A couple are bona fide bananas, the rest are just run-of the mill nuts. I love them all, I really do...(And because I love them, I changed their names.)

* Crazy Uncle Ray is my husband's schizophrenic uncle. Ray spends his days drinking coffee, rolling cigarettes, and smoking cigarettes. I've only been told of the schizophrenia diagnosis, but it is obvious that there is some other mental impairment happening.
He lives in Coos Bay, but he comes to visit for holidays. He is missing many teeth, and he has poor muscle tone around his mouth, so we all have to be sure not to look directly at him during meals, else we get a unobstructed view of the food in his mouth. When he comes to visit, he stays with

*Grandma Betty, Ray's mother, my husband's grandmother. She carries no diagnosis that I am aware of, but she is a nutty old bat. If she doesn't feel like she is getting enough attention, she will just walk out of a room and go home, pouting. She also demands that on Christmas morning, all of the children tell her who each gift is from. This is her way of teaching them to be grateful, I guess. She also wraps up her old jewelry and gives it as gifts to the girls. But not in an heirloom way. In a crazy way.


*My nine-year-old nephew Trevor, who wants handcuffs for Christmas. That's all he wants.

* My husband's autistic brother who runs into traffic to collect pop cans. He also has some issues with keeping his mouth closed when he eats. My husband has to carefully plan his seat at the dinner table so that he doesn't face his brother or uncle Ray. I came to the conlcusion recently that my mother and law and her son are just younger versions of Betty and Ray.

* My mother-in-law, who is in charge of rations. She rations the food- dishing up the same amount of food for her 15 year old son as her 7 year old granddaughter. On Christmas morning, she forces my husband to play Santa, which means he is in charge of passing out gifts in the order she specifies. She puts numbers on the gift tags.

* The crazy doesn't end with my husband's family. We also get to host my father for Christmas. He is planning on being at my house for less than 48 hours, and he wants to : eat Christmas dinner, golf, and go shopping on the 26th. I told him we are planning on having prime rib for Chrsitmas, so now every time he sees a rib roast, anywhere, he calls to tell me the price per pound and grade, even though I have told him that I am not buying the roast until the 23rd. Today, he called to tell me what he got me for Christmas, so I didn't buy it for myself. He's practical.

* I can't forget my husband and my daughter, who are crazy enough to put with me. And really I could only think of six others.

Things I learned this week- Unbelievable statistic edition

I learned many things this week, but most of them are things that I can't share until December 26. This morning, while I was absent-mindedly using facebook with no intention of learning anything, I saw that my friend Rachel became a fan of The Children's Book Bank, a portland charity that receives donated used childrens books, cleans and sorts them, and distributes them to children in low-income areas.
I clicked on the link and was directed to the Children's Book Bank facebook page, where I saw this statistic :
In homes in middle income neighborhoods, the ratio of books to children is 13 books for every child.

In low income neighborhoods the ratio is 1 book for every 300 children.

Think about that. One book per 300 kids.
It sounded so ridiculous that I decided it must have been made-up, or, at best, from wikipedia.
But it isn't made up. The statistic comes from the 2006 Handbook of Early Literacy Research, Volume 2.
I wasn't able to actually read the handbook, so I don't know how the aurhors arrived at that figure, but the 300:1 ratio is cited often on childrens' literacy websites.

Can you believe it? One book per 300 kids?! In the United States of America.
I have a hard time getting Madison to let go of books. She still has complete sets of Junie B Jones books and Magic Treehouse books, as well as lots of other books for young readers. It's time to let those go, and get them into the hands of kids that need them.

I'm no fan of Storm Team coverage.

When I went to bed last night after 11, the Portland weather forecasters were promising freezing rain and snow in the valley. Here in Albany, we had about a quarter inch of ice on everything, and Highway 34 to the coast was closed.
I woke up at 6:15 like a kid on Christmas morning, excited to see the car crashes on tv.

But the storm didn't make it to Portland. Albany and Corvallis still had ice, but that doesn't matter in Portland.
All three tv stations had reporters at Les Schwab centers well before they opened for business at 8:00. They had reporters at a truck stop in the Gorge and on Sylvan Hill, and they all talked about how pleasant the weather was. KATU did have a reporter in Salem, who reported on the rain there.
The anchors did acknowledge that the roads were terrible in Linn and Benton counties, and they asked for reader photos and videos. We could be I-reporters!
I was left wondering why they didn't get in their Ford Explorers and drive for 45 minutes to get crash footage.

Here is how I think storm coverage ought to go down:

First of all, no one needs reporters. Just put camera operators where the roads are bad, and start rolling. Once you have a crash, or even a good fishtail, you can jsut roll that on a loop for hours. I will watch. I love that shit.
Second: We all know that Les Schwab gets busy when the weather gets bad. Also, people stock up on groceries and buy space heaters. Remove the reporters from the strip malls and get them out where the real news is: slippery streets.
Third: If there is flooding, that is good tv, too. But don't waste time showing us people filling sandbags. I want to see deep water.
Fourth: Once it is apparent that the weathermen were wrong, get off the air and return us to regular programming. You could just scroll "False Alarm" across the bottom of the screen and let us watch Good Morning America.

Apples to Apples

I can't remember if I have previously blogged about this, but just about every year our family gets a game or two as a Christmas gift. We always chuckle about the games for four or more players. Triploey, still in its plastic wrap, sure looks fun. Apples to Apples was unopened for a couple years, until Madison and I took it to a girl scout function, where we played it and had fun.
The game is played like this:
one player is the judge, and he turns over a green apple card, which has an adjective on it- Cheesy, for example. Each of the other players chooses one of the seven noun red apple cards from his hand to put before the judge. (pizza, mobsters, tacos, Albert Einstein, big toe) The judge selects the card he likes best.
I know it doesn't sound fun, but it really is.
We took it to Grandma's for Thanksgiving, and again, we had a great time, except we played with my 7 year old niece, and there were a lot of famous people that she hadn't heard of. I decided to buy Apples to Apples Junior to play when Madison's cousins come for Christmas.
Tonight, my girl scout troop came over for a Christmas party. We ate pizza and played Apples to Apples Junior, which was just as fun as the "senior" edition.

Maybe next year we will give Tripoley a try.

There Goes the Neighborhood.

It's official. Walmart is coming to Albany.
Maybe the impact won't be as bad as I fear- after all, many businesses have already gone under. Off the top of my head, in the past couple of years, we have lost:
(GI) Joes, Gottschalk's, two furniture stores (they really DID go out of business), two new car dealerships, Big Lots, Mattress Land, Washington Mutual, Napa auto parts, and countless small salons, restaturants, and coffee stands.
I suspect that the grocery department will have the biggest impact. Albany has two discount grocery stores: Mega Foods, formerly ShopNKart, and Save A Lot. Mega Foods has carved out the Mexican foods niche in town, so maybe that business will keep them afloat... but I don't know.
What will I buy at Walmart? Yarn. Albany suffers from a terrible lack of yarn. My choices are Joann fabrics, which never has enough of the color I need, or Fred Meyer, which never has any yarn I like. The Walmart in Lebanon has 2 aisles of yarn. If they bring selection like that to Albany, I won't be able to resist.

The Santa hat.

I've got myself in somewhat of a blog-bind. I would really like to share my thoughts on Christmas gifts that I may be planning to make or buy, but that's not the sort of information I can make public.
I can share this photo of a Santa hat that I made for Madison to wear in the Twice Around The Block Christmas Parade in downtown Albany. Her school band marched in the parade, which lives up to its name- 10 or so fun entries go around the block twice.
She can also wear it to the Salem Festival of Lights Holiday parade, which we are planning on watching. We Headleys are accomplished paraders, but we aren't participating in the Salem parade, we get to sit and watch. That parade is on Saturday. She can also wear her hat next week when we go caroling with the Girl Scouts.
I like her hat so much I am making myself one, as well. Hooray Christmas!

8 things I learned this week (?)

Okay, so I didn't blog yesterday, I was at my mom's house. The three of us went to the Little Ballet Theater production of the Nutcracker in Astoria, which is a mostly-annual tradition. This particular production is at its core a glorified recital, but they so bring in two professional dancers each year to dance the principal roles.
Here are 8 things about my weekend:

* Washington DOT is using a new deicer on the roads that they manufacture themselves from a saltwater by-product delivered to them from Darigold. When applied to the road, it looks like frost.

* The prima ballerina in the aforementioned production was 14 years old. Fourteen! She travels the world, dancing.

* We usually go to tea before the nutcracker, but we have never been to the same tea house twice because they keep going out of business. This year, we had a tea party at my mom's, and the scones were more delicious than at any tea shop. By far.

* My daughter is old enough to notice the bulge in the man-dancers' tights.

* We had delicious razor clams and oysters for dinner. Maybe it is because I didn't have to clean them, but those clams were extra-tasty.

*I thought it would be sweet to sleep in the same bed with my little girl, just like when she was a sweet baby. I was wuh-rong. My child slept on top of the covers, with her head at my butt.

* I drove to Naselle with a Christmas tree strapped to the roof of my station wagon, just like Clark Griswold. This was Saturday, in 40 mph winds. I was scared the whole way that the tree was going to fly off of there... but it didn't.

* Apparently, Christmas is optional, and my stepdad has opted out this year.

How to remove tarnish from silver

Since my wedding ring is in the shop, I need a ring to cover the unsightly dent that my wedding ring has made in my left index finger over the past 15 years. I have one other diamond ring, but it has a thin band and it doesn't feel right.
I do have a pair of of sterling silver cubic zirconia rings, one with channel set stones and one with a (garishly) large center stone surrounded by channel set stones. The second ring has the correct width to make my finger comfortable. It's my second-stringer, I used it once before when my starter got injured.
Years of warming the bench have tarnished my ring. I haven't ever polished silver, and I didn't know if I should buy a cloth or a dip or a paste, so I googled.
Google told me to try to remove the tarnish myself, by dipping the tarnished jewelry into a glass dish containing a salt and baking soda solution and lined with aluminum foil. So I tried it.
Here are the rings, before. Sorry about the poor light. The earring is new and tarnish-free, for comparison.I dissolved about 3 tablespoons of salt and a teaspoon of soda into about a quart of boiling water. I poured that into a pyrex loaf pan, and added the foil.In went the ring.
Madison and I could see something happening right away. Tiny bubbles rose from the ring... and bubbles = science.
I removed the ring after about 3 minutes, and the tarnish was gone. I took a photo of it next to its tarnished mate, but the quality of that photograph doesn't show that one ring is clearly tarnished and the other is not. But that's what went down. I cleaned the other ring, and here is a picture of them both, followed by the 'before'.
So, you can see that it worked. Here is the ring on my hand. Easy!

The most delicious wedding ring ever.

That is my wedding ring. See the big, fat ugly prongs holding the center stone in place? They are there because that stone once fell out. I found the stone on my floor, and took it to a jeweler and asked him to strap it down good. My ring is often catching on things. It is bent and misshapen, and today, a small stone at the top of the ring came loose from its setting, which is the gold "o" on the right.
I noticed the stone was gone at about 3:00. I tried to remember if I had caught the ring on anything today. No, not really. I have been exceptionally sedentary today. I mostly sat and crocheted a Santa hat for Madison to wear in a Christmas parade tomorrow (which I had intended to blog about today...I'll save it for tomorrow).
I really only got up to make a sandwich, which, thinking back, had what I thought was an odd grain of sand in it...but I ate it anyway. I ate a diamond.
The diamond that I ate is very small, I can't imagine it would cost too much to get a replacement. However, I have two rings with small diamonds from my husband's grandmother, and we have decided to have the jeweler cannibalize them for a replacement.
The whole situation brings up a question: How large would a stone have to be before it is reasonable to sift poo?

My thoughts for a penny.

This morning, I read this article about the possibility of a United States without pennies. The penny now costs more than a cent to produce, so each cent represents a loss to the treasury. The article cites statistics about how inefficient pennies are, and even quotes the president as being anti-penny.
I have mixed feelings bout the penny. On one hand, I use my debit card or a check for just about everything I buy, so I probably wouldn't miss them much. On the other hand, I live in Oregon, where no sales tax means that I get a penny back for every 99 cent item I buy with cash.
I am saving those pennies for a Nikon D40 camera. I have a perfectly serviceable camera, so I can't justify spending real dollars on a new one. Coinstar machines will count your change for free if you use them to buy an Amazon.com gift card (there are other merchants, too, that participate, I think.). So I have been saving my coins, waiting for the day that I can lug $500.00 worth of change into the grocery store. I wonder how heavy it will be. I wonder how long it will take. [note to self: you should probably figure out how much change a coffee can can hold, for estimation purposes.]
Maybe we don't have to kill the penny. Perhaps the mint could halt production for a few years. Surely we have enough to get by on, if we all empty our ashtrays and sock drawers?
Or, could we make the penny worth two cents? Just rename it the two-pence? I don't see any reason why not. Currency is only worth what we say it is worth, right?
If the penny does disappear, we will have another national problem on our hands... and that is that few people know how to spell 'nickel'.

Crazy Cat lady

I think it would be very nice to have a cat. Cats can do things that dogs cant' do, like purr. Also, they can kill mice that come into the house or garage.
So I have been keeping my eyes open for a good cat. I've decided I want a Scottish Fold cat, because they are good, quiet cats that are funny. Some Scottish Folds, the ones that are used in the show ring, have ears that fold forward. I thought that I wanted one with folded ears. But then, I saw this cat.
The one on the right is the one I am thinking about getting. His ears aren't folded, but isn't he the prettiest cat you have ever seen?

Charles Dickens wrote shitty first drafts, too.

If you had asked me this morning what I would be blogging about this evening, my answer would have been: Anything but my novel.
The exhilaration of finishing had given way to exhaustion. I was tired of my story. I had read on NaNoWriMo message boards and in "No Plot? No Problem!", the unofficial NaNo how-to manual, that it's a good idea to separate yourself from your week for at least three weeks before beginning the editing process.
I thought that sounded like a good idea. Maybe my New Year's resolution will be to get it edited.
But the thing is, I can't let it sit there, knowing it is full of typos and spelling errors. It's festering.
So today, I printed it. It's 137 8.5 x 11 pages. I took a red pen to it, but I only got a few pages in before I got bored and disinterested. Let it fester, I decided.
Which leaves me the question, what to blog about?
As I often do, I searched the internet for interesting little stories. I found this story, which includes digital images of the only surviving manuscript of A Christmas Carol, which Charles Dickens edited so much that it is difficult to read. I wonder if he waited three weeks.