Waffles
Pecan or plain with strawberries and whipped cream.
Heat syrup.
Bacon: bake on cookie sheet (0verlap strips)
Drizzle with syrup and pecans.
350 for 45-1 hour

THE INHEIRITANCE

Drawn on the front of this page is my daughter’s inheritance, a pile of old battered well used kitchen utensils. One is an aluminum colander that I received as a bride. The baking sheet doubles as a lid for a 9x 13 cake pan.  Jennifer remembers many a quick supper of pot pies and French fries popped into the oven on it. The branding iron is actually an antique biscuit cutter.  I still say that it was the best Christmas present that John ever gave me.

  When Jenny was a teenager, she put her request for these things.  Now she is a little more direct; “When you retire, these are mine.”

My response, “I’m still using them, when I’m done with them you can have them.

 
Years ago, when John and I were first dating, my mother taught me a
valuable lesson on how to “not sweat the small stuff”. It was on a Saturday
afternoon and John was coming to see me.
I decided to bake a chocolate cake for him. The cake turned out fine,
but when I spread the white frosting on it chocolate crumbs began rolling up
through the frosting. The more I tried to cover them, the more they spread.
There were chocolate crumbs every where.
I even had chocolate cake crumbs in the frosting that was still in the
bowl.
It was a total disaster. John would arrive at any minute. That was when
Mom came to the rescue. She told me to go get dressed, and she would fix
everything. When I came downstairs, John had already arrived. The cake was no
where to be seen.
Later Mom offered John some cake and coffee.  To my horror, she came from the kitchen with
that awful looking cake proudly displayed on her beautiful cake stand. She had
done nothing to it.
She placed it in front of this young man that I so admired, and said,
“Now, John, you have been dating Donna long enough.  It is time for you to take the Intelligent
Cake Test. Look at this cake. If you think that those chocolate spots in the
frosting are cake crumbs, that will prove that you are not very
intelligent.  However, If you think that
they are chocolate chips, put there as a lovely decoration, that will prove
that you are a very smart young man.”

John examined the cake very
closely and said, “Those are the smallest chocolate chips that I ever saw.
Where ever did you get them?”  Mom saved
the day and John won my heart.

Mrs. Murphy’s Day

John is out of town all week and Mrs. Murphy’s Law has been in effect. You know that law, “Whatever can go wrong will go wrong and it will do it while Murphy is out of town.”  Yesterday one of the air conditioners at the Magnolia House and 2 fish in the fish pond died. This morning another fish gave up the ghost.

            While I was baking croissants for breakfast the oven took on a life of its own, went into self cleaning mode, and locked the oven door. I didn’t know if some god of the ranges was suddenly demanding a burnt offering of croissants or what. But, I had 10 people coming to breakfast and I wasn’t about to give up those croissants without a fight.

            So I pushed every button on the control panel and yanked hard on the door several times. The door opened –But—the croissants were not done baking. The question of the morning quickly became, “Do I serve half baked croissants or take the chance the chance that they would indeed become the offering for some half-baked deity that has control of my oven?”  Pride goeth before the fall—or What good is a half baked bun?

            I’ll close the door very slowly and softly.  Maybe he won’t notice.  Very slowly and softly the door is closed.  Five minutes later the oven chimes ring out to inform me, “The door is locked.”   “No! NO!  NO!”  With confidence I approach the range. I mash every button again. Yank, Yank, yank.  The croissants are mine again……Still half baked. Back they go again. Softly ever so softly the door is closed.

            Ok, Donna, get on with breakfast,  prepare the fruit, make the coffee, start the eggs.          Ding, Ding, Ding!!!    Damn!  Kick the range. –Mash those buttons.—Yank that door—Do it again.—Do it again! The light flickers. Mash—Mash- Yank.  Success! Grab the croissants.      The bottoms need to brown just a little more.

            Reason begins to take over. I know that if I put those croissants back one more time nothing will save them from becoming blackened rocks.  Donna, just serve them with jam and apologies.

            Shortly after breakfast is over I call for appliance repair. They are booking appointments for Saturday.  It’s Wednesday, for heavens sake. But, they will see what they can do.

            I sit down at the computer, clamp on the ball and chain, and start to do the worst of all jobs, balancing the checkbook. This is a job that should be done between the hours of 1 and 3 AM, when there are the fewest interruptions. Strangely enough I like to sleep then.

            I’m just getting a good start when I look up to see the handy man sneaking by with a box of baking soda in his hand.  “Where are you going with that?”

            “Well I checked the pH in the fish pond, after I found a dead fish, and it is a little off.  I thought I would just dump some of this in the pond and see what happens.”

“No, no, no, no. Let’s call the fish shop or better yet take a sample of the water up to them and see what they say.”

            Back to the check book. Phone rings several times. Doorbell rings.  Take reservations…Answer questions…Run to the store…. Handy man is back from fish place with medicine for fish pond. He tells me, “I’ll just add this to the pond and add some more water and the fish will be fine. Oh, and by the way, the new refrigerator is not making ice in the ice maker.”

“Oh, where is it making it?”

“No it’s not making any ice at all. I think it may have a bad solenoid”

“You know, I just do not want to hear this right now. Don’t tell me another word and I will pretend that I didn’t hear you say that.”

“No, No just let me show you.”

“NO, I DON’T WANT TO SEE IT.  GO AWAY! GO OUTSIDE AND WORK… If anything else breaks, don’t tell me about it. If anything breaks, dies, or collapses throw a tarp over it and tell John when he gets home. But don’t tell me about it.

            Later I relent and sneak up on the refrigerator. I open the freezer door and find that the ice bin has been pulled out too far so the lever thingy can’t drop down. I push it back. The machine whirls, hums and begins to make ice.  I’m a miracle worker.

Back to the computer and the check book.  I’m about halfway through when the appliance repairman shows up.  I explain to him about the range god demanding a burnt offering. He rolls his eyes at me and asks, “What did you do to it?”

“Nothing, I swear I didn’t do a thing.”

“No I mean how did you get the oven door open? No one ever gets the door unlocked after it goes into the self clean mode on its own.”  Me thinks that he has met the range god before.

I leave him to his tools and devices. Later on the way to answer the door I see him squatting in front of the oven door. Staring at it!!  I bend over and whisper in his ear. “I’ve seen this movie. The plot is really thin and there is no action to speak of. He smirks and continues his oblations.

            The day is winding down. The range is fixed, we think. The icemaker is making ice. The fish are perking up and taking solid nourishment. I almost finished balancing the checkbook. Two granddaughters are coming to spend the evening with me. So I had better wrap up here. I’ll just finish this one last thing on the checkbook and it will be balanced. I hit the wrong key and UNMARK ALL. The whole day’s work just went down the computer drain.

 “Murphy, Where you when I need you?”

I like many people my age I find the technological world intimidating at times.  But this week I finally managed to stand up with the best of them.

 On Saturday morning I came into the office and saw that I had received a fax overnight.  The fax had been printed, but the whole page was also cover with magenta ink from the printer. It looked like someone had fatally stabbed my printer and it had hemorrhaged on the first piece of paper that it could find.

I set right to work to repair and save it from a terrible injury.  I whipped out the user’s guide and proceeded to follow the instructions that were listed in the trouble shooting section under “print head errors”.

It wasn’t long before the printer was flashing me messages on the monitor.

I followed the instructions precisely and cleaned the ink cartridges and the print head. I even did a deep clean on the print head. Twice!! It still spit out papers with magenta ink and printing on only half the page. I had slowed the hemorrhaging down but had not stopped it. In an effort to save its own life , the printer  flashed a message on the monitor to contact the company support.

I followed the instructions and was soon involved in an online chat with

Frank (My support person).   CHAT!!  I’m old enough to remember when

chatting involved using your mouth and vocal cords much more than your fingers.

Soon Frank had my printer humming along nicely, but only after he had invaded my computer’s personal space via a marvel called GO TO Meeting.  Ah the loss dignity that we suffer to technology.  Everything worked well the rest of the day and all day Sunday.

MONDAY Morning!  Massive hemorrhages of magenta ink.  This time I didn’t even try to fix it. I went straight to the chat box thing.  A fellow named Jeck answered.

I referred him to the case number from Saturday’s episode. He responded.

“I See. What did you do?”

 Me.  “I didn’t do anything.  I saw the hemorrhage and said to myself ‘I must get help. I will chat with Jeck . He will help me, Please Jeck, help me.”

Jeck: “I see.   Okay, you must remove the printer head.”

ME: “You want me to cut out its head?”

Jeck: I see, yes you must take it out.”

 After his giving me precise instruction I was able to remove the malfunctioning organ.  My printer sat there gasping with all of its internal organs exposed.  Jeck assured me that he would overnight ship to me a new donor head.  In the midst of all this I was in the process of upgrading to a new computer.  Since the poor printer was now on life support I decided not to make any further connection changes until this printer was functioning independently again.

The new head arrived the next day and I was able to complete the surgery.

I’m happy to say that it is printing wonderfully now.  All of this from a woman who remembers that the first phone she used hung on a wall and was operated by a crank.

April 29, 30 & May 1, 2011       Denton’s Quakertown Park

But, alas, no, not yet.

Today, the folks at 35 Conferette have announced the addition of another nine bands to its bill, which, we think, brings the total number of bands now to 214 acts, give or take a few here or there.

Most notable among the new bunch? Mister Heavenly, a freshly formed super group that’s just been signed to Sub Pop, which features Islands’ Nick Diamonds, Man Man’s Honus Honus, Modest Mouse drummer Joe Plummer and, yes, everyone’s favorite leading twee man, Michael Cera, who, from time to time, joins the band to slappa da bass. No word yet on if Cera will be at this 35 Conferette performance. And, in the comments, it appears as if Cera will do the same this time around.

Joining Mister Heveanly in this most recent round of announcements? Touring acts Blissed Out, The Spring Standards, Lost in the Trees, Database and Pure X, plus local acts Telegraph Canyon, Flowers of God and the now-residing-in-San-Francisco Giggle Party.