And Then I Had This Thought

                I was tending to my chickens today. I poked the one whose tail is constantly lacking feathers in our usual greeting.

And then I had this thought: National Embrace A Chicken Day. We must have it.

--Sabrina

We don't have that, either.

So today's like the blizzardy-est (yes, I make up words) road conditions ever, but I had a cake delivery to do, AND I needed to find something call 'foamcore board', so I was out driving in it.  I actually need it right now, today, for a cake, but that's beside the point, since I didn't find it, but more about that later. 

Michael's used to have what I need, like a good craft store should, but they quit carrying it, without telling me why, but everyone (and by everyone, I mean, other cake people I've asked) keeps saying I can find it at "duh...Lowe's or Home Depot".  So I called Lowe's and asked the lady.  She looked it up and said yes, it's in their lumber department, and they have 100 sheets.  It was on my way back from delivering the cake in the blizzard, so I swung (slid) into Lowe's and went in.

After wandering around too much in the lumber dept, I finally found someone wearing the official Lowe's apparel.

Me:  Do you have foamcore board?

Guy:  What?

Me:  Foamcore.  It's 1/2" white board, not wood, with like a hard foam inside, and it's coated with polypropylene plastic-y stuff. 

Guy:  We have styrofoam sheets in the lumber yard.

Me:  No, not styrofoam.  It's like a craft product; it shouldn't be with lumber. 

Guy:  I can't even picture what you're describing to me right now.

Me:  If you have kids and they do science projects..this is the stuff that would be the back board they use. 

Guy:  I'm still lost. 

At this point a short annoyed-looking woman employee walks up.

Her:  What are you looking for?

Me:  1/2" white foamcore board.

Her:  I don't know what you're talking about.  What are you using it for?

Me:  I cut it for bases underneath cakes--

Her: --oh, you won't find anything here for food.

Me:  It's not for food; it gets covered and used underneath for support and---

Her:  --If it's for food, you're at the wrong place.

(like I've somehow stumbled into a store without realizing it's not a baking warehouse).

Me:  I buy stuff here all the TIME that's not for food, but aside from that, I still need to--

Her:  We don't have it.

Me:  But someone told me you--

Her:  We don't have that either.

Wow.

Me:  Well, I'm sure GLAD I came in here in a blizzard anyway. 

Guy:  Oh.  Yeah, drive careful out there.

Me:  Thanks.  It was great just trying to get here.  In the blizzard.

Back to the sugar mines.  I still have no idea what I'm going to use for this cake that I'm working on today.

-chef stef

A present of sorts.

       I wanted to write you something but I couldn't think of anything!

       Did anyone besides me think of swaying fields of grain when they look at my arm?

--Sabrina

Captain Bean

       I realize that I blog excessively about myself. I apologize. Today I shall inform you about Louis, my bean-shaped cat (the more I think about it, the more I have the urge to call him Captain Bean, but somehow I feel that would end badly). I believe that he has a soul, not because I am an insane cat lover (which I am), but because a soulless beast is incapable of such intemperance. Louis is a very snide, very large and slightly deformed creature. Not like twisted deformed, or lacking anything (in fact he has too much of EVERYTHING), but in that he is exceptionally contortable. He can stretch four feet to eat doll hair, or curl up in the space behind your back in an easy chair. He can take up an entire loveseat with his body when he's relaxed, and he has really long legs. He also is overweight, so he moves very little. Sometimes I wonder if the only exercise he gets is the actual movement of the feets in the six-foot-long journey getting from reclining position on the back porch through the back door to reclining position in front of the fireplace. Believe it or not, he was once a skinny, leaping critter, as opposed to this massive beast that now occupies our fireplace rug.
       In our school's Bible class, we're going through the attributes of God for apologetics. So let me give you the attributes of Louis. And apologize.
       Louis is constantly hungry. It matters not whether he could actually survive for several months before he would actually hear the belly rumble; his mind seems to believe that he has no actual stomach. So, whenever his food bowl is empty, Louis resorts to the Three-Step-Remedy:

              
       And then there's a two-step process to actually devouring the food.

       This is why Louis is obese.

       Louis has a knack for finding exactly where you don't want him.

       Louis has selective hearing. Some days, when you talk about him with him within hearing distance, he gets all miffed.
               

                         But when you actually WANT him, he becomes suddenly deaf. And when you get all mad at him, he's all like YOU CAN'T YELL AT ME FOOL I HAVE A TRAGIC DISABILITY!!! and then you feel all bad. He's really good at guilt trips. Example: He has an addiction to scratching the carpet when he comes in from being outside, flexing his biceps, all that. He knows he shouldn't be doing it. He KNOWS. I swear. And when you yell at him, or, like me, smack the top of his head (which is very broad and strangely flat) his ears go flat and he screams like you clocked him with a rubber mallet for trying to curl up with you.

       Did I mention he's very manipulative?

       Also, he has a short-term memory. If you're walking down the hall, he'll cut in front of you, and then he slows wayyy down or lays on the floor. When you try to get around him, he freaks out and starts hollering and runs away from you down the hall. Likewise, he will forget that the person he is currently cuddling with is the person who has saved him from the big bad world and promptly tries to murder them.

       I remember when we first got Louis. He had been dumped off in my friend's neighborhood. He was extremely skinny, and my friend Aleesha (bless her little heart) had named him Missy, under the notion that he was a female.

       

              It's been a while, but some things never change, like the fact that Louis and I have a twisted love-hate relationship, or that he looks like a kidney bean, or that my library books will never be turned in on time.

       Crap. There I go yammering about myself again.

--Sabrina

Rainbow Buddies

     I decided to have a little fun with my friends Austin and Ian and drew them in a wallpaper.

       To make this your wallpaper, double-click the image, then right-click it, and choose "Set as background." Make it your wallpaper. Do it. Do it now.

Aristotle Punk font curtesy dafont.com

--Sabrina

The Secret Lives Of Grown-Ups: Part I

Monday

Today, I have learned a Great Secret: I have spent a school day with a Grown-Up.

                This morning, I woke up sick again (I was sick yesterday and last month too but today I was sick also—true fact). I was (am) feeling a bit unresponsive and rather delirious.

                My parents decided I should stay out of school for the day.

                So I went with my mom to work. She gave me two Dayquil pills, which I took with a Thomas Hammer Fireball.

                After that, we went to my Mom’s shop. Apparently the propane stove has been leaking since Friday, and the building probably would have s’ploded if we had taken the week off (since the people next to us smoke like chimneys) (at least this is what my diseased brain understood the situation to be). So we couldn’t work. As such, my mom and I drove around for a while to give the shop time to air out. Our first stop was Michael’s craft store. At this point I am attempting to convey some sort of security in my diseasedness, however false (I assume that part to be the coffee and Dayquil).

                Feeling so fancy free, I decided to walk by myself around Michael’s and promptly got lost.

          Meanwhile these employee people are staring at me, as if they’ve never seen a sick teenage girl in an Adventure Time hat gimping through a craft store on a school day.

Eventually I found my mother and we went back to the shop, and I lazed around for the rest of the day. But at the end of it all, as I reconcile with my cat and think about the day, I reflect upon what I have learned. I have spent A Day With A Grown-Up; I have seen the Things Grown-Ups Do while I’m at school. And I made it out alive.

--Sabrina

Monstrous Noms.

     I get the weirdest cravings sometimes.

                   -Sabrina

Dance Of The Sugar Plum Demons

We’re waiting for it to snow.

                I live in Northern Idaho. As such, we are INTO Christmas. You think you’re into Christmas? I don’t care. We do it better. 

                Since Halloween has passed this Monday (we made Christmas cookie dough), things have changed drastically for my city. No more golden tapestries and little red maple leaves and pumpkins—oh, no! We’ve got all the Holiday Limited Edition coffee creamers out, the eggnog, the gingerbread-house-Redi-mix. Our local Michael’s store has had Christmas products out since August. We all wait all year for Christmas, or, rather, the culmination of glittery magicalness that comes beforehand. So we get impatient. But now, we legitimately can be excited. Most of the people that live here would agree with me in this: at this point, Thanksgiving is not only a holiday in itself, but a prelude to The Day After: DECORATING.

                And it’s supposed to snow. This week.

                So I’m all excited, because my mom’s getting all sage about the weather. “It’s gonna snow tonight. I can feel it. I can smell it.”

     Every year it's the same thing. The first day of snow is a huge deal for my family. Only one thing. I seem to be the only one excited in a positive way anymore. Last year I ran around outside and texted all of my friends.



    

     But give it about three weeks or so, standing in a pile of puffy whiteness begins to lose its charm a little bit.



     That aside, I'm excited.

          --Sabrina

Regarding Caffeine

     To my parents' chagrin, I happen to nurse a love of caffeinated drinks. I have, at several points in my life, been called a "caffeine junkie," even. It's weird because it's not the fact that it's caffeinated that I love it; it's the taste. Most energy drinks taste like a party in your mouth, except for maybe warm Monsters. But I always hated coffee, because, like my mother, I am one of those people who simply stands in the parking lot next to Starbucks and gains five pounds (also this happens in bakery parking lots).

     Well.
     Apparently Starbucks Woman doesn't like floating hearts.

     And then my body decides that it needs to harvest the calories from the nearby coffee shop and add on a good inch for solid protection againts the deadlights (Pennywise LIVES HAHAHAA). 

     Anyhoo.

     I have always loved caffeiney joy. But I never liked black coffee (Why WOULD the lowest-calorie form of caffeine be something I LIKED?!) that much. Until yesterday.

     And now that that's over, I can actually tell you a story.

     Another quality my mother and I share is a love of books. It is hereditary, a blessing and a curse. It is also a tragic, self-destructive habit if you're like me and my mom--start a book before bed, and juuuust as the sky gets light, you slam it shut, done with the book.

Now you can go to bed! Wait! No, you can't! Cuz you were up until TWOINTHEMORNINGREADINGSTEPHENKINGYOUGECKOHEAD. No sleep for you.

     Such is the way the day began for me. But unlike most of the posts on this blog, this one has a happy ending to it.

     It didn't seem that way as I tried to stay awake in history class. I kept yawning and my eyes wanted to shut. Pretty soon, I was VIOLENTLY yawning. It felt like my jaw was gonna fall off.

     So my English teacher told me to get some coffee. I poured myself a mug of black, dropped in a sugar cube, and slurped it at my desk, still yawning. Caffeine has never woken me up. There have been times where I'll drink a lot more buzz than I should, and then I'll pass out on my friend's office floor.

          But today...today was Different. I stopped yawning. I suddenly felt GREAT. I felt like I might actually live through the day without having to find a place to sleep during lunch, which I do sometimes when I'm bored. Black coffee saved me. After all these years of hating it, I felt a tinge of remorse. But it paid off, didn't it?

--Sabrina





Standing In Lines

So, if you are one of those people who doesn’t mind being THAT person who is holding up the whole line behind you at the store, possibly keeping the cashier from taking a lunch break or their omg-i-need-too-pee break, or you are possibly delaying the ACTUAL STORE FROM CLOSING, please, if you are that person, just go read something else.

I’m not that person.  I'd try to find a Fast Pass for the Express Lane if I could..

You can see where this is going, right?

Ok.  Today I promised my 12-year-old that I would go and get her 30 dominoes for a school project that she is working on after school, and this is something that will cause the project to not work out, and she will fail this class, and possibly end up living in a van down by the river, if I don’t produce the dominoes.  I said, sure.  Because, you know, how hard can it be?  I’m not sure where you find dominoes, but I’m positive I can handle this grown-up responsibility.  I see them winning the award for the best project and her smiling at me like “Hey, we couldn’t have won without you getting those dominoes.  Thanks Mom!”

I left the house at a time that would give me plenty of time to accomplish this, plus go to the bank, stop at the spa supply store, and make a quick stop for my husband to pick up some hunting supplies at a sporting goods store.  Yep, definitely enough time.  Maybe even too much.

Got through the bank, no problem.  Hit the freeway and zipped over to the sporting goods store, which is walking distance from the spa store.  Ha, I think—I’ve GOT this.  I send a quick text to my husband to double check what I will need to get for him, and while waiting for the answer and not being one to waste time, I pop into the spa supply store to grab my two super-easy “I just need chlorine and shock” products.  Easy in, easy out, right?  No.

I walk up to the counter and stop behind the only customer at the counter, being helped by the only guy at the counter.  Actually the only employee on the property, by the looks of it, but I’m like, “Ok, no problem.”  So I wait.  Because the products I need are actually:  Behind The Counter.  So I can’t just grab them and be hanging out in line.  I have to Wait For Help.  Ok, still, no problem.

It turns out, however, that the guy (and his wife) in front of me, are in the middle of a very complicated purchase of a WHOLE HOT TUB SYSTEM, including delivery, setup, chemical analysis, and maintenance programming.  This is a big deal for them; yes, I get it.  But I’m starting to think, “wow, bad timing, huh?”  So they’re being helped by the guy, who is of course happy to help them.  It’s a big sale, you know, so I’m still pretty much ok with it.  They have lots of questions about electrical things that sound like “tie-in” and “GFS circuit”, and I have no idea what they’re talking about, but eventually they sign all 50 documents, get everything but a guided tour of the store, and they’re (tah-dah) done.  So I think, “Yay! I can get my stuff and jam outa here.” 

Meanwhile I’ve missed two calls from my husband, trying to let me know what he will need from the sporting goods store.  (Because I’m one of those polite types who turns their phone OFFPEOPLEOFFTURNTHEFREAKINGPHONEOFFINTHECHECKOUTLINE).  Sorry. Did I say that out loud?

Moving on…

As they leave, finally (yes, I’m happy for them; a new hot tub is awesome, go, people, go in peace),  I start to take a step towards the counter, when, out of the corner of my eye, I see…this guy.  From nowhere.  Step right UP to the counter in front of me.   I think, “Ok.  Maybe he was here before me, and if I step up ahead of him, he’ll freak totally out that he’s been waiting forever and he’s NEXT”, so I stand there and wait some more.  I’m starting to check my clock on the phone, because I am on a tight schedule with the whole dominoes-get-to-the-school-by-3:30 thing, and I still have the sporting goods store to go to.

He starts out with “Yeah…I have this little part on my hot tub that’s broken…” and I sigh.  Can’t I just pay for my two products and go? Please?  So the guy helps him figure out WHAT part he has that is broken, and whether it’s black or white, and what brand it is, and they look it up, call China for the part number, and ring him up.  “That’ll be $4.17.”  Yes! So close now.  He’s paying.  I’m almost leaning towards the counter, ready to spring.  Then he says, “so…Tell me about this XZY brand hot tub? Is that the same as the QRS hot tub you sell?”  The employee launches into an explanation of how the two companies were different, but merged 4 years ago, so now they’re “sister” companies, and starts in on the pros and cons of the brands.  I’m drumming my fingers a bit on the ledge behind me, and checking my clock.  I can hear it going tick tock.  Tick TOCK.  TICK TOCK. 

TICKTOCK YOU ARERUNNNINGOUTOFTIME NODOMINOESFORYOUUUUHAHAHAHA.

The guy asks for a brochure.  I’m like, seriously?!?  REALLY?  He finally goes away, and I am able to quickly step up and ask for my two products, and pay for them.  No, I don’t want any extra products.  I don’t want to be on the mailing list, though for some reason, it does take him awhile to “find” me in the computer.  I didn’t realize I needed to be IN there..  I’m holding my debit card here; what else do we NEED for this?  I sort of quick-step to my car and throw the chemicals in the front seat, and quickly call my husband back as I run/walk across the parking lot to the sporting goods store.  The nice couple ahead of me waits for me and holds the door for me.  Thanks.  J 

I get inside, and fortunately what he needs are two things that are easy to find, so I grab them and head to the counter, where, again, there is one tired girl helping a long line of people preparing for Hunting Season.  I know I have to wait, so I’m standing there behind the couple who held the door, waiting.  A guy shows up and opens the other till and says “I can help whoever’s next in line.”  Everyone (I swear) just looks at him, but no one moves.  (eyebrow up)

I say “Well, *I’ll* go over there.  So I step around to that side, and find myself somehow half a step behind the couple who held the door.  That’s cool; whatever.  We’re still way ahead, right?  No.  They are returning not one, but TWO axes, or mauls, or whatever they’re called.  So the new cashier here has to fill out some: Paperwork.  He needs their receipts, both of them, with the yellow tag still attached.  He needs their photo I.D. (really?)  He needs “the card # ending in….0413”.  He runs it as a credit but somehow it is wrong, so he has to repeat the process.  I visibly slump. 

The lady keeps glancing towards me, but I refuse to meet her eye while I check my clock and wonder where the closest place to find dominoes is.  I still don’t know.  Do grocery stores have dominoes?  There’s one close, but if it DOESN’T have dominoes, I will have used up my allotted time searching.  Wal-Mart? Too far.  Target?  Ah-hah, maybe. 

The couple also decides they are buying something.  I slump a bit further.  I now have 15 minutes to get to the domino purchase and back to my car and get to the school by 3:30.  Sigh.  They are finally done.  She finally actually catches my eye and says, “Sorry!” I say, “no problem” because I know, it’s not technically their fault.  I think it’s me sometimes.

I swear I cause lines to    s     l    o    w   d   o    w     n     until time has no meaning.

I pay and jog to the car, still wondering where to go for dominoes.  I decide to actually CALL Target and ask them.  This turns out to be somewhat complicated to do while driving and being 2 stop lights away from the actual stop light for Target, where I will have to either decide to pull in and walk into the actual store to find out, or get past the recording with “Thanks for calling Target.  Our store hours are blah blah blah” etc., to a person who I can ask about---“Hello? Yes! I’m almost to your storeandIneedtoknowifyouhavedominoesbeforeIhavetoturninatthelight.” I’m thinking hurry hurry hurry, please WILL YOU HURRY UP? I’m almost THERE!

The lady who answered puts me on hold twice, saying they are finding out if they carry dominoes.  I’m getting closer; I’m only one light away! Turn in? or keep driving to Wal-Mart?  Tension!  I slow down a little to catch a red light (who does that?) and buy some time.  She comes back and transfers me to Toys, where Jenny answers. 

Thank goodness for Jenny!  She says they carry them.  I’m at the light.  Do they HAVE them? She is going to look.  I’m turning into the parking lot as she says they DO have them.  I tell her I have to be AT the school in 15 minutes, what part of the store are the dominoes in?  She says, of course, the farthest back corner from the door.  On the wall, in the corner.  Of course she does.  But Jenny is awesome, and she says she has them in her hand, and she will come meet me up front with them.  I am so grateful! I’m in 3” heels and I don’t think I can run that distance, pay, and back to my car in 5 minutes.  I want to adopt her.

I walk in and see a girl just inside the doors, waving like one of those folks at the airport waiting for their party…”Dominoes?”  “YES! I love you! You are my new best friend!”  She also walks me right to the customer service desk where I immediately hand the guy $4.00, and I am heading for my car in less than 1 minute.  I think I’ll buy some Target stock if the market ever comes back…and one for Jenny, too.

I race to the school and get there with just minutes to spare.  I am so proud that I got all my errands run; I have Saved The Day.  I feel like one of those soccer moms who run errands and have kid stuff all organized and projects completed on time, every time, without any excuses like ”this-will-have-to-work-because-i-don’t-have-time-to-make-one-more-stop-for balloons, toothpicks, spray paint, duct tape, and a goat hide  (you need WHAT?!?) for the project tonight.”  Super. Mom.  Yep, I got your dominoes.

The girls come out, and my daughter asks if I remembered the dominoes.  Like she’s really hoping I did NOT forget (she does not want to live in a van down by the river).  I smile and hand them to her.  Of COURSE, I totally got the dominoes.  She’s getting a ride with her friend and her friend’s mom, so the other mom comes over to touch base with me about the project.  She sees me handing them to my daughter and says,

Ready?

“Oh, I already got some dominoes. You don’t need those.” 

I know, right? 

By the way, the box I got only had 28 dominoes.  /:{

chef stef

Greasy Flukes

                Last year, I played a fifty-something woman in our school’s Grease-inspired musical. It was undoubtedly the best play in our school’s drama career. Nonetheless, I made more mistakes in six hours’ worth of performances that what I normally make in a week (not counting the various walls and microwaves that tend to punch me in the face). Let us take a tour through some of these highly cherished memories.

                Everything was fine, up until the first dress practice.

Things kinda just went downhill from there.

                The first night of the performances, I slipped into my 3-times-too-large costume, and I felt invincible. I felt like an ACTOR.

       That same night, while we were all putting on lipstick backstage, the director’s worst nightmare happened: The Spotlight Broke. It happened while she was giving her pre-performance presentation, so we actually had no idea until the next day at school what had happened. Now, I had grown to love that light. I have been in six plays, all with a spotlight. When I went onstage, the drastic change completely threw me off.

                It made me nervous.

                Later that evening, I walked in on my friend, who played the lead Greaser role, as he was staring soulfully into nowhere.

                So I stood there as he finished and went backstage. I don’t know if he ever knew I was there.

                This actually happened because of the way the set was placed. During certain scenes, a black curtain covered the main stage. The lights glared right through it, so anyone waiting for a scene had to lie on the floor behind the curtain while they waited for their cue.

 I couldn’t see whether my friend was done soulfully staring, which is why I walked in on him.

                                                          ________________

                The second night went remarkably well for me, and I was feeling all ACTOR again.

                But I was too presumptuous for my own good. I Messed Up A Line. Butchered it, actually.

I panicked. My friend flinched. A few thoughts whirled through my mind. A wave of dread swept through me, and I heard the members backstage gasping. I fought to survive. Desperately, I blurted out the only words that could save me.

                I’m sure the audience wouldn’t have known it, but what looked like a massive chain facial seizure was actually the cast members onstage trying not to laugh.

 --Sabrina