Writing a blog is hard. After the first flush of victory, the thrill of assuming an air of casual indifference as I mentioned "my blog" in a conversation, the full implications of what I've committed to has hit me like a ton of bricks.
Is this what mothers feel like after they make a meal for their family? "Great job, Mom." "Delicious, honey." "Thanks for dinner, Mom!"
"...what are we having tomorrow night?"
And then you realize that a family has to be fed every single night. And you have to accept the fact that sometimes it will not be gourmet - sometimes it will only be mac and cheese. Not even the organic kind with the bunnies, but straight-up, three degrees from plastic, Kraft mac and cheese (although, who are we kidding, who doesn't prefer that kind anyway).
Fortunately I am better at writing than I am at cooking (okay, so maybe I'm better at anything than I am at cooking). But be prepared for the occasional metaphorical mac and cheese.
Here goes round two.
Today I experienced an Atlanta snowstorm.
To be clear, "snowstorm" refers to approximately 2 inches of precipitation, and yet today I feel as if I got a glimpse of what armageddon might be like, only if something worse was happening than the end of the world.
The day started fairly normally: I listened to my alarm go off about 6 times before I got out of bed (about par for the course), opted not to turn the lights on in an attempt to convince my body that I was still asleep, decided on a dress, changed my mind because I had no brown stockings without holes, and changed it back when I found some beneath my exercise clothes (obviously haven't moved those in awhile). Sometimes I always win.
That's what I was thinking to myself when I climbed out of my car and realized that I was actually wearing purple stockings. Considering the fact that I was also wearing a green and turquoise dress with an orange sweater, I changed my mind about the morning. This was not the sometime that I always won.
Still, if I looked like an escapee from Ringling Brothers, my co-worker looked like an extra off the set of Duck Dynasty in a camouflage jacket.
"I'm trying not to wear it for too long. I borrowed it from Drew and he will be upset if it smells like me."
"Can't you just wash it?"
"Then the deer urine will come off, and he'll really be mad."
Suddenly I felt that purple tights weren't so bad.
The snow began in earnest around 12:00 pm, and all learning promptly ceased. Even an exercise that involved my students writing descriptive paragraphs about me failed to compete for long with the flurries out of the window, although it was very enlightening. Apparently I look like a mouse, as three students determined independently of one another. On a brighter note, I am also 6'2"...the extra 7 inches went a long way toward soothing my vanity...and at least one student appreciated my grotesque outfit. That is if "colors shoot out from all directions" can be taken as a compliment.
This was the last bright spot for awhile, as I headed out to take on Atlanta in the snow. Or rather, the road in front of my school. Because that is where I sat in my car for two hours.
As a Georgia tax payer I used to be very grateful that Atlanta does not invest in salt trucks. But that was before I realized that law and order cease as soon as snow sticks to the roadways.
Dear Atlanta drivers:
1) Just because they are covered in snow does not mean you can ignore the lines on the road. 2) Sidewalks are not legitimate detours. 3) Red lights still mean stop, even in a snowstorm. 4) It is never okay to drive on the wrong side of the road, even if the road is completely deserted. Also, as a side note, why would you drive on the opposite side of the road? It's not even efficient. Or is that just one of those things you want to check off the bucket list, like running up the down escalator, and you are taking advantage of the chaos to accomplish your fantasy?
In the 5 and half hours it took me to drive the 18 miles home, I was impressed by the feeling of panic in the air. I was waiting for people to start breaking windows and looting stores, and more than once I wished that I carried a baseball bat instead of a tennis racquet in my backseat. You can't hurt a fly with a tennis racquet. I mean, literally, you can't. It will just go through the holes.
Two more inches of snow and I'm convinced the pillaging would have begun.
Of course, not everyone was losing their heads. During the hour I spent at a stoplight, somewhere between leaving work and the apocalypse, the driver in the car in front of me got out of his car, walked into a nearby grocery store, and returned with two 30 racks of Bud Light. So he obviously was keeping things in perspective.
When I finally made it home I felt like I had survived some cataclysmic event. For dinner I ate all the cookies I had been saving and for good measure made some mini peanut butter and pretzel sandwiches with chocolate chips as dessert.
If the great Atlanta snowstorm of '14 taught me anything it's that life is too short for salad.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Sometimes it takes a pie in the face.
Last night I had a crisis of the soul.
When I became a teacher I saw it as a job that would give me time to write. I blame this misguided perception entirely on my parents, as I am fairly confident that it stemmed from my interpretation of the film Mr. Holland's Opus, in which Richard Dreyfuss embarks on a teaching career so that he can compose a symphony. Alas, my parents never allowed me to watch the movie in its entirety. After we began it they remembered that weird thing he has with that one student and they turned it off, and I never realized the actual gist of the film - Mr. Holland never has time to compose his symphony and teaching swallows his soul. Thanks, parents.
I have been teaching for three years (two and a half really, but three sounds more desperate). I have not published a single written work. I haven't let anyone else read something that I've written, unless I count myself signing into Google drive under a different username. Flannery O'Connor's best advice to writers was "Write,"and I've thought, "Yeah, Flannery, but you lived in Milledgeville so what the heck else did you have to do (I feel justified in making this somewhat derogatory statement after having passed said town on the freeway)," and put it off for a more convenient time.
Thus the crisis. Because I realized there will never be a more convenient time. I wrestled with my ambition all night long (at least until 9:47 when I fell asleep). If I was going to write I better do it - even a recipe card would be a step in the right direction. The problem is that people who write have to have something to write about and I do not have the time to go seeking out adventures. So I made a deal with myself. As soon as something happened to me, I would start a blog. That should keep the ambition quiet for a while.
This morning we had a pep rally at school. I had grudgingly volunteered to get a shaving cream pie in the face at this event, after being assured that the chances of this occurring were slim to none. Not only did the student have the choice of three other teachers to pie, he or she also had to make a half court shot before they could do so. This made me feel better for several reasons: first, they are twelve years old. Second, do you know how far the half court line is from the basket? Third, see numbers one and two.
Furthermore, the MC of our pep rallies is Señor, the Spanish teacher. Señor only knows the names of the Spanish students, and so mine are generally left out of the pep rally competitions, because he is embarrassed to reveal that he doesn't know their names (this at least is my private opinion. I hope that none of my Latin students come to the same conclusion or it could create some bitterness - worse, defections). So even if a student were to miraculously make that shot, why would they choose me as their victim?
In the bathroom half an hour later, blowing shaving cream out of my nose, I thought back and tried to spot the flaws in my reasoning.
As P.G. Wodehouse would probably point out, my error had been in confusing the unusual with the impossible. It was unusual for Latin students to compete, but not impossible, particularly after Señor hit on the brilliant idea of pointing to students instead of calling them out by name, thus avoiding the awkward reveal that he did not actually know them.
It was unusual for 12 year old to make a half court shot, but not impossible. Particularly when the 12 year old was actually 13 and also the star of my basketball team.
I struggled between a surge of pride in my student, and a surge of nausea at the scent permeating my clothing and hair, but mostly I was struck with the determination to start a blog. Ambition could not be held off any longer. Something had happened to me. And I smelled like a man for the rest of the day, so there was no chance of me forgetting.
Now the other prerequisite of blogging seems to be a knack for cooking or baking. This is unfortunate, because while I do cook and bake, the knackiness bit is often lacking. A certain time when I tried to make popcorn in a food processor comes to mind, as do the multiple times I missed key ingredients in recipes. Such as flour. In bread.
Still, if I am going to be in the blogosphere, I'm doing it right.
Introducing...The Recipe on the Bag plus Everything Delicious in the Cabinets Cookies. Directions self-evident, with a few adjustments. I only had a stick and a half of butter because I had used the rest for some scones earlier (they didn't make it to the blog because I undercooked them and didn't realize until much later. I put them back in the oven in the hope of redeeming them, but it was a losing battle. I did succeed in melting all of the glaze off the tops, which then formed into a pool on the tinfoil they rested on, essentially glueing them down to it. Attempts to pry said scones off of the foil resulted in ripping off the bottoms, which, being the only parts fully cooked and worth saving, caused me to dispose of the remainders as quietly and gracefully as possible).
Due to a serious lack of desire to calculate the recipe amounts with 3/4 cup of butter as opposed to one, I decided to supplement. Greek yogurt was considered and discarded as being too healthy of an option, coconut oil briefly thought of and likewise rejected, Crisco is not even a product of nature so I try not to use it for anything except when I run out of WD-40, and cottage cheese is just too weird on too many levels.
Obviously the only thing to do in such a situation was to use peanut butter. It even has "butter" in the name. But then, inspiration struck. What is like peanut butter but better in every respect?
Sub: 1/4 cup of butter with Nutella.
Next, replace white sugar with brown. I never understood why Laura Ingalls always complained about having brown sugar in all those little houses she lived in - brown sugar is the bomb. Sometimes it clumps up and your big sister (who is the reason you are a terrible baker because she never let you do anything but watch and clean up when she made cookies - thanks, Maura) will give you a chunk to suck on. Of course, I was always the weird child who liked things like black licorice and raisins, so maybe I'm not a good judge. The other benefit to using all brown sugar is that you don't have to measure it out and go through that "packing firmly" song and dance - one box is equal to two cups.
Lastly, you come to that line of the recipe that says "add two cups of chocolate chips...walnuts...toffee bits...whatever whatever." This is where the magic happens. The great discovery of my life was when I realized that this line has elastic boundaries. It encompasses any and all delicious things you can think of that go well in cookies. In this case, Nutella cookies. And who are we kidding - what doesn't go well with Nutella?
Final product: Oatmeal Nutella Chocolate Chip Raisin Cookies with some last minute Sneak Attack Pecans filched from my cousin's side of the fridge.
And the ones that I remembered to take out of the oven were delicious.
When I became a teacher I saw it as a job that would give me time to write. I blame this misguided perception entirely on my parents, as I am fairly confident that it stemmed from my interpretation of the film Mr. Holland's Opus, in which Richard Dreyfuss embarks on a teaching career so that he can compose a symphony. Alas, my parents never allowed me to watch the movie in its entirety. After we began it they remembered that weird thing he has with that one student and they turned it off, and I never realized the actual gist of the film - Mr. Holland never has time to compose his symphony and teaching swallows his soul. Thanks, parents.
I have been teaching for three years (two and a half really, but three sounds more desperate). I have not published a single written work. I haven't let anyone else read something that I've written, unless I count myself signing into Google drive under a different username. Flannery O'Connor's best advice to writers was "Write,"and I've thought, "Yeah, Flannery, but you lived in Milledgeville so what the heck else did you have to do (I feel justified in making this somewhat derogatory statement after having passed said town on the freeway)," and put it off for a more convenient time.
Thus the crisis. Because I realized there will never be a more convenient time. I wrestled with my ambition all night long (at least until 9:47 when I fell asleep). If I was going to write I better do it - even a recipe card would be a step in the right direction. The problem is that people who write have to have something to write about and I do not have the time to go seeking out adventures. So I made a deal with myself. As soon as something happened to me, I would start a blog. That should keep the ambition quiet for a while.
This morning we had a pep rally at school. I had grudgingly volunteered to get a shaving cream pie in the face at this event, after being assured that the chances of this occurring were slim to none. Not only did the student have the choice of three other teachers to pie, he or she also had to make a half court shot before they could do so. This made me feel better for several reasons: first, they are twelve years old. Second, do you know how far the half court line is from the basket? Third, see numbers one and two.
Furthermore, the MC of our pep rallies is Señor, the Spanish teacher. Señor only knows the names of the Spanish students, and so mine are generally left out of the pep rally competitions, because he is embarrassed to reveal that he doesn't know their names (this at least is my private opinion. I hope that none of my Latin students come to the same conclusion or it could create some bitterness - worse, defections). So even if a student were to miraculously make that shot, why would they choose me as their victim?
In the bathroom half an hour later, blowing shaving cream out of my nose, I thought back and tried to spot the flaws in my reasoning.
As P.G. Wodehouse would probably point out, my error had been in confusing the unusual with the impossible. It was unusual for Latin students to compete, but not impossible, particularly after Señor hit on the brilliant idea of pointing to students instead of calling them out by name, thus avoiding the awkward reveal that he did not actually know them.
It was unusual for 12 year old to make a half court shot, but not impossible. Particularly when the 12 year old was actually 13 and also the star of my basketball team.
I struggled between a surge of pride in my student, and a surge of nausea at the scent permeating my clothing and hair, but mostly I was struck with the determination to start a blog. Ambition could not be held off any longer. Something had happened to me. And I smelled like a man for the rest of the day, so there was no chance of me forgetting.
Now the other prerequisite of blogging seems to be a knack for cooking or baking. This is unfortunate, because while I do cook and bake, the knackiness bit is often lacking. A certain time when I tried to make popcorn in a food processor comes to mind, as do the multiple times I missed key ingredients in recipes. Such as flour. In bread.
Still, if I am going to be in the blogosphere, I'm doing it right.
Introducing...The Recipe on the Bag plus Everything Delicious in the Cabinets Cookies. Directions self-evident, with a few adjustments. I only had a stick and a half of butter because I had used the rest for some scones earlier (they didn't make it to the blog because I undercooked them and didn't realize until much later. I put them back in the oven in the hope of redeeming them, but it was a losing battle. I did succeed in melting all of the glaze off the tops, which then formed into a pool on the tinfoil they rested on, essentially glueing them down to it. Attempts to pry said scones off of the foil resulted in ripping off the bottoms, which, being the only parts fully cooked and worth saving, caused me to dispose of the remainders as quietly and gracefully as possible).
Due to a serious lack of desire to calculate the recipe amounts with 3/4 cup of butter as opposed to one, I decided to supplement. Greek yogurt was considered and discarded as being too healthy of an option, coconut oil briefly thought of and likewise rejected, Crisco is not even a product of nature so I try not to use it for anything except when I run out of WD-40, and cottage cheese is just too weird on too many levels.
Obviously the only thing to do in such a situation was to use peanut butter. It even has "butter" in the name. But then, inspiration struck. What is like peanut butter but better in every respect?
Sub: 1/4 cup of butter with Nutella.
Next, replace white sugar with brown. I never understood why Laura Ingalls always complained about having brown sugar in all those little houses she lived in - brown sugar is the bomb. Sometimes it clumps up and your big sister (who is the reason you are a terrible baker because she never let you do anything but watch and clean up when she made cookies - thanks, Maura) will give you a chunk to suck on. Of course, I was always the weird child who liked things like black licorice and raisins, so maybe I'm not a good judge. The other benefit to using all brown sugar is that you don't have to measure it out and go through that "packing firmly" song and dance - one box is equal to two cups.
Lastly, you come to that line of the recipe that says "add two cups of chocolate chips...walnuts...toffee bits...whatever whatever." This is where the magic happens. The great discovery of my life was when I realized that this line has elastic boundaries. It encompasses any and all delicious things you can think of that go well in cookies. In this case, Nutella cookies. And who are we kidding - what doesn't go well with Nutella?
Final product: Oatmeal Nutella Chocolate Chip Raisin Cookies with some last minute Sneak Attack Pecans filched from my cousin's side of the fridge.
And the ones that I remembered to take out of the oven were delicious.
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