I wear my heart on my... loaf?

I decided to make bread this morning. It did not go as planned.

I put all the ingredients for my current favourite loaf (Light Oat Bread using 1 tbsp of olive oil instead of 2 tbsp of margarine) into the breadmaker. We've had a bit of trouble with said machine (the base of the pan kind of rusted because someone kind of left it in the sink sitting in water instead of washing it like she kind of meant to do) but Mr. W had oiled it and all seemed to be well.

Today, instead of its usual few half turns and then an energetic spinning away at the dough, the breakmaker made a few pathetic half-turn attempts and then a faint whining sound but no spinning. So I dumped all the (unmixed) ingredients into a bowl and decided to try out being my own breadmaker.

This was at about 9:30 this morning. It's now 6 pm and the heels of my hands are STILL sore from kneading the dough. (I am a delicate one at times... my favourite story about this is the time I was assisting the school's (really good former national team member) volleyball coach in serving to the kids and having them return my serves, and I couldn't bring myself to tell him I had to quit because my hand hurt, so I kept going and and ended up with the heel of my hand seriously bruised as a result. He was impressed and a bit pitying at the same time. :)

The dough, theoretically, was supposed to get smooth and elastic. I have no idea how this is supposed to look, so I kneaded until I lost interest (about 6 minutes, I'd say) and then let it rise for an hour.

It got HUGE, which seemed like a good sign, so I kneaded it again and then put it in a loaf pan to rise again. It did, as the picture shows, but it was already thinking about overflowing and I was afraid it'd get too big for the pan when I baked it so I cooked it on a cookie sheet instead.

Not sure why, frankly, since now that I think about it it makes sense for it to spill out a little bit to make that nice bread shape.

But oh well. Here's what I got.

In the first picture you can see the dough looks vaguely jellyroll-ish. The instructions I found online said to fold it like a business letter into three parts. Why a business letter and not some other letter, I know not, but I envisioned a query letter and folded 'er up.

Only to have 'er unfold in the oven.


While I doubt it's exactly going to set the world on fire for sandwiches, it was kind of nice having two hearts with peanut butter and strawberry jam for lunch. :)

In other news, I was cleaning the house (no, that's not the news, I do it pretty often) and singing along to The Dana Owens Album (Queen Latifah doing jazz and R&B classics - link goes to Amazon where you can hear some clips) - I am no singer but I like to belt stuff out when there's nobody but the cat to hear me.

And as I was singing I realized what the new book, Blueberry, was missing. I felt like the main character needed something, another interest or subplot... and now I know. She's a jazz singer. Not as a career, just for fun. And someone'll push her to go further with it.

I love when my random stuff actually clicks for a book. :)

Stoned in the parking lot

Got your attention? :)

So yesterday I went grocery shopping. As I was unloading my cart into the car, a wasp came over to see if I'd bought anything good.

I am not a fan of wasps. Or bees or house flies or anything that goes buzz right as it goes past my ear and makes me jump. So I tried to shoo it away, but it would not be shooed. Perhaps it was the same wasp who ruined my outdoor sit-and-work session at the nearby Starbucks and it was there to apologize? Okay, perhaps not.

But anyways, it wouldn't leave me be, and it was still dancing around my cart's handle when it was time to drive it back to the cart corral. So I didn't want to hold the handle, in case the wasp touched me, but I hate people who leave their cart littering the parking lot and I won't be one of those people.

A plan struck me, and I pushed the cart ahead of me and let it roll, then pushed it again, making sure each time that I wasn't anywhere near the still-hovering wasp, until I got to the corral, where I then nudged it into place.

But the wasp, maybe aware that I was about to run away, landed on my arm!

In my best dignified fashion, I threw my arms around and scurried away, and the wasp decided to stay behind. Hurrying back to the car, I kept brushing at my arms and I actually muttered out loud, "Don't touch me."

That's when I saw the sweet old lady standing by her car staring at me in a "I've dialed 9 and 1, don't make me do the other 1" kind of way.

Not stoned. Not covered in imaginary spiders. Just afraid of wasps and a little paranoid. I was going to try to explain it to her, but I figured it would just make things worse so I drove home snickering to myself. (Which, now that I think of it, probably looked weird too.)

Oh, well. At least I didn't get stung!

You may notice two things:

a) I haven't been posting daily. I missed one day because I forgot until I was about to fall asleep and I wasn't going to get up to post, and then the whole chain just fell apart. I am working on a philosophy of "no berating myself", so I won't apologize or beat myself up. I'm back now, though!

b) I've turned off the comments field. This doesn't mean I'm not interested in your opinions, though, so feel more than free to email me through my profile. I've noticed that a lot of my favourite blogs don't have the comments enabled and I'm going to try it myself and see how it works for me. If it works, or doesn't, for you, email and let me know.

Two systems, no dishwasher

My new dishwasher is supposed to be delivered today. At 9:30AM a painfully cheery woman called to tell me it'd be here tomorrow between 11 and 3.

"No, it won't," I said. "I changed it two weeks ago to be today."

Cue confused noises and a few moments on hold, then she came back to say that no, it's definitely scheduled for tomorrow. Well, that ain't no good, because the plumber's coming tomorrow to install it and I already arranged with the maintenance office (which is ridiculously protective of its elevators) for delivery today.

She gives me the number of the company that requested the delivery, which is not Home Depot from where I bought the thing. Fine. I call there and their cheery woman (do they all get these ladies from the same employment agency or something?) says it's was scheduled for tomorrow but it was changed to today.

I should be happy, and yet I am not. I push for more details, and she checks the delivery company web site and THAT says tomorrow. Um, what?

After an explanation about how I'd bought an LG and they usually deal with GE products (I fail to see why I should care), she promised to email the delivery company and see what she could do and call me back shortly.

This, I'm sure to nobody's surprise, has not happened.

I did manage to grovel sufficiently to be allowed to use an elevator tomorrow, so the only real issue is the plumber, and I'm afraid to call him now in case it DOES show up all of a sudden (I envision the delivery guys leaving it outside my condo door and knocking and running away, like they're leaving a flaming bag of poop). I want it installed as soon as possible.

Well, there's also the fact that I've been aggravated all morning and have done nothing, and I actually had to HAND-wash dishes, which feels like cruel and unusual punishment, but I don't think anybody involved in this farce cares.

But I'll be writing a strongly worded letter to Home Depot asking for my $50 delivery charge back. Think it'll work? Me either. But I have to try.

On the bright side, I am not having as bad a day as the owner of this wine store...

Just call me Rocky

So this morning Mr. W and I are having breakfast, and he suddenly says, "What's wrong with your eye?"

I check it out in the mirror and...


Somehow overnight I have acquired a bruise under my eye. It's a little puffier than it looks in this picture, and it's not a scratch or anything like that. It's definitely a bruise.

"Just makes you look tough," Mr. W says. Great. Just what I was after.

I have had odd injuries before (the highlight being the training run a few years back where I tripped over the sidewalk and smashed up both knees and my left cheek, leaving my hands almost unscathed) but at least I knew how they happened!

I'm planning a trip to Starbucks this afternoon. I hope nobody comments on the bruise, because "I don't know, maybe the cat stepped on me in the night" is about all I've got to say.

Anyone else get random injuries, or is this yet another weird thing that only I do? :)

April 16, 2008: The Case of the Missing Updates

So Monday night I had band practice, and then was too tired to post. Last night, also too tired. Tonight, tired, but not TOO tired.

The big news: Seven's re-read is complete! It took me, according to my handy little Palm time tracker, 9 hours and 33 minutes. Not too bad for a 108,000 word book!

I'm now getting ready to start playing with the new one (code-named Raoul, because it doesn't have a title). It HAS to be playing, at least for the first while. I've crushed two good ideas by being over-involved immediately - this one, I'm having fun with. A woman who hates hockey being hired to massage the team's star player? How can I NOT have fun with it??

I got a speeding ticket today too, which is sad. I deserved it, though, I think... I narrowly avoided being snagged by a speed trap an hour or two beforehand, so I guess my karma caught up to me. If only I'd been going so fast it couldn't catch up!!

Tomorrow is all playing with Raoul, at least it is once the piano goes. And I don't know when it's going. It's SO hard to schedule working from home sometimes.

Good night!

Ah, this industry

A good writing buddy sent me this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo1XFz0kac0



For anyone who's trying to make it in publishing!

"Write this... or not this..."