Re: Life Choices

This weekend was partially consumed by Rachel Manija Brown's memoir All the Fishes Come Home to Roost. Since then I have been backspacing, typing, and backspacing again on how many of my reactions I need to overshare. You don't have to drag your child from LA, USA, to an ashram in an Indian backwater to demonstrate poor parenting skills. In the meantime: look! Treecat! Discuss?

The rest of this week is going to go fast: work evening event Wednesday, Wicked Thursday night, jd birthday celebration Friday. Somewhere in there needs to be more job applications than I've managed so far this week. I remain distressed by my net negative cash flow, but as I said at a networking event tonight, most people who knew me pre- and post-move think getting off the East Coast was a really good idea for me. So it's time to stop hiding under a comforting blanket of Stephenson and KSR novels demonstrate adaptability and apply to more jobs.

Buying Wicked tickets was probably spendthrift, foolish and downright immoral, but it's leaving town at the end of the week and K, instigator of plans, really wanted to see the musical. K is super excited and is getting me hyped up too: I like anticipation, it seems to add some sparkle to whatever event you're going to. I guess that's value added entertainment? An occasion becomes special because you make it so. I may go all out and mess with the makeup kit for this one! Makeup users, what moisturizers do you use to counteract the powder drying out your face? And how on Earth do you get the mascara back off? That stuff burns!

Cookie Fail!

My cookies came out flat again. I've changed half the ingredients, bought new baking trays, opened The Joy of Cooking to Old Reliable (oatmeal cookies), and do I have cookies? No: I have a puddle of flat mush on parchment paper.

The major differences I can think of are
1.) letting the butter sit until it reaches room temp
2.) used warm cookie sheets
3.) West coast butter?
4.) AA brown eggs?
5.) Quick oats instead of standard rolled
6.) The oven is running hot/cold

The eggs are probably a red herring. West coast butter ought to be functionally identical to east coast butter. The oven thermometer suggests the bottom rack runs cool; that's why I rotate top and bottom pans about halfway through the suggested baking time. The sheets could be an issue; unlikely to be wildly significant. The oats could be a contributing factor, but the puddle-cookie problem predates the oats. Next time I make cookies, I'm taking the butter straight from the fridge to the mixing bowl. (Or maybe knocking off a tablespoon.)

( Oatmeal cookie recipe )

Roommate Number Three tried to modify his fried rice approach last night and sounded about this irate about how his experiment came out. Is it time to exorcise the oven unit? Or should we break into the liquor cabinet again? Studies suggest this is one time a binary construction is a good idea: mixing booze, ovens and exorcism just doesn't end well.