Stuffed-up November Blahs

We have a cold.  Both Mr. D. and I are afflicted and we have both missed some work. The fact that it happened to be a Champions League/Europa League week had nothing to do with it.  We're mostly better now, at least I am.  Tragically, we do not feel well enough for yard work, but that's fine, because I'm not obsessing nearly enough about the bulbs I haven't planted, the woodpile I haven't dealt with, the fencing I haven't finished, or the compost heap I haven't moved.  Unless I work myself into a full-blown anxiety attack, I probably won't get around to it until next week, and when I do it, I'll be out there red-faced and weeping about how much it sucks to do yard work.

Can you smell that?

If you ask Mr. D, he will almost invariably say "no."  His official position is that he can't smell anything.  So when you overhear him muttering this to the Yarn Bandit:

I can't stay mad at you, even though you reduce our environmental conditions to that of a hellhole.

...then you know you have a serious problem.  It's not like we don't clean up after the devilish urinator--we do--but he can be really sneaky, and it's hard to get it completely out.  Over time, and especially when it gets hot and humid, an above-and-beyond-the-call cleansing of the Hellhole is unavoidable.  And so, this morning, we rolled up the rugs, salvaged the salvageable rug pad and tossed the others, and took the rugs out to be professionally cleaned.  We will be back to the bare wood floors for three or four weeks.

The Man's Spectacular Birthday Weekend, Chapter One: "Saturday"

Dirtbunny does a lot of things very well, but most of her skills are unappreciated and/or obscure.  In particular, I've learned that if someone gets used to being fed very very well, they will at some point start to have expectations or even make demands.  I almost always make The Man a birthday cake, for example.  In past years, I've asked him what type he wants and he either pretends he hasn't heard me or shrugs and says Idunno.  One year he requested a lemon cake that he grew up with so I did that.  The ingredients featured two boxes of lemon yellow Jello and a box of cake mix and I'm pretty sure the recipe I obtained was, umm, inexact, because baking it in a springform cake pan led to a woefully undercooked and runny center.  I'm almost certain this thing was supposed to be baked in a Bundt pan. Anyway, it turned out pretty gross and he has lost his enthusiasm for cakes whose major ingredients come prefab from a box.

Friday afternoon

Did you know that your mouse won't work if you don't have it plugged into your laptop? It's true. Ask me how I know.

OK then. It has been a crappy week on Planet Dirtbunny. It started with weekend in which I was going to go into the office to do some catchin' up and I didn't. (Clarabelle: Fail. Again.) And then there was the Juve game. They were a-flyin' high after spanking Fulham 3-1 in the Europa League during the week, and all they had over the weekend was Siena at home. Siena is currently at the bottom of the table, so odds were good. It started out fine. ADP got a brace inside 8 minutes, and his tribuna fan club celebrated with new t-shirts that said 300 on the front and 301 on the back, cos they were ADP's 300th and 301st goals. Then Candreva, who is starting to grow on me ever so slightly, got a goal in minute 10 or 11 with a scorcher from distance. And after that, Juve gave up a three-goal lead and ended up with a draw, and one point. Inter lost (which never happens and must be exploited when it does). Milan won, but they are lookin' mighty shaky. Roma got a draw. Palermo lost. Napoli lost (thanks to la Viola). Juve could have made some progress up the table and gotten closer to securing a Champions League spot, but they failed to capitalize. At home. Against the worst team in the league. After going up 3-nil.

Yeah. So that was the weekend. On Monday I had my annual optometry appointment and I got my eyes dilated like I do every damn year, and that put me seriously out of sorts. On Tuesday, my enthusiastic new boss, who can never replace my beloved Bossboy who retired last month and left me all alone, decided to give the team and me some tips to improve our writing. That put my underpants in a bunch because nobody tells Dirtbunny her writing needs improvement. Ever. Dirtbunny's professional writing is fine exactly the way it is. She has been known and admired for it for 25 years. People come to Dirtbunny to learn how to improve. See? I'm getting pissed off all over again. So that shot Tuesday.

So Wednesday.  The Man did something inconsiderate, something we have had arguments about several times, and something he promised he would not do again. I decided to "let it go" which means I kept my mouth shut but stewed about it all day until I was convinced it was proof that I had never been and never would be loved. Plus I had a headache. And there was nothing for dinner because The Man failed to go to the grocery store last weekend and there was no food. (It's his job because he can stick to a list and I can't). So he got Mexican take-out, but it was one of those arbitrary meat-is-gross days so I had tortilla chips for dinner.

Thursday, I woke up sick from the tortilla chips and still nursing that headache, so I stayed home. I ended up in bed until about 11 am and there was still no food so I had popcorn for brunch. And I was PMS-y and hormonal, and I was expecting The Man to come home early but he didn't so I started watching the Juve-Fulham Eurpoa League second leg without him. It ended badly. Don't ask.

 *sigh*

Because The Man was four hours late coming home and because he took the car, I was unable to pick up a nice piece of fish for dinner, so we ended up with sucky Chinese food.



And today I worked at home. I felt better, but then my boss called me to ask a question and I got all paranoid because I thought maybe she was checking up on me.   And I started thinking ahead to the weekend and I realized that I will not be able to follow through on my plan to go into the office tomorrow and do a little catching up because they are running the National Marathon here in Our Nation's Capital and I won't be able to get anywhere near the office because of street closures. And I thought about Juve-Samp this weekend (uh oh) and I think the Reds are playing somebody important this weekend and that can't be good and the weatehr is going to be beautifully sunny and about 22 degrees and I can spend most of my time on the deck until I get a sunburn and that has got to be good for the Vitamin D problem and there still isn't any food in the house and then someone said something about Rose's Lime Juice and blahblahblah........

The upshot is, time to go to Balducci's to get something for dinner, something to dull the pain of the zebra-fail, and something for lunch tomorrow. And some strawberries because I have a hankerin'. And especially limes for the zebra-fail libations. So the work day is over and off I go.

I had a short list. Seriously. There were about six things on it.

I came home with six bags of groceries (this is why Mr. D does the shopping). I forgot the limes, though. I had to go back for limes. Sheesh.

And now I am on the deck, trying to read the screen of my laptop in the sunshine, monitoring the beagles who are both sunbathing, and drinking a G&T and I have a little plastic spear with a lime wedge and a maraschino cherry on it and I know that maraschino cherries don't go with G&T but I really don't give a flying fuck so there. The dogs have been waiting for this all day and so have I, pile of dirty laundry, unbalanced checkbook, and unreturned phone calls be damned.
 
And now   The Man is home.  Let the weekend commence.

Catching up with Dirtbunny

1. Because I haven't felt like blogging. That's why.

2. Well, I do think Italian soccer players are interesting.

3. That's between me and ADP.

4. FC Dirtbunny is not about the looks.

Hotness is not the reason for loving Gio. He's got charisma, but not beauty.

Gigi isn't exactly beautiful either, and I cannot condone that jacket unless he is poor and got it from a charity drive, which seems unlikely, somehow.

And beauty is not enough to get Marco Borriello a call-up. Did you know that doing a Google Image search on Borri is likely to turn up nekkid or half-nekkid photos of him and various females that are NSFW? Keep it clean, and do it at home.

5. Speaking of did you know, Did you know that pretty much all futbollers bear the unmistakable mark of the ancient broken nose? Go back and look for yourself. Even Borri. I guess they've all gotten smashed in the face with the ball at some point.

6. Yes, we did have weather last week.

Rather a lot of it.

But it was 75 degrees yesterday, and so it's all gone now.

7. Did you know that Yarn Bandit would much rather not go out in the snow. If you don't mind, he'd rather just pee on the rug, thank you very much.

8. On the other hand, Bunny's Special Sweetheart likes the snow. It's one of those few things that provokes actual frolicking. He has a little problem with the whole en fuego yeast infection again. He likes to lick his paws, and they're itchy because of the allergies, so he licks them a lot, which makes for a nice warm, damp home for little beasties to grow. So we thought it was gone, but then he licked new holes in his paws. So we put him in a donut, because he hates the satellite dish:

That was comfy enough, and it pushed his ears forward and made him even cuter than usual. But he could still reach the tops of his feet, if not the bottoms, and so the bottoms got better but he licked a new hole in the top of his foot.

Now he has a new and improved satellite dish that's padded and a little flexible, but keeps him from reaching his paws. He's OK with it, but he doesn't love it.

When we're around to watch him, we'll take it off him unless/until he starts up with the licking.

He can sleep in it even. And we have figured out how to get the medicine between his toes without traumatizing him or getting bitten. Ugh. This is a long-term issue for which the dish is not a very good solution, but first we still have to do the cancer thing.

He's totally worth it.

[I love him so much. *sobs*]

9. This week on The Amazing Race, it was a descent to the lowest common denominator as the contestants went to Siberia. First stop was a huge hydroelectric dam that appears on one of the ruble notes. Built during the Soviet era, it bore one of those giant propaganda posters so popular with the communists back then. Perhaps you recognize this guy:

His image provoked confusion on some teams. One team took a vote and decided that he must have been the guy who built the dam. Okay then.

Next, they had to unscramble a whopping six letters to reveal the name of a Russian playwright. I can name a bunch of Russian authors off the top of my head, but only one playwright. How about you?

Anyway, these are the letters: H V E K H C O

How to solve? How to solve? [muses, wonders]

I get stuck with those letters and I say, "Neato! I only know one Russian playwright and those are his letters." If you are The Man listening from the other room and you don't know what the letters are, you can guess the playwright's name by hollering out "It's Chekhov, isn't it?"

One team solved the puzzle by looking at the letters and saying "Chekhov. Everyone knows Chekhov."

One team solved the puzzle by thinking, "I hope it's Chekhov because that's the only Russian playwright I know."

One team solved the puzzle by thinking, OK Russian names end in sounds like "ski" and "ov." Seeing no letter combination that ended in "ski," they went with "ov" and worked backwards from there.

Every other team solved the puzzle by randomly guessing and trying for letter combinations that might make actual sounds.

The deaf guy had it rough because he didn't learn to read the way we all did (by associating the letters with sounds) and he strung together some fairly discordant letter combinations, but he still got it faster than some of the other teams.

This show used to be smart. sigh

10. Futbol = suffering (mostly)

[do you see the little broken nose bump up there?]

Champions League tomorrow. Don't call me. I'll be drunk-slash-busy.

Drink your way to efficiency

There's a round of Champions League this week. Today is the big day for the Bianconeri. ADP has been training "hard" in front of the press for the big game.




Bunny has to wait for The Man to come home from work so she can watch it. Fortunately, ESPN thinks that Chelsea is a big enough opponent to actually broadcast the game. I'll be busy tonight. Don't call me. Bunny HATES Chelsea. I'm all excited and upset. There will be imbibing tonight fer sher.


There was also imbibing last night as Bunny and The Man watched yesterday's Champions League matches. Did you know that, despite its alcohol content, eventually Bailey's Irish Cream goes bad, as in all clumpy and gross? You can drink it that way if you want, but I choose not to. In this phase of the Economy Plan, Dirtbunny is working through the liquor cabinet. Warm weather is coming, and that's when we stock up and make sure that we have enough gin, diet tonic water, tequila, and triple sec to make it through summer time. (I crack myself up. Last summer, we drank exactly zero G&T and zero margaritas. We have two big bottles of gin, two big bottles of tequila, four liters of diet tonic, and three opened bottled of triple sec.) Also, the holidays are another big drinking season for cognac and liqueurs, and it occurred to Dirtbunny recently that there's a lot of stuff in the liquor cabinet that has been around for a while.

"Liquor cabinet." Snerk. Actually, it's two plastic milk crates with bottles in them sitting on the floor of the coat closet.


Anyhoo, what's in there? Do we like any of it? We like the cognac. The good stuff is gone, so we need to replace that, but we won't until after we drink the second-best cognac. We need the Calvados and Amaretto because we bake with it. We like the Frangelico and the Cointreau and the Kahlua. The vodka stays. The rum stays. The peppermint schnapps? We drank that and probably won't get any more. Ditto on the Chambord, the Grand Marnier, and the Jagermeister. The Kirchwasser and the peach schnapps were repulsive. Why did I ever buy that in the first place? It went down the sink, along with the clumpy, curdled Bailey's. The only dubious bottle left in there now is the creme de cassis. I used to make a decent number of Kir cocktails, but I haven't done that in a long time. I'd rather just drink the wine instead. But it's there, all dusty and sticky, and I'll have to taste it because I can't just dump it without finding out if it's any good or not. And once that question is resolved, my liquor cabinet will be fully economized.


But tonight there will be no fucking around with questionable alcohol. Tonight is Chelsea v Juventus, and tonight I will be drinking something I like. I have discovered recently that, yesterday's trashing of Milan by drunken Manchester United fans notwithstanding, English soccer hooligans may be on to something. I am finding the ups and downs of the beautiful game much more bearable when I'm just a leetle toasted (although I must say my knitting suffers for it). Especially when Juve is playing. I'm sorry. We're all au courant with the lingo now, and all the broadcasters are from the UK, so the "correct" construction would be "when Juve are playing." Also, one does not guard or defend one's opponent, one "marks" him while wearing one's kit on the pitch playing for one's side during the fixture, etc. And speaking of UK broadcasters, they use vocabulary words that we don't get much here in the US of A once we are finished studying for the SATs. Yesterday's word was "discomfit." I KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! It was awesome. In the US of A, we use words like "gutty" and "homely," neither of which mean what the broadcasters think they mean.



Where was I? Before the tangents on drinking and language snobbery, I was trying to make a point about something. OH YEAH! I REMEMBER!

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

Our cable sports package is decent enough that I get to see pretty much all of my Azzurri boyfriends no matter which team they play on. Except one. Because he plays in France, poor bastard. But he plays for the best team in France (8 consecutive French championships), and they are in the Champions League this year, and they played Barca yesterday, which ESPN has deemed interesting enough to broadcast to American fans, so I got to see Fabi, and I adore him, so today he gets a call-up to FC Dirtbunny.


Here he is: Fabio Grosso, the world's best left back, indispensable Azzurri starter, and current star of Olympique Lyonnais:

Did Lionel Messi score a goal yesterday? No he did not. Why not? Because Fabi was defending him, that's why. How good is Fabi? Good enough to keep Lionel Messi from scoring, that's how good he is. And no futbol player on earth really needs to be better than "good enough to keep Lionel Messi from scoring." That's all the reason I need to put him on the team---oops, I mean side.

.

His hair is shorter now, but he used to wear it longer. Here he is from last summer, defending--oops, I mean marking---Rino during an Azzurri training session. Check out the trailing spiral curls.

OK, so there's a little mutual fouling going on there. This is futbol, not golf. You have to be tough. Fabi is tough. And tall.

And he rocks the stubble and the hair product, too. Pleeeeez come back to Serie A, Fabi, so we can actually get to see you play.

Dirtbunny is not a professional pastry chef

Oooooh my aching back. KP duty is done and I'm too tired to take a shower, so while my body unkinks itself, here's a bit of what Dirtbunny does on Christmas Eve.



Kirby is clean already, so no beagle bath today, thank God. Here he is enjoying himself (not) earlier in the week.





Yarn Bandit is in the Christmas spirit just fine. He's got his holiday toys all stacked up where they belong:

He's got his Big Santa and his Little Santa and his Hanukkah Harry. He is a rescue dog after all, and he stubbornly refuses to speak English, so we really don't know what his religious beliefs are. Clayton is of the tribe, so Yarn Bandit could be too for all we know.

We got him an elf suit that didn't fit too well, and he immediately took the hat off and tried to eat it, but here's your picture:

It's cute, but it also shows him rebelling against the exploitation of his cuteness, so I declare it a win/win. Kirby also has a holiday suit that neither fits him nor impresses him:

Wait. I was going to tell how I spent my Christmas Eve. OK. Well. I got up and knitted a repeat on the July Sock Club sock and started to worry about the buche de noel. Then I read the paper and worried some more. Then I sent The Man downstairs to put the kitchen towels and aprons in the dryer so I could make the buche. And then they came out of the dryer so I had some toast and some tomato juice and I commenced with the buche, which I both dread and look forward to every year. It's a big fucking deal and it feeds nicely into my martyr complex, but nothing compares and it gives me quite a sense of accomplishment. So I made the cake base and, because it's a sponge cake, I made the meringue.

And I folded the base and the meringue together and put it in the patented pan and made The Man leave the house so his elephantine stomping around--I mean, his manly and purposeful stride--would not collapse the goddamn thing. Then it came out of the oven and I removed it from the pan and dusted it with confectioner's sugar and rolled it up in waxed paper and a damp towel.

Then I put together a Union Square Casserole for tomorrow's breakfast. USQ, as it is known Chez Nous (don't ask me where I got the Q from) is an old Washington Post recipe and it combines some of The Man's favorite foods--sausage and cheese--and he is allowed to squirt ketchup all over it, which he is not supposed to do with certain of Dirtbunny's creations. Anyway, USQ is pretty much layers of bread, grated cheese, and an onion-sausage-mushroom mixture, soaked in a savory custard overnight, and then baked the next morning. It is an excellent do-ahead sort of thing.

So we got that in the oven. And then I made a sweetened Cointreau reduction. And then I was tired and cranky so I went on the web to see if I had any readers. And apparently I have a new boyfriend who talks futbol with me. Which is cool. So I played with my new friend for a while, and then I sliced up and baked some Candied Fruit Slices:

While I did that, The Man started making penuche icing under my supervision. He is starting to learn that cooking is a lot of standing around stirring stuff and following instructions. When the CFS were done and the penuche icing base was done, I set the penuche aside to cool and commenced with the buche filling/frosting.

About this time I start thinking that I want a drink, but I don't have one. I have to make an Italian meringue and I need my wits about me. What is an Italian meringue? It's an unsweetened regular meringue to which one carefully whips in a simple syrup boiled to the soft-ball stage. How do you know when your simple syrup has reached the soft ball stage? Well, the old-fashioned way is to put a few drops in water and pull them out and see if they make the requisite soft ball, but that always seemed to me like a good way to permanently remove my fingerprints, so I just use a thermometer to heat it to the correct temperature and I don't remember what that is because I have to look it up every goddamn time because I am not a professional pastry chef. Once the simple syrup is added to the meringue, you beat it until it has cooled off.

This takes a while, so I hope you like the sound of Mr. Kitchen Aid Mixer running on high speed. While that is going, you need to make two cups of whipped cream, which I can do by hand with my big whisk when I'm feeling green, but I'm already tired today so I use the little portable mixer for that. And meanwhile, I break the 3/4 lb of chocolate into chunks, brew a pot of espresso, and melt the chocolate with the espresso. You can break the chocolate into bits by hand, or you can chop it, but the fun way to do it is to leave it in its wrapper, stack the bars nicely, and whack them repeatedly with a rolling pin.

God, that's fun. I wish I had to melt chocolate every day.

Are you keeping track? You are triple-tasking at this point: monitoring the big mixer with the cooling-off Italian meringue, whipping cream in the little mixer, and making sure the chocolate melts smoothly without turning grainy or burning. Did you know that if you burn the chocolate, no amount of sugar will make burned chocolate taste okay? Go on, ask me how I know.

So my Italian meringue is cool and shiny and firm and my cream is whipped adequately and my chocolate is melted, but sort of grainy, because Dirtbunny is not a professional pastry chef.

Beat the chocolate into the meringue--oops, I mean Italian meringue-- and then fold the whipped cream into that, and then scoop about two-thirds of what you have into a clean bowl and put it in the fridge to use as frosting later.

It is time to fill the buche, so get it out and unroll it.

FUCK FUCK TRIPLE FUCKETY FUCK!

Too soggy. It broke. Dirtbunny, it appears, is not a professional pastry chef. Deep breath. [Later, as I write this, it occurs to me that I could have had a drink at this point, but that did not occur to me in the moment, so I faced it sober.]

I am pretty sure this has happened before and that it all comes together in the end if I'm careful, so I forge on ahead. I have eaten unfrosted birthday cake chunks from a bowl. I can do the same with a buche if I have to. Shit happens, especially to me.

So, Dirtbunny brushes the broken fucking cake with the sweetened Cointreau reduction. The Dirtbunny spreads the now even more soggy sweetened Cointreau reduction soaked broken fucking cake with the chocolate and cream enriched Italian meringue.

Then I carefully, carefully roll it up.

Then I carefully, carefully put it on the plate with the broken side down. And then I put the whole thing in the fridge on the theory that, if the filling gets cold and therefore firmer, it will help seal the cracks and hold the broken fucking cake together.

And then Bunny has a sandwich.

And then Bunny puts confectioner's sugar in the penuche icing base and frosts the spice cake. The frosting does not want to stick to the cake so by the end, Dirtbunny is throwing wads of frosting at the sides of the cake like wads of wet toilet paper hurled at the bathroom ceiling and patting it down with her hands. It is done. Dirtbunny smooths it down as much as she can, but it is yoogly. Dirtbunny is not a professional pastry chef and cares a lot more about how it tastes than the presentation, but this is a little much. Sigh. It can't be helped, so it goes in the fridge and we return to the buche.

Retrieved from the fridge, the buche has not collapsed, which tells me that the cold-filling-as-glue science experiment has worked sufficiently. Furthermore, the filling I set aside in the fridge to use as frosting is firm enough that I don't need to stiffen it up with cocoa. So we are ready to go. Carefully, carefully spread the frosting on in long strokes. Looking good, looking good. Hey! It's holding together! Excellent! Trowel on the rest of it and use the spatula to make bark-looking marks in it because a buche is a log after all.

There you go! Not bad for someone who isn't a professional pastry chef. And it all goes in the fridge until tomorrow when it will be EATEN. Arrrrr!

That, my friends is the face of deprivation and injustice. So sad. No chocolate taste-tests for beagles. He liked the cake batter, though. No chocolate in there.

One last thing: sauteed apples. I am not going to want to make these tomorrow morning, so I do them now while The Man starts cleaning up my mess. Granny Smith apples cooked in butter until they are soft but before they disintegrate into applesauce, then add some brown sugar, some cinnamon, and a generous glug-glug-glug of Calvados and cook that quickly until the sauce is kinda syrupy and then you're done. At last.

And so The Man and Dirtbunny put the last of the food into the fridge and we clean up the kitchen and he does the dishes, and I wash my hands really well and put some hand cream on and it's time to turn on the Christmas lights.

And when I'm done here, I am going to get myself clean and spend the rest of the evening on the sofa with a glass of spirits and some seasonally-appropriate music and some beagles and yarn. And I'll make oyster stew, but that's just heating stuff up on the stove. And then back to the sofa.

I leave you with a gift from the Old Man, who sent me this a while ago:

This photo, circa 1920, shows three generations of my family in the feed store my family had back then in the town in upstate New York where I was born, my parents were born, and my grandfather was born. The little gentleman in short pants is my grandfather, who has been gone for a while now. The handsome fellow with his feet up on the counter is my grandfather's father, who died before I was born. My grandfather grew up to resemble his father quite closely. The older fellow in the work coveralls on the left is my grandfather's grandfather, Garrison Gillespie, born in 1852, who came to the United States with my great-great grandmother Kate sometime in the late 19th century. We all come from somewhere. This is where I come from.

Merry Christmas.

Random Friday

1. Today we got a form letter from our mortgage-holder informing us that they are solvent and secure and everything is hunky-dory yessireebob. Which is an odd letter to get, if you ask me. Didn't Enron send out similar rosy notices to somebody right before it collapsed? We had no reason to think our mortgage holder was in trouble. Hmmmmm.
2. Kirby got his stitches out this week and saw the oncologist today. Happily, his form of cancer is only rarely fatal, although it can cause problems and it would be much better if he didn't have it. It's possible that the surgery did the trick and it won't come back, buts odds are that it will comeback eventually. So we will be doing radiation treatment after the holidays. But we can all breathe a little more freely now.
3. By the way, just because you went in to the vet for sore paws and the vet saw cancer unrelated to the sore paws doesn't mean that he sore paws will automatically go away. In fact, if the reason for the sore paws is an untreated yeast infection in between the pads, then the paws will probably get worse while you're off being distracted by cancer and amputations and whatnot. So now poor Kirby has a RAGING EN FUEGO yeast infection. The treatment is frequent cleaning between the pads with medicated wipes. It hurts. Kirby squirms and shrieks and gives me warning bites when I'm doing it. I feel like shit over this, which is only fair and just because if I weren't neglectful in the first place, I would have noticed the problem before it got to this point. He's suffering because of me, and my punishment is that the only way he gets better is if I torture him by cleaning his feet.
4. We bought a fake Christmas tree this year. It is still in its box, sitting there, taunting me. You're lazy and behind schedule! You're lazy and behind schedule!
5. Q: If Dirtbunny has a virus that won't go away, how many days will it take for The Man to catch it? A: 61 days
6. Q: Say three nice things about President Bush. A: one--I know you are trying to be all tough in public and pretend that you have no doubts, questions, or regrets about anything you did while in office, but I believe that in your heart of hearts, you know you have made mistakes. two--Thank you for closing the government on December 26. three--Sorry. I only got two.
7. Did you know that even if you give Yarn Bandit an extra evening potty break about half an hour before bedtime, you still have to give him his regular potty break immediately before bedtime or he will wee in the house during the night?
8. If Yarn Bandit is going to go in the house in the middle of the night, whether he goes #1 or #2, he invariably does it in the bathroom. This is not ideal, but at least we can toss the bathroom rug in the wash. Isn't there something interesting about that? It's as if he knows that this is the place where we go when we have to go in the middle of the night.
9. Big knittings-on happening here, but you will have to wait. Typing time takes away from knitting time.

Dirtbunny's Fifty Things You Maybe Didn't Know (or Want to Know) About Christmas Chez Nous

1. It's not Christmas without Candied Fruit Slices!
2. The Man and Dirtbunny always get stressed out and argue when putting up decorations. She is a bossy nitpicker who should just do it her own damn self if she's going to be that way, and he is incompetent, do it the same way we did it last year, how can you not remember?
3. Dirtbunny wants to buy The Boys lots of toys, but they don't care about toys, so she doesn't bother.
4. The Man always wants the same thing for Christmas: Books, CDs, and ties.
5. Dirtbunny does not go to Tysons Corner Center in December unless she is trying to trigger an anxiety attack severe enough to kill her, which she isn't trying to do, thanks for asking.
6. Dirtbunny is tired of taking her knives to be sharpened. (Hey! Free Shipping!)
7. On Christmas morning Chez Nous, we have homemade cocoa and a special breakfast casserole with sausage, cheese, and mushrooms. Some years, Bunny makes cinnamon rolls, too.
8. Dirtbunny is not very good at wrapping presents.
9. Yarn Harlot has a new book.
10. A few years ago, Bunny took a nap instead of making Christmas dinner. We had Christmas dinner on Boxing Day instead.
11. We have had one white Christmas since we moved into Chez Nous in 2000.
12. Kirby is afraid of the Christmas tree for the first few days.
13. Christmas presents are for opening Christmas Day, not Christmas Eve.
14. Dirtbunny loves Midnight Mass, except that it starts about 4 hours past her bedtime. The best Midnight Mass ever was the time Bunny and The Man and The Man's Mother and Bill went to Midnight Mass at the St. Thomas More Cathedral and when it was over and we came out, the sky was crystalline with stars and there was a full moon.
15. When it comes to Christmas music, the cheesier the better. This one is my favorite. When you listen, you can practically see the sweater-wearing backup singers in their groovy hairdos doing their little 60's variety show dance moves. Good times.
16. "The Little Drummer Boy" makes Dirtbunny cry, so we fast forward through that one.
17. Fruitcake does not suck unless you make it wrong. Even so, a little goes a long way.
18. The little pannetones they have for sale in the supermarkets are mostly packaging and not much cake, plus aren't very good any way. Save your money.
19. Knitters want yarn for Christmas, no mater how much yarn they already have. Dirtbunny very much wants to make this sweater for herself, in the largest size, in a nice pink, or icy blue, or bright red. Did you know Bunny always gets one extra ball of yarn because she is a loose knitter?
20. Did you know The pattern for the sweater that Dirtbunny wants actually contains a link to the U.K. source for the yarn to make the sweater?
21. Did you know that Dirtbunny's birthday is in January? Stuff that can't be shipped in time for Christmas makes a great birthday present.
22. What's for dinner on Christmas Eve? Oyster Stew.
23. When she unwraps a present, Dirtbunny wads up the wrapping paper and flings it wherever. It looks festive for a while and we can clean it up later. The Man likes to compulsively clean up the paper right away, because he's weird. This leads to arguments.
24. Dirtbunny has started to appreciate "It's a Wonderful Life" but she still hates fucking Zuzu and her fucking petals.
25. Did you know that if you go to a yarn store with a pattern for a sweater and say, "Dirtbunny wants enough yarn to make this sweater in this size plus one extra ball in pink or red or icy blue and the yarn should not be acrylic and should be softer than Cascade 220 and it should show off the cables nicely" the yarn store people will not only be thrilled to help you, but will tell stories for eons about that nice guy who came into the store to buy yarn for his wife and they will all wish they had someone to buy yarn for them?
26. Since you been away dear, no reindeer will play here, so HURRY HOME FOR CHRISTMAS, DON'T STOP UNTIL YOU GET HERE, YEAH! Can't you just see Steve and Eydie? Steve's newscaster hairdo and Eydie's bouffant?
27. Chez Nous, we like to start drinking as soon as the cocoa is gone, and we keep going all day.
28. There must be a fire in the fireplace on Christmas day, and it's best if it's a cloudy or rainy day so you can see the lights better.
29. Don't forget the stocking stuffers! Dirtbunny went to all the trouble to make beautiful Christmas stockings, so they should have stuff in them when she wakes up on Christmas morning.
30. Lighted plastic creche scenes on the front lawn are an abomination. Every time I see one, I'm tempted to stop the car, get out, and smash it with a baseball bat. I mean really. If you can think of anything that is more of an unintentionally ironic anti-Christmas statement than a life-sized Baby Jesus made of plastic with a light bulb up his ass, then I would like to know what it is so I can look at my crazy neighbors more charitably.
31. Ultimate Christmas dessert: homemade Buche de Noel
32. Tiki knows that there is chocolate in the advent calendar, but he can't get at it. As far as we know.
33. If you love The Man, you will make him airplane cookies in Air Superiority Blue and decorate them with patriotic sprinkles. But don't bother knitting him a cabled scarf in his favorite color. The Man has no need for a scarf.
34. Dirtbunny hangs onto slights and grudges for longer than is healthy.
35. Poor people need food, shelter, and warm clothing all year round, not just during the holidays, but they also need the small comforts that we take for granted, like hats and shampoo.
36. You DON'T NEED A TICKET, for Santa Claus's party.
37. There is lots of cool stuff at KnitPicks, like this, and this, and this, and they have gift cards so when I get around to those fair isle socks I've been thinking about, I can get the sock yarn I want. And they have Yarn Harlot's new book.
38. It kind of doesn't matter what's for dinner on Christmas Day, because Dirtbunny might be too tired to cook anyway. Sometimes we have a turkey, sometimes we get a ham, sometimes we have a fancy beef roast, and sometimes we roast a chicken. But we usually have potage les doo champonies. Even if she isn't too tired to cook, we might be too full of cookies and alcohol to enjoy dinner.
39. Candy canes are never as good as I think they are going to be.
40. Dirtbunny was going to say that anyone who goes shopping on the day after Thanksgiving or the day after Christmas deserves whatever happens to them, but then she remembered that people actually got stampeded to death by the horde this year. No one deserves that. Bunny worked retail. No way she is going shopping on those days. No fucking way.
41. Two words: Egg. Nog. It now comes in lowfat, and Silk makes a regular and a lowfat soymilk version that is quite tasty.
42. Dirtbunny very much would like her cold (it is now day 65) to be gone by Christmas, if not sooner.
43. We hate "Feliz Navidad." The song, not the expression. Sorry, but we do.
44. Dirtbunny likes to get her "shopping" done way early, and online if possible, because she hates crowds and wants to enjoy the holidays by spending them at home with loved ones, not in line with shoppers. The Man starts shopping as soon as it occurs to him that Christmas is, indeed, coming this year. We usually don't see very much of him from December 22-24, and when he comes home he yells "DON'T COME OUT HERE YET" and he's grumpy.
45. Bunny doesn't order yarn for herself in December any more, because when it arrives, The Man is likely to intercept it and wrap it up as if he bought it for her as a Christmas present.
46. One of our local channels shows "Ben Hur" with no commercials during the day on Christmas Eve. If you didn't know, "Ben Hur" is about 18 hours long and is full of homoerotic longings that one might not expect to see in a movie that's sort of about Jesus. Of course, I feel confident in saying that Jesus is gay-friendly, so I don't know why homoerotic themes would be particularly out of place in a Jesus movie. If you are going to watch and you don't have means to pause it, then take a bathroom break before it starts.
47. I wish that the "Kiss Saves Christmas" special that they "excerpt" in one of the Family Guy episodes was real. That's a show I'd like to see.
48. The best Christmas present little Dirtbunny ever got as a child was a plastic cement mixer. Her brothers got trucks and she wanted one too. You could put stuff in the drum and spin it around. Awesome!
49. The Old Folks have a photo of my nephews Peter and Henry from when they were still babies, and they are wearing striped pajamas on Christmas morning, green and white on one of them, and red and white on the other. Perhaps this isn't charitable of me, but I always thought they looked like inmates at the North Pole Federal Correctional Institute in those pajamas.
50. Bunny's favorite Christmas song (for fun) is the Andy Williams version of "Happy Holidays/The Holiday Season." Her favorite carol (for serious) is "O Holy Night."

Did you know

Kirby has just finished his Saturday-afternoon bath (I know, I know, it's Tuesday night and we made him wait and he was extra super itchy because of our laziness) and he is enjoying his post-bath rawhide, which means he's tearing around high on dog crack. And that made me think of this:


Did you know that each closet and cabinet door in your house makes a unique sound? The closet where we keep the dog food and the dog treats and the cartons of soy milk and the bottles of seltzer water and the vacuum cleaner bags sounds exactly like the closet where The Man keeps his shirts. But The Boys know the difference.



They never come running for a nice clean, crisp dress shirt.

Yarn Bandit Steals Treats from Dirtbunny

Let us begin with some important background facts before we get into our story.

1. Tiki is a ho.


2. He is especially a ho when it comes to food.


3. Bunny sometimes has a bedtime snack.


4. If Bunny has a bedtime snack, it frequently is chocolate.


5. Chocolate is bad for dogs.


6. A little bit of chocolate is not a problem for dogs.


7. A lot of chocolate is fatal to dogs.


8. In between "so what?" and "OMG I killed my dog" is a spectrum of various degrees of illness that can include vomiting, diarrhea, panting, hyperness, and cardiac-type symptoms that one would associate with being hyped up on uppers. Hyped up on uppers? That doesn't sound right. Forgive me if I'm not up on the most current drug slang.


9. At what point the amount of chocolate becomes enough to make your dog sick or kill him depends on the size of your dog, the amount of chocolate consumed, the nature of the chocolate itself, particularly the concentration of cocoa (milk chocolate being pretty tame-which you chocolate lovers already knew--and unsweetened chocolate being at the top of the list), and who knows what idiosyncratic characteristics of your dog.


10. Because of #9, it is very difficult to determine exactly where the lines between sick/well and live/die are, no matter how much time you spend googling it. (Ask me how I know.)
    
11. Did you know that the key chemical component of chocolate that is bad for dogs (I forget what it is, but it isn't the caffeine) has a half-life of 17.5 hours?

And so one night last week, Dirtbunny makes herself a leetle bedtime snack. She pours herself a glass of milk. She gets out a small bowl. In the bowl she puts four Hershey's kisses, a brownie with hazelnuts, and a few squares of G&B 70%. (For reasons which will soon become clear, if you haven't figured it out already, Bunny spent a lot of time trying to remember exactly how many squares of G&B 70% she put in that bowl. Maybe 6. Probably 4. No more than an ounce, cuz the whole bar is 4 oz and it was way less than a bar. As for the brownie, the whole batch had 4 oz. of Ghirardelli unsweetened, and this was probably about 1/16th of the batch, probably, so that's a quarter ounce. And how many kisses exactly? Are you sure it was four? What if it was five? How much do five kisses weigh? Wait a minute! Are hazelnuts the nuts that are bad for dogs or was it macadamia nuts? Gaaaaaaah!) Bunny carried her bowl of chocolate and her glass of milk to her room.

Oops! Still have to go. Don't wanna take my snack in there with me. (Pretty much all of us have fetishes about taking food into the bathroom, right? It's not just me, right?) Gotta put it down somewhere. I intend to eat it in bed, but I don't wanna put it down on the night table because Yarn Bandit has a proven ability to get at things left on the night table.

So I put it across the room on a tall table with nothing adjacent to it that can be used for climbing, and, importantly, no known past security breaches. And my snack is safe, and I go have some alone time, the details of which I will not mention. I will, say, however, that while I was having my alone time, I heard some chomping, slurping noises, but I assumed that was our resident paw-licker, the Baron von Kirbenstein, because that's what he does every night.

You have already guessed what happened next.

Somehow, and don't ask me how because I've been mulling this over for a long time and haven't figured it out, the bowl of treats is no longer on the table where I left it. It is face-up, in the dog bed. It is nearly empty, but not entirely. The tiny little hoser has eaten the brownie and the kisses and some of the 70%, but he has left three squares of the 70% behind. I don't know if he hated it (remember, he eats his own barf with gusto, so that doesn't seem likely) or just didn't have time to finish it before he got busted.

The Man is consulted. We decide that we are not going to go to the Emergency Vet because we know that a little chocolate is no big deal and because Dirtbunny thinks she remembers reading somewhere that a 50-75 pound dog ate a two-pound bag of M&Ms and just got sick but didn't die and we did a little quick and dirty math and calculated (Ha! as if it was that scientific) that he might get sick but probably, probably, wouldn't die. He'll barf a little, we said. Maybe he'll get the poops, we said. It'll be OK.

The Man was confident about this, but Bunny is a hypochondriac and Could. Not. Let. It. Go. We went to work the next day, where Bunny proceeded to spend a lot of time, and (don't tell her boss) I mean a lot of time, on the Interweb trying to determine whether she had killed her dog by negligently, or maybe with reckless disregard, giving him access to chocolate. Or maybe it was knowingly. She knows he's a ho and a thief. She knows chocolate is bad for dogs. Oh Boy. Jack McCoy is going to get her but good.

I am happy to say that, with the exception of a few hours of acting hyper and obnoxious (which earned him some crate time), our little sun worshipper was fine. No barfing or pooping, nothing scary, just a little bit wound up for a little while. Scared the crap out of Dirtbunny, though. She is relieved that she is not going down on felony dog-abuse charges, and she is relieved that Tiki is not dead. Or sick. But especially not dead.

Whew.

If worry-wort was an Olympic sport, Dirtbunny would be a serious medal contender.

Now here's an advanced-level math problem. Given what is described above about the estimated amounts and nature of chocolate consumed, a half-life of 17.5 hours, and assuming a canine weight of 26 pounds, did the Yarn Bandit eat enough chocolate to (a) get sick or (b) die and (c) how long before we know and (d) if he did get sick, how long before he's better? It's an open-book quiz, so feel free to use the full power of the Interweb in arriving at your answer.

Sure, you know the answer now, but what if you had to figure it out before you knew for certain how it ended? What if you had to second-guess your decision not to seek immediate medical attention? How confident would you be about your answer under those circumstances?