Joe and I are looking at our budget. We have put off this task for some time, as if by giving the budget some space, we felt it might be encouraged to spontaneously increase. This idea, like so many other great ideas throughout history -- the three-hot-dogs-a-day diet, for instance -- has proven to be tragically misinformed.
We noted that a generous amount of our income is spent on food.
"Those gluten-free foods of yours are not cheap," I said. "It's getting expensive to keep you. We might have to do some sort of fundraiser. Do you have any talents we can exploit?"
A few talents were named and/or demonstrated, after which it was decided that perhaps another financial solution should be pursued.
Joe suggested I start a business selling gluten-free baked goods. "There's not much out there," he said. "You could charge whatever you want."
"That's a great idea," I said. "Just one thing wrong."
"What?"
"I've never baked a single gluten-free thing."
"How hard can it be?" said the voice of wisdom. But the voice of wisdom has never looked at a gluten-free baked-good recipe.
I, on the other hand, have looked at several, which explains why I have not tried any of them. I ordered a cookbook sight unseen with some trepidation, expecting 189 ingredients in each recipe, with things I had never heard of that would involve extensive travel to locate ("You must use the Canniloris cocoa bean, which grows only in the remote Cannilora region of Huro-Kai-Shi, which is inhabited by cannibals. Shots are required before visiting, as we do not want to spread disease among the cannibalistic natives"). But when the book finally came, I realized that all my worry had been for nothing. The recipes contained only 67 ingredients each.
But although each recipe contains a mere 67 ingredients, each uses several other entire recipes from the book, so that you have to make those recipes first, with their 67 ingredients, in order to make the one you want.
A typical list of ingredients might include, among others, the following:
1 chocolate base (p. 79, first making cupcakes from p. 162)
1 cup chocolate sauce (p. 231, using directions from vanilla drizzle, p. 378)
2 cups chocolate crumbs (leftover from chocolate macaroons, p. 894)
rum-laced double chocolate sauce (see The New York Times cooking section, June 29, 1986, or possibly 1973)
This brings the total number of ingredients for a single recipe to about 1,497, and the amount of time required to make one item -- say, a basic chocolate cake -- from all these other recipes is so great that someone from the next generation will have to finish baking it, because I certainly will not be around to do so.
It is also very likely that this process of making several pre-recipes will result in your forgetting, at least temporarily, which recipe you wanted to make in the first place. So you find yourself with chocolate crumbs, some vanilla frosting, and a cup of roasted apples, but no idea what you were going to make with them.
And then there is the issue of equipment. There appears to be some law by which gluten-free foods cannot be made using standard-size bowls, pans, etc., but only with bowls, pans, etc. that are either 1-1/4 inch larger or smaller than the standard, and there can be no substitutions, or dire consequences may result. Like the gluten-free ingredients, this special equipment is not easy to locate, nor is it cheap if you are lucky enough to do so.
"How many mortgages do you suppose they let you take out on a house?" I asked Joe.
"Why?"
"Oh, no reason."
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
The ant solution
One of the worst things about dealing with ants -- or any other of "nature's friendly creatures" who are unaware that you do not consider the inside of your home to be part of their territory -- is going to the store to seek out a "solution." These solutions are usually found in the dingiest, scariest aisle of the store. And they always display prominently, on every side of the packaging, larger-than-life images of all the bugs the product is intended to dispose of.
These are creatures that have crawled right out of a Stephen King novel onto the package, and they stare at you, menacingly, as you try to read the instructions. You begin to imagine that you see them start to move. To crawl toward you. The millipede's legs are magnified 11,742 times, and they are all wiggling. You begin to itch uncontrollably, and finally you flee the store with whatever product happens to be closest at hand, and your spouse later wonders why you have brought home weed killer to unleash on the ants.
You tell your spouse, using certain words and gestures and tone of voice that will leave no doubt as to your meaning, that if he wants to go back to the store and enter that horror-filled aisle and have the bejeebies scared out of him by the bug pictures on the package, well, then, he is perfectly welcome to do so. But you will not.
This leads you to search out other solutions that do not involve such mental anguish, which coincidentally are generally more healthy for the environment as well, although you are not as concerned about the environment as with your own comfort.
So you sprinkle baby powder, which you have heard to be an effective device against ants and which does not portray horrifying figures on the front of the container, in a few strategic places. The ants merely go around it. You reason, with that keen intellect human beings have, that if something does not work, the solution is to try more of it. So you uncork the baby powder and pour it all over the house. Eventually it begins to seep out the windows, bathing the outside of your home in a powdery dust that when passersby breathe in, they are instantly bombarded with happy memories of their childhood.
At some point you forget about the ants, and why there is baby powder all over the house, because you really do not want to know if the ants are still there. So you sweep up the baby powder and forget all the unpleasantness that has been your lot.
Until the next invasion.
These are creatures that have crawled right out of a Stephen King novel onto the package, and they stare at you, menacingly, as you try to read the instructions. You begin to imagine that you see them start to move. To crawl toward you. The millipede's legs are magnified 11,742 times, and they are all wiggling. You begin to itch uncontrollably, and finally you flee the store with whatever product happens to be closest at hand, and your spouse later wonders why you have brought home weed killer to unleash on the ants.
You tell your spouse, using certain words and gestures and tone of voice that will leave no doubt as to your meaning, that if he wants to go back to the store and enter that horror-filled aisle and have the bejeebies scared out of him by the bug pictures on the package, well, then, he is perfectly welcome to do so. But you will not.
This leads you to search out other solutions that do not involve such mental anguish, which coincidentally are generally more healthy for the environment as well, although you are not as concerned about the environment as with your own comfort.
So you sprinkle baby powder, which you have heard to be an effective device against ants and which does not portray horrifying figures on the front of the container, in a few strategic places. The ants merely go around it. You reason, with that keen intellect human beings have, that if something does not work, the solution is to try more of it. So you uncork the baby powder and pour it all over the house. Eventually it begins to seep out the windows, bathing the outside of your home in a powdery dust that when passersby breathe in, they are instantly bombarded with happy memories of their childhood.
At some point you forget about the ants, and why there is baby powder all over the house, because you really do not want to know if the ants are still there. So you sweep up the baby powder and forget all the unpleasantness that has been your lot.
Until the next invasion.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Ants without a purpose
We have had reason lately to seek out remedies for dealing with ants -- about 563 reasons, which is the approximate number of ants that have moved in with us over the past few days. They have come uninvited and unannounced, and expect us to provide food, entertainment, bathing facilities, opportunities for meeting ants of the opposite sex, etc.
"At least that's one good thing about spiders," I told Joe. "When they come to visit, they don't bring 500 of their closest friends and relatives along."
Joe studied the ants intently, as he does all problems that require a solution, and announced that everything we have previously thought about ants -- that they are diligent workers, that they have extrasensory perception when it comes to finding sugar in one's house, that they are excellent line dancers, etc. -- does not apply to our ants.
"These ants have no idea what they're doing," he said. "They just wander around in different directions. No one's taking charge. There's no order. There's food around, but they've been here for three days and haven't found it yet." (Editorial note: Although it may sound this way, Joe is not actually advocating that the ants DO find our food.)
"This tells me something," he said.
"What does it tell you?"
"That these ants have no purpose."
So there you have it. We have been invaded by ants pursuing a Purposeless-Driven Life. Whatever their mission is, they have evidently chosen not to accept it, preferring instead a life of idleness and aimless wandering. They have not taken stock of their talents and abilities and pondered how they might put these to use for the good of the rest of the clan, like getting food so they can all survive.
The Purposeless-Driven Ants may not know enough to have located our mother lode of food, but they do know what not to touch: the ant traps. They look at the little white plastic mounds with their inviting entrances, entrances that whisper of hidden treasures within. The ants look at them, laugh, and go on their way.
"See?" I say to the ants, pointing to the picture on the package of ant traps. "This is what you're supposed to do. Crawl in the little holes, like this happy ant in the picture, and then go tell your queen what you found. I'm sure she'll want to know all about it."
The ants laugh some more. And continue to pursue their Purposeless-Driven Life.
"At least that's one good thing about spiders," I told Joe. "When they come to visit, they don't bring 500 of their closest friends and relatives along."
Joe studied the ants intently, as he does all problems that require a solution, and announced that everything we have previously thought about ants -- that they are diligent workers, that they have extrasensory perception when it comes to finding sugar in one's house, that they are excellent line dancers, etc. -- does not apply to our ants.
"These ants have no idea what they're doing," he said. "They just wander around in different directions. No one's taking charge. There's no order. There's food around, but they've been here for three days and haven't found it yet." (Editorial note: Although it may sound this way, Joe is not actually advocating that the ants DO find our food.)
"This tells me something," he said.
"What does it tell you?"
"That these ants have no purpose."
So there you have it. We have been invaded by ants pursuing a Purposeless-Driven Life. Whatever their mission is, they have evidently chosen not to accept it, preferring instead a life of idleness and aimless wandering. They have not taken stock of their talents and abilities and pondered how they might put these to use for the good of the rest of the clan, like getting food so they can all survive.
The Purposeless-Driven Ants may not know enough to have located our mother lode of food, but they do know what not to touch: the ant traps. They look at the little white plastic mounds with their inviting entrances, entrances that whisper of hidden treasures within. The ants look at them, laugh, and go on their way.
"See?" I say to the ants, pointing to the picture on the package of ant traps. "This is what you're supposed to do. Crawl in the little holes, like this happy ant in the picture, and then go tell your queen what you found. I'm sure she'll want to know all about it."
The ants laugh some more. And continue to pursue their Purposeless-Driven Life.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
The sanctity of hair
As we saw last week, I am always in search of the perfect hair. Thus far it has eluded me, but we women are hopeful souls, believing in that which we cannot yet see. We also hope, for instance, that someday our men will take out the trash without being reminded, and before it has achieved hazardous materials status.
But even though the hair I do have is less than perfect, it is no unloved stepchild. It is washed and dried and rolled and teased. It is sprayed with various products (no animals having been harmed in the process, although Joe insists that their use is harming HIM), then sprayed with additional various products in case the first various products were not sufficient. After this lengthy ritual has been completed, the last thing I want anyone to do is mess up my hair.
Early on, Joe endorsed this, not understanding that it applied to him.
He would blithely and freely try to touch my hair. He would get within several inches of it, arms outstretched, and then --
BEEP BEEP BEEP.
"What was that?" he would say, startled.
The hair alarm has sounded. You are too close to the hair. Please step away from the hair.
"But I just want to --"
Mayday! Mayday! Intruder will not retreat!
"Oh, forget it," he would eventually mutter.
Sacrosanctity successfully preserved.
But even though the hair I do have is less than perfect, it is no unloved stepchild. It is washed and dried and rolled and teased. It is sprayed with various products (no animals having been harmed in the process, although Joe insists that their use is harming HIM), then sprayed with additional various products in case the first various products were not sufficient. After this lengthy ritual has been completed, the last thing I want anyone to do is mess up my hair.
Early on, Joe endorsed this, not understanding that it applied to him.
He would blithely and freely try to touch my hair. He would get within several inches of it, arms outstretched, and then --
BEEP BEEP BEEP.
"What was that?" he would say, startled.
The hair alarm has sounded. You are too close to the hair. Please step away from the hair.
"But I just want to --"
Mayday! Mayday! Intruder will not retreat!
"Oh, forget it," he would eventually mutter.
Sacrosanctity successfully preserved.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Refusing to bloom
Ahhh, spring here in the East. The cherry trees have blossomed. The fragile white petals of the dogwood delight the senses. And the azaleas are in bountiful bloom, resplendent in pink and red. Every azalea, that is, except mine.
Mine are still mulling over the whole idea of blooming. Do we really want to come out there? It's cold and wet. Maybe we'll just stay tucked in here where it's nice and warm and dry.
And so while everyone else's bushes and trees are flowering, mine are in a state of perpetual budding. I have threatened to replace them with hydrangeas, but this has not been enough to coax them from their warm, dry place. I tell them that blooming is not optional. They just close their little buds tighter as if to ward off my voice, like a teenager who refuses to get out of bed.
And who can blame them? It has been gloomy and raining here for the past six months, it seems. It would not surprise me in the least to receive some divine instructions for building an ark.
That is the problem with spring. Spring promises a great many things -- warmer days, sunshine, buds and blossoms and blooms, green grass, full trees -- but it has a tendency to not deliver on these things. Oh, the grass is green, all right -- how could it be anything else with all this rain? But spring teases with a day or two of sunshiny bliss, then retreats somewhere far away, like Fuji. At least with winter, you know what to expect. Winter doesn't promise anything it can't deliver.
And so the azaleas happily sleep away most of the spring. Who knows if they will decide to bloom this year? But I do have a bumper crop of mushrooms.
Mine are still mulling over the whole idea of blooming. Do we really want to come out there? It's cold and wet. Maybe we'll just stay tucked in here where it's nice and warm and dry.
And so while everyone else's bushes and trees are flowering, mine are in a state of perpetual budding. I have threatened to replace them with hydrangeas, but this has not been enough to coax them from their warm, dry place. I tell them that blooming is not optional. They just close their little buds tighter as if to ward off my voice, like a teenager who refuses to get out of bed.
And who can blame them? It has been gloomy and raining here for the past six months, it seems. It would not surprise me in the least to receive some divine instructions for building an ark.
That is the problem with spring. Spring promises a great many things -- warmer days, sunshine, buds and blossoms and blooms, green grass, full trees -- but it has a tendency to not deliver on these things. Oh, the grass is green, all right -- how could it be anything else with all this rain? But spring teases with a day or two of sunshiny bliss, then retreats somewhere far away, like Fuji. At least with winter, you know what to expect. Winter doesn't promise anything it can't deliver.
And so the azaleas happily sleep away most of the spring. Who knows if they will decide to bloom this year? But I do have a bumper crop of mushrooms.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Good hair, bad hair
Joe knows the wail well, and dreads it. It is the wail of a woman having a bad hair day.
The wail rises to a crescendo and finally, amid mutters about the merits of wearing a hijab, collapses in a heap of despair.
"But your hair looks good to me," Joe says, grateful that the wailing has stopped but genuinely confused as to why it occurred in the first place, and concerned about the hijab comments.
"It always looks good to you," I moan.
Yes, we women want our men to always like how we look. But if they can't tell when our hair is a total catastrophe, it makes us suspicious as to whether they can truly appreciate it when it looks awesome.
"Someone needs to write a book for men showing pictures of 'good hair' and 'bad hair,' " Joe says impatiently, "because I sure can't tell the difference."
It is a great idea, if men could stay awake long enough to get through all the technicalities. As any woman knows, there can be subtle nuances that differentiate 'good hair' from 'bad hair' that would probably, even in picture form with little arrows and explanations, be lost on a gender that can take days, weeks even, to notice a slight change in one's hairstyle, such as that one is now blonde where one has always been a brunette.
One cannot necessarily differentiate bad hair from good hair by whether it has been styled by the individual herself or by a hair professional. In the book Joe is proposing, a picture of hair styled by an average, ordinary woman and the picture of the same hair styled by a talented hair professional for $400 per hair follicle may be the very same picture. In some cases these two photos may be followed by a third, which would reflect the woman having gone home after paying this small ransom to have her hair done, frantically undoing everything the stylist did, redoing it her own way, and ending up with exactly the same hair.
Browsing in a bookstore recently, I picked up a book about clothing styles. It had lots of pictures of the two authors, modeling what one should and shouldn't wear when one has certain unfortunate body imperfections.
"Look!" I said to Joe. I stabbed my finger at a picture in the book. "Look at her hair! I want that hair. I gotta show this to my stylist."
He looked closely at the picture. "So that's good hair?" he asked.
"That," I said, "is excellent hair."
The wail rises to a crescendo and finally, amid mutters about the merits of wearing a hijab, collapses in a heap of despair.
"But your hair looks good to me," Joe says, grateful that the wailing has stopped but genuinely confused as to why it occurred in the first place, and concerned about the hijab comments.
"It always looks good to you," I moan.
Yes, we women want our men to always like how we look. But if they can't tell when our hair is a total catastrophe, it makes us suspicious as to whether they can truly appreciate it when it looks awesome.
"Someone needs to write a book for men showing pictures of 'good hair' and 'bad hair,' " Joe says impatiently, "because I sure can't tell the difference."
It is a great idea, if men could stay awake long enough to get through all the technicalities. As any woman knows, there can be subtle nuances that differentiate 'good hair' from 'bad hair' that would probably, even in picture form with little arrows and explanations, be lost on a gender that can take days, weeks even, to notice a slight change in one's hairstyle, such as that one is now blonde where one has always been a brunette.
One cannot necessarily differentiate bad hair from good hair by whether it has been styled by the individual herself or by a hair professional. In the book Joe is proposing, a picture of hair styled by an average, ordinary woman and the picture of the same hair styled by a talented hair professional for $400 per hair follicle may be the very same picture. In some cases these two photos may be followed by a third, which would reflect the woman having gone home after paying this small ransom to have her hair done, frantically undoing everything the stylist did, redoing it her own way, and ending up with exactly the same hair.
Browsing in a bookstore recently, I picked up a book about clothing styles. It had lots of pictures of the two authors, modeling what one should and shouldn't wear when one has certain unfortunate body imperfections.
"Look!" I said to Joe. I stabbed my finger at a picture in the book. "Look at her hair! I want that hair. I gotta show this to my stylist."
He looked closely at the picture. "So that's good hair?" he asked.
"That," I said, "is excellent hair."
Monday, May 4, 2009
Not wanted: verbs
You may have been taught, as I was, that verbs are essential to one's conversation. I have learned from the man who runs my dry cleaners, however, that one is quite able to conduct a conversation with no verbs whatsoever. Our typical exchange when I drop off clothes at his establishment goes something like this:
Him: Hot today, eh?
Me: Hot, yes. But tomorrow, no.
Him: Tomorrow cold?
Me (nodding): Tomorrow cold. Wind. (simulate blowing)
Him: Ahhhh.
As with all newcomers just learning a second language, I am lost whenever the man attempts to speak in longer sentences. One day I wondered why it had been so hot in the store.
Me: Hot here. Why?
Him: (produces a string of words, none of which resembles any words I am familiar with, although I fancy that I hear "management," "crazy," and possibly a more colorful word)
Me: (blank look)
Him (with a longsuffering sigh): Air conditioning dead.
Me (brightening): Ahhh.
Our longest exchange to date came after Easter, when he ventured to ask what I had done to celebrate the holiday.
Him: You...nice Easter?
Me: Yes, thank you.
Him: You...party?
Me: Party?
Him: Party, yes. Eggs...grass.
Here he pantomimed looking for eggs, and gestured in the direction of the church behind the store. I gathered that there had been an Easter egg hunt there.
Me: Oh. No...no party.
He seemed disappointed at this, as if thinking he had finally figured out what the typical American did to celebrate Easter, and here I was claiming to not participate in this tradition. I hastened to clarify.
Me: But big dinner. Food, much.
Him (brightening): Ahhhh.
And so I would like to say a little something to my high school English teachers, who drilled into me the importance of using strong verbs to get my point across: "Verbs. No."
Him: Hot today, eh?
Me: Hot, yes. But tomorrow, no.
Him: Tomorrow cold?
Me (nodding): Tomorrow cold. Wind. (simulate blowing)
Him: Ahhhh.
As with all newcomers just learning a second language, I am lost whenever the man attempts to speak in longer sentences. One day I wondered why it had been so hot in the store.
Me: Hot here. Why?
Him: (produces a string of words, none of which resembles any words I am familiar with, although I fancy that I hear "management," "crazy," and possibly a more colorful word)
Me: (blank look)
Him (with a longsuffering sigh): Air conditioning dead.
Me (brightening): Ahhh.
Our longest exchange to date came after Easter, when he ventured to ask what I had done to celebrate the holiday.
Him: You...nice Easter?
Me: Yes, thank you.
Him: You...party?
Me: Party?
Him: Party, yes. Eggs...grass.
Here he pantomimed looking for eggs, and gestured in the direction of the church behind the store. I gathered that there had been an Easter egg hunt there.
Me: Oh. No...no party.
He seemed disappointed at this, as if thinking he had finally figured out what the typical American did to celebrate Easter, and here I was claiming to not participate in this tradition. I hastened to clarify.
Me: But big dinner. Food, much.
Him (brightening): Ahhhh.
And so I would like to say a little something to my high school English teachers, who drilled into me the importance of using strong verbs to get my point across: "Verbs. No."
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