Trifecta Week 78, Arthurian Fashion: A Discussion (of Sorts)

                We are at our favorite restaurant.  The waitresses’ skirts are all at least two inches shorter than the aprons they wear, which is one reason Arthur loves it.  “I think I’m in love,” he says, leering.

                “Which one?  The one whose thighs meet at the knee?”

                “No, the one with the tube socks pulled up.”

                I look.  “She’s got a plastic flower in her hair.”

                Arthur shrugs.  “I’m a sucker for tube socks..  Oh yeah, and remember that girl in my class?  The one with the retainer?”

                I remember.  He had shown up at my house a week before, prancing.  It’s a revolting activity for anyone, but particularly nauseating when performed by a thirty year old single man.  “She has a retainer, that’s almost as cool as braces,” he had reported gleefully between prances.  “I’m so going to make her date me.”

                “How’s the romance of the Orthodontic World going?”  I say now, squeezing a lemon into my iced tea.

                “Well, I’m not asking her out after all because I found out she’s lactose intolerant.”  He picks up his menu and studies it.  “Do you think the steamed vegetables will have cauliflower?  I hate cauliflower.”

                “You’re seriously not asking her out because of that?”

                “Of course.”

                “And you accuse me of harboring phobias and quirks?”

                “You were the one who rejected a guy for leaving his participles dangling.  God, you're pedantic.”

                “”I’m not dating a dangling-participler.  And before you even bring him up, we will not address the man with split infinitives.”

                “I don’t care if a girl communicates in grunts and obscene gestures, as long as she can eat cheese with me.”

                “Ah, the romance of cheese.”

                “In fact I’d almost prefer that she exclusive uses obscene gestures, now that I think about it.”

                “I can’t believe you’re so prejudiced you won’t go out with someone because she can’t have dairy.”

                “It’s important.  Yes, even more than retainers.”

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Sorry, dude.

For this one?  Totally crossing the streams.  I am sorry if it doesn't meet up with expectations.

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It's the Staff of Life, People.

The thing about our E-Z Bake Oven we have squatting in our luxurious studio flat is that:
1.  It has only three working burners, which are the burner size of...;
2.  Since Keebler Elves are clearly its target purchasing demographic, it fits a standard cookie sheet pan...if you don't go for highfalutin' extras like edges;
3.  If you have the oven on, do not expect the bottom right of the aforementioned 3 burners to work, because clearly you are expecting too much out of life;
4.  The vagaries of its oven temperature and my oven thermometer are constantly in the kind of d'accord usually found after treaties are signed and both sides figure out that the other one was compromising in a way they never intended to honor, but before each one has deteriorated to open "suck it, sideways" hostilities;* and,
5.  Its constantly-burning pilot light makes a ROCKING dough-proofer.

This doesn't mean I don't want to set it on fire, constantly.  Or suspect that it wants to do the same to me.  Believe me, the kitchen rant is coming.  And when that rant comes, I want none of the following to detract from its well-deserved kick in the metaphorical Y, wherever an oven's Y is found.

But...I can't afford a proofer.  Not monetarily, not counter-wise (I can't afford the room or the Union Dues for three tapdancing Smurfs, counter-space-wise, if we're being honest, here).  I want a proofer, just because I get into these bizarre obsessions and naturally assume that nobody, EVER, has gone through this same thing.  The people at The Fresh Loaf?  I love 'em; I stalk 'em; I am intimidated as HELL by them.  I am a novice and a dilettante once again on the home ground of people who have spent their whole lives learning to do what I want to do maybe one or two afternoons a week.

We also are looking to save money; newlywed under a year, I bake our bread.  ALL of our bread, barring the occasional Sunday-eating-what-we-want splurge or the JedI bringing home a treat from the restaurant.  I try all kinds of recipes, and am a huge, huge, HUGE fan of http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/.  Sweet crunchy cracker, is it gorgeous, and seriously?  No kneading?  WHY DID WE GET TO KNEADING AS A SPECIES, ANYWAY?!**

So tonight, as I made a bread that totally decided on its own to be a total ahole, the only thing that made me want to not slice open the dough and bewail its lack of entrails, was that my E-Z Bake Oven does appear to be every bit as forgiving and possibly a bit more maternal than the mini-cake packs, icing-pack debacles, and neighbors whose parents clearly make more than yours and give you really awesome shit like an E-Z Bake Oven.

I loathe my E-Z Bake Oven.  It is a total dick, and anybody who says differently heats up those Ramen packet noodles and doesn't even bother to put butter on them and sprinkle the seasoning packet over it.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate.

*A great deal more on this in an upcoming post.  The oven, not the treaties not honored.  I have no effect upon world politics, less so over my personal domain which includes the aforementioned rat bastard oven, as well as a cat that thinks, well, exactly like a cat.

**Is this simply people trying to make people who haven't the patience necessary to knead something making everybody else feel like an asshole, thereby assuring job security?

Four Calling Birds (Are Too Many) Trifecta Challenge Week #75

     "YOU WILL BE PLEASED TO KNOW," I informed my husband via text, "That I believe I have  identified That Bird."
     "I am so proud of you, honey," he said as he walked in the door that night.  "I can't believe it.  How many online birdsongs did you have to listen to?"
     "No clue."
     "Over twenty?"
     "Easily."
     "So now what?"
     "I've already scoped out my sniper's nest.  But first I need to make myself a gilly suit."
     "I know how to make a gilly suit," he volunteered, deliberately oblivious to the hilarity that should have ensued at the mental image of a woman in a gilly suit sitting in a bay window on the second floor of a converted whorehouse in California.
     That Bird first became known to me during a bout of insomnia.  As I lay there in the predawn light, listening to its monotonous ‘twoo-whoo’  that surely had to stop sometime soon, surely, it will stop, I had no idea at the time that this bird was to become a nemesis.  Later, I charitably thought it must have just been a transient bird, and that of course it would move on and we could also move on to other irritants, like the neighbor’s tetchy car alarm or the midnight crazies of our cat, Feral Fawcett. 
     One week later, I elbowed my husband in the ribs.  “That bird,” I announced, “is an asshole.” 
     “It’ll quiet down,” he said sleepily, no doubt mentally wishing his wife would do the same.
     Six weeks later that dream has also died, for both of us.  The offender has been (in theory) identified, the plans have been laid, the doors of retribution kicked wide as a practice maneuver for when I find the bird and kick it in the tailfeathers.
     I’m on to you, some-type-of-dove.  For now, I have your real name.  It’s Latin.  And it’s Assholus Maximus.  Until we meet on the playing field…oh, yes.  Until then.

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