Holy mother of God, I am not meant for domestication.
Yesterday morning, I marched into the back yard armed with the imperial (okay...practically indignant) decision that I would clean it up. It was now my turn to take some action and give a truly helping hand, rather than offer up my usual elaborate list of (albeit helpful) suggestions. Out I went in my shorts and t-shirt and pink clogs, two big brown bags and a pair of floral-print gardening gloves under my arm, hauling rakes and brooms and hoses for leaves and (leftover-from-winter) doggie droppings, toting paper towel and pungent (toxic?) Vim foam cleaner and old washcloths to wipe down the white wringer washer and green plastic (sigh...plastic) chairs. I hadn't taken three steps when I smashed the top of my head into the overhanging cherry tree (well, it's not really a cherry tree, but it reminds me of one, and cherry tree sounds so much more beautiful than, say, jack pine tree), setting off the wind chimes and causing a flurry of squirrel activity. Two steps later, a five-foot-long rose bush branch whipped across the back of my right leg, leaving five deep slashes from heel to thigh. As I reeled forward, then backward, I fell into another tree branch that left a poke-size indentation between my shoulder blades, all of which caused me to lunge forward again into the rose bush branch, this time cutting my right arm and the front of my left leg. I was a bleeding mess. As I raised my head in agony I smucked my head, hard, into the cherry tree, setting off the chimes again. I am almost embarrassed to say how long it took me to make the yard beautiful (five hours) or how badly I needed a chiropractor by the time I was finished. I did manage to save myself from broken bones, and I had a wonderfully detailed conversation with two chubby slugs that had made their home under the rotting sisal mat. They told me about their rugged winter and asked me what was in the offing for the Canadian economy. I sympathised, apologized for the dog droppings (at which point they looked at me aghast and said, "Apologize? Whatever for?!") and told them that I didn't think it mattered what was happening with the economy: we were all doomed. I have to tell you that my head ached until well past midnight, and I have leg gouges so deep that I am afraid the septicemia will bypass my limbs and rush straight to my heart.
Then, bloody and bruised, I decided to try an indoor sport. I took up the challenge that Splenda had offered me and began making a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Now I don't want to decry artificial sweeteners just yet, and there is every reason to suspect that I mucked up the recipe, but, an hour later as I stood staring at the hard biscuit-like masses of chocolate chip cookies, I knew I had to start again. I raced up to the computer trolling for recipes, and spent another twenty minutes poring over my Pillsbury baking book. This time, I thought, I will try an entirely new recipe -- one calling for both shortening and butter. I am not sure why I thought that all that extra fat would help (mirror mirror on the wall...), but it wasn't long before I realized that something had gone dreadfully wrong. The cookies came out of the oven floating in a bathtub of oil. Worse, they had expanded to the size of small Frisbees, each one interlocking with the other. When I tried to disengage them, they drizzled through my fingers and piled at my feet in slippery liquid globs. As it turns out, I had used the fluid measure for the fat instead of the dry measure, and at that point did not realize that if a person cooks with Splenda she ought to reduce the sugar requirement by half. In other words, one cup sugar = 1/2 cup Splenda. I couldn't even tempt the cats with a "Here kitty kitty! Look -- treats!" I don't know how long I stood there, although by that point the day was well into early afternoon and I had not even showered. Third times the charm, I said to myself, and another trip to the computer with some appropriate questions cleared up a few more mysteries. But just in case I had missed something, I decided to switch from chocolate chips -- many of which had fallen off the previous batches and had hardened into the floor -- and turn to the ever-reliable oatmeal. The recipe promised that I could make 62 golf-ball sized edible delectables, but I am sad to say that, despite my careful rendering, only about 44 cookies resulted, most of them wan and small and a little lost-looking.
As a true test of cookie fortitude, I tossed a light jacket overtop my pajamas (don't ask) and ran across the street to our neighbour and friend, Mike, offering up some samples. (He has since replied with several useful suggestions, although I don't think he will be baking with artificial sweeteners any time soon.) My only consolation as I sit here is that some (not all...but some...) of the people who treated me poorly throughout my younger life were excellent cooks. They could whip up a soufflé in the time it takes most of us to turn on the oven, and their blueberry popovers were to die for. Their roses bloomed happily and graciously, their tiny colourful faces turned sweetly toward the sun, and nary a stick nor a stray branch tripped up so much as the lowliest child. It seems, however, that all of this domestication is to elude me. I am not entirely sure why -- I do try -- but I understood with painful finality the depth of my hopelessness when I walked out of the kitchen a few minutes ago and slipped on the oily chocolate mass that now blankets the floor, falling backwards into the baking pans on the counter, sending two dozen or so biscuit-hard cookies flying into the air. As I flailed about in an attempt to grab whatever I could, I caught sight of the flaming red streak creeping belligerently up my leg and figured if that doesn't kill me first, the cookies surely will.
<:^)
