Bread and more

These are a pair of nice-looking loaves, aren't they? Too bad they're not really that nice to eat. One is regular bread for crumbs, and the darker one is mock pumpernickel. I had some of that toasted for breakfast, some with tuna for lunch, and the rest is in the oven becoming croutons to have with the split pea soup I'm also making. It was pretty dry and dense aroung the edges. I can now make pretty loaves that don't rise to ridiculous heights with holes all throughout, but I still can't make them edible. What you can't see on those pretty loaves is the evidence I found this morning. I put them in plastic bags on the counter overnight, and this morning I discovered that someone had flang a fang into one, right through the bag. Many little holes, nibbled crust. Stupid cat. It might be the same one who licks plastic bags for no particular reason, or the one who believes that everything edible in the house is rightfully hers. I also have a piece of beef in the crockpot with some onions, so it smells like Grandmommy's house. There will be no limas, however. This is my weekend cooking orgy so I have decent food during the week. If the boy doesn't like it he can eat Spaghettios.

I took the boy out to get Christmas presents today, and actually bought myself something I didn't need. It probably helped that I wasn't spending my own money - I had a gift card from my last co-op. I got CDs of Leonard Bernstein's Candide and his Beethoven's 9th. Barbara Cook's soprano makes the hair stand up on my neck, it's so good. And you can even understand the words, unlike opera singers.

Parking lot story. I pulled in, 3 spaces from a cart return. Lady next to me, 2 spaces from the cart return, sails in with her full cart and bangs it into my car. While I'm sitting in it. Never pauses or looks. Unloads her stuff, bangs into my car again (leaving a dent), then drives the cart around my car to park it 4 spaces from the cart return. Go figure. That one had me shaking my head all the way home.

Not much to report, but I'm trying to stay in the habit of writing. Just brain droppings, really. Oh, and the vanilla macaroni and cheese tasted fine - smelled like vanilla but didn't taste like it. Maybe make pudding with the rest of the rice milk. Weird stuff.

Ingredient FAIL

As I'm waiting for the gluten-free mac and cheese to finish in the oven, it smells like cake in here because the gluten-free Whole Foods unsweetened rice milk contains - vanilla. I thought I'd try rice milk because making mac and cheese with regular milk and forgetting to take a lactase pill makes me feel crappy. I tried LactAid milk, but apparently the active lactase enzyme can also break down cornstarch, so it doesn't thicken. Gluten-free, the rice milk said. Unsweetened, it said. Didn't look close enough at the ingredients, did I? Should be interesting. Either way I'm gonna eat it - not wasting all that cheese and all that good rice pasta.

As you can see, the boy is getting rather hairy. He wanted to grow it long and see what that's like, so I said fine as long as you take care of it. He looks like he came out of my high school yearbook. He has begun the heartbreaking struggle of high school social life - he likes a girl who does not like him that way. But she has a crush on a cartoon anime character that he resembles, so there's hope. How many times did we get our hearts stomped on during those years?

My former in-laws are ignorant cretins. But you knew that. Whenever we went there, it was excruciatingly boring for the kids and I, since there was no hospitality to speak of. No one cleared dolls off a chair for us. No one engaged us in conversations or seemed to be genuinely interested in us. No one checked to see if we were comfortable or in need of attention. The best the kids could do was wander off to the spare bedroom to watch a TV that wasn't tuned in to golf. Not much of a relationship to begin with, harder to maintain as the kids got older & had more interests of their own. Last week Ex bugged me to contact the girl (he can't seem to maintain contact with her himself, which is a whole story for another time) and have her call his parents. He had mentioned to us before that they believe she never thanked them for birthday gift. Okay, it's possible, also possible that she called and they just forgot. She agreed that she would be sure to apologize just in case she didn't. So she calls them, and they lambasted her for 10 minutes about what a bad grandchild she is, she didn't thank them, she never goes to see them, etc. Hello? Do they call her? Do they show any interest in her? Have they given her a reason to want to stay in touch? Do they understand that she has a full-time job, boyfriend, etc? She thinks her dad has been talking trash about her to them. Yes, she probably hasn't seen them since graduation, but she has been working the few times her dad went over there. I was so pissed at this. These people have done nothing to engender feelings of love or even obligation in these kids, other than overloading them with gifts. That family has never understood that material goods do not equal love. I'd be happy to never see them again. I'd love to tell her that she's 18, she can decided for herself how much contact to maintain, but I'll be the diplomatic parent and suggest she continue to make the effort, although what she will get out of it I can't imagine would be worth it. I have tried to be patient and civil with them, but it's just not worth it.

Rant over. In other news, I have finally bought a digital camera after the first one went missing, so I can show you the knitting projects I've done once I figure out how to put them here. Or just e-mail them. But for now, I'm going to go see what vanilla macaroni and cheese tastes like.