Williams Sonoma Can Suck It

I was reminded this weekend of why I don’t ever make Christmas cookies. Ever.

Partly it’s because of my status as the The Laziest Person Alive®. Good lord, cookies take a lot of time and effort. Make the dough, roll the dough, cut the dough, bake the cookies, make the frosting, frost the cookies, blah blah blah. I even cheated and relied on good ol’ Pillsbury for the dough, and it still took 2-3 hours for these damn things. Oy vey.

But the main reason I don’t make cookies is because I totally suck at it. Despite the greatest of intentions and creativity, my cookies never turn out on the plate as awesome as they look in my head.

This recent attempt at cookies was prompted by a gift a received for Administrative Professional’s Day. My team clearlyknows me well and loves me, because instead of flowers or some other stereotypical gift, they gave me Star Wars stuff. Which made me squee in the restaurant, but I’m used to embarrassing myself. And it was Buffalo Wild Wings, so they’re used to hearing all sorts of weird noises coming from people so I wasn’t overly concerned.

Here’s what my lovely teammates gave me as a thank you for all my hard work throughout the year:

Oh, yes. I am so loved.

They also gave me the cupcake stencils, which I’m betting are infinitely easier to use with a much better outcome. Just guessing.

I’ve had these for a few weeks now, but life has been so chaotic that I just haven’t had time to do anything with them. This weekend, I had a few hours of openness, and I had promised my class I would bring cookies for their final, so I went to town.

Let just say, expectations were high. Because the pictures on the box make the end result look like this:

All full of the Force. Maybe I should have used a little more of that when I was making them.

The first batch was an epic fail. And I’m not using hyperbole. It was a fail on the scale of epicness.

Totally looks like Star Wars characters. Totally.

So, I got them a little too close together. And maybe cut the dough a little thick so they spread more than they should. It’s okay. I’ll just adjust and try another batch.

Which is so much easier said than done when you’re talking about delicate cutouts of this nature. I can’t tell you how many R2 units lost a leg or two going from the cutting board to the cookie sheet. Or how many times Chewie or 3P0 got a little distorted while trying to move them. *sigh* We did finally get a batch or two that looked right, didn’t spread, and weren’t TOO dark, so then began the task of decorating.

Well, that went well…

Believe it or not, we actually have a decorating kit, complete with piping bag and whatnot. I successfully used it for Andrea’s birthday cake this year. Not so much for these. It should be noted that the picture above has cookies decorated by Andrea. My batch was not near as lovely.

The jawas didn’t turn out too bad, but then…

Tried to make his fangs. But it just looks like sad Wookiee is sad.

C3P0 looks like a really bad drag queen.

Clearly, we’re not even trying any more.
The point at which I gave up.

You’ll notice there are no pictures of completed R2 units. Huh. Maybe because after seeing how “well” we did with the less difficult cookies, it was decided there was no way in hell I was even going to attempt to do the type of intricate icing work necessary to make him look presentable. Yup, my R2D2s are just frosted in white. Good enough.

Wow. Just….wow.

So, it may be a while before we attempt that again. Perhaps the cutters are better off just being displayed in my Star Wars shrine, rather than forced into working with a person with clearly inferior baking and decorating skillz.

At least I didn’t purchase these when we were at the Sprawl of America last week:

This should be easy, right?

If I can barely make a gawddam Jawa presentable, can you imagine how these would have turned out?

Tags: Baking and Confections, C-3PO, Chewbacca, cookie, jawa, Williams Sonoma, Wookiee

Why We’ll Never Be Nominated for “Parents of the Year”- #617

While it wasn’t a National Bee, it was most definitely awkward. Totally top five.

Andrea was studying for a spelling bee and I had been helping her with the words on her sheet (which ended up being a misnomer, because they only used the words on that sheet for the first round, then went to random stuff that she didn’t study) and I had to make dinner. So I asked Jason to take over. He read a few of the actual ones, and then the madness started.

Jason: Cat
Andrea: Dad, that’s not on the list.
J: Cat
A: C-A-T
J: House
A: Dad!
J: D-bag
A: D-O-U-C-H-E…
Me: Andrea!
A: Dad said!
M: Jason!
J: That’s okay, she’s spelling it wrong anyway.
A: What?!
J: It’s spelled S-A-N-T-O-R-U-M
M: Oh. My. God.
A: I don’t get it. What’s that even spell?
J: Google it.
M: FOR GOD’S SAKES, DON’T TELL HER TO GOOGLE IT!!!

I’m Rick Santorum, and I approve not Googling my name…

Just another week night evening at Nagzilla’s house. Helping the kid with her homework. Winning.

Now don’t you feel normal?

Tags: Family, frothy mixtures, Google, inappropriate, Parenting, Spelling bee

Reflections on A to Z

So what have I learned from this experience?

If you want to increase traffic, participating in a writing challenge is a great way to do it. In the course of the month, I more than doubled the average number of views I had each day. Whether they will continue now that the Challenge remains to be seen, but during the Challenge, it made a huge difference.

Give to get. There is a direct correlation between the number of pages you visit and comment on and the number of people who come to your page.

If you have more than one blog, don’t ignore the one you’re not using for the Challenge. People will still go check it out, and your regular readers will be bummed that you’re not offering new material.

Don’t be afraid to say what needs to be said. If you regularly write humor and feel like you need to do a serious entry, don’t let it stop you. You’d be surprised how supportive people will be, especially if you share something personal and meaningful.

Planning ahead is helpful. I usually am a procrastinator and think I work best under pressure. Planning it out in a calendar and writing them ahead of time helped me stay on course for the duration. Scheduling them to drop at the same time everyday was appreciated by my new readers.

Don’t feel like you have to comment or contribute to the discussion. While it is helpful, don’t force yourself to say something that may feel weird or if you do want to just let someone know you stopped by, just say nice job.

For heaven’s sake, don’t leave negative notes. I saw on person leave a strange comment on another person’s blog. “This wasn’t really my cup of tea.” Really? Was that necessary? If you didn’t like the writing or the tone, at least have the tact and manners to walk away. Don’t be rude.

Follow and make friends. I met some amazing new bloggers during this exercise. I’m following several new names and look forward to continuing my readership, even after the themed writings are completed.

All in all, this was fun and challenging and a great way to build my blog. I’m grateful for the opportunity and the support of this community. Write on, and we’ll see you again for the next A to Z Challenge!

My Milkshake Isn’t What Brings the Boys to the Yard

It’s my mad language skillz, yo. Word.

Mad skillz. I has them.

I discovered this last year during parent-teacher conferences. I was chatting with Andrea’s language arts teacher, and getting the lowdown on some work she needed to make up. Last year kind of sucked in that she was sick. A lot. Like almost three whole weeks of school a lot. Like she begged for a flu shot at the beginning of the school year a lot. That’s how bad it was. So I was checking to see if she was caught up and find out what was still due. He said that she was caught up for the most part, but had to make up a test on be verbs.

It’s true.

Now let me just say, I love language arts. I’m a nerd when it comes to this stuff. I’m not perfect, so I try not to get too Grammar Nazi-ish because I make mistakes just like anyone. I don’t want to be a total hypocrite. It’s the basic things that frustrate the living daylights out of me, like your/you’re, it’s/its, inappropriate quotation mark and apostrophe usage. . . that kind of thing. But one thing I remember from my own childhood was the be verbs. I don’t know where, but somewhere along the line I learned a catchy little mnemonic device for the be verbs. Now what compelled me (in that moment) to recite it, I will never know. But I responded:

“You mean is/are, was/were, have/has/had, will/shall, could/would/should, be/been and am?”

The teacher’s eyes widened, and in a voice that was lacking in both irony and sarcasm, he replied:

“Wow. That was hot.”

He then proceeded to turn to another language arts teacher who was walking by and said, “Hey Mr. Q, check this out!” and asked me to recite it again.

I was a very popular girl.

Andrea’s mom has got it goin’ on!

This really should go without saying.

Needless to say, she passed the exam with flying colors with a little bit of tutelage. And now she has a totally awesome weapon in her arsenal of sexy. Which she’s not going to use for another ten years, but it’s there when she needs it. Cuz good grammar is totally hot!

Tags: Grammar, Language arts, nerdery is hot, Style Guides, Verb

Happy Star Wars Day, Y’all!

Ahhh, the fourth of May. My favorite holiday. The High Holy Day of my religion.

Star Wars Day.

What? What was that groan for?

If you’re not a raging geek you may not be aware that for Star Wars nerds everywhere, May the 4th is a national holiday. I learned about it a number of years ago and always celebrate, usually by wearing  my Star Wars tie to work. Super effin professional, that’s me!

The old school one with all the characters? Yup, that’s the one I own.

My dream, however, is to one day have a viewing party on Star Wars Day. If the fates are with me, next year will be the perfect time to have the perfect party. Because Star Wars Day falls on Saturday. You see where this is going, right?

What my garage will look like next year…

Because if it’s on Saturday, that means I don’t have to worry about work, or school, or anything like that. Which means I could show All. Six. Movies. Have a day-long party, with trivia, and cosplay, and themed foods and decorations, and watch them all. Of course I’d have to decide if I want to watch them in chronological order, numerical order, or Machete Order (which is brilliant, let me just say), but I have a whole year to decide.

Okay, so I’d only show five. But it would still be epic.

I’ve been wanting to have a Star Wars Day party for a couple years now, but it just hasn’t worked out. The first year I tried, it fell in the middle of the week and people couldn’t come because they had to work, or their kids had school, so we just cancelled. I had hoped to do it this year. Since it landed on Friday, we could at least have shown Star Wars and maybe Empire. But my husband’s work schedule has been crazy, and me and the kid have to travel out of state for her sporting event, so it just wasn’t in the cards. But next year, I am totally going to make up for it. It will be the Star Wars party to end all Star Wars parties.

I’d break out my cookbook to make the treats. And of course I own this. Duh.

But shhhhhh…don’t tell my husband. He doesn’t know about it yet.

Wait. He subscribes to my blog. Oh shit.

Anyway, Happy Star Wars Day to you and yours, and May the Fourth be With You…Always.

Tags: Machete Order, May the Force be with you, May the Fourth Be With You, Star Wars Day, Yoda rules

The Most Miraculous Thing Ever!

See that pie? Usually, if I took a picture of a pie a week and a half after I bought it, you’d be staring at crumbs in an empty pan.

What is miraculous about this pie is that I’ve had it for a week and a half and I now have to throw it out because it’s gone stale.

Dafaque is wrong with me?!?

I’d like to believe it means I’m learning to control my eating, but I know that’s not even close to being the case. Evidence Exhibit 1 being the Mediterranean nachoes and gyro my printer and I demolished at lunch today. (Mmmmmm… Mediterranean nachoes….). I have no delusions that this is indicitive of a permanent change.

But I have learned it means I generally am okay with just eating a slice or two, so stopping to get piece is probably the better (read: safer, smarter, and cheaper) option. Baby steps, right?

Hey you guys! Guess what? I did my first guest post yesterday! Check it out here.

While you’re there, check out her other posts! She is super funny and elevates awkwardness to a parenthetical art form.

Tags: guest post, pie, weirdness

Z is for Zubenelgenubi and Zubeneschamali

The fact that my daughter has a normal name is nothing short of astounding.

When I was in my early 20s, I had some very odd ideas about what constituted good children’s names. I have to admit, I totally get names like Apple or Moxie Crimefighter. Had I had children sooner, it’s entirely possible that they would have had names that resulted in daily beatings on the playground.

Of the weird names I had for my imaginary children, my favorite names were the one I had chosen in the event I had twins. If I had had mixed gender fraternal twins, they would have been named Zubenelgenubi and Zubeneschamali.

A Google search of the names? Turned up this dog picture. Who happens to be an Australian Shepherd. Too much of a coincidence to pass up, amirite?

I would have nicknamed them Zuba (boy) and Mali (girl) for short, of course. I’m not THAT heartless.

Apparently Mali has an anime form. This is totally what my kid would have looked like.

I discovered these names during a planetarium visit. They were discussing constellations and they mentioned the names of these twin stars in Libra. I immediately fell in love with them. So much so that after the presentation, I went to the presenter and asked him to write them down for me so I would remember them.

Luckily, I matured before having children. And I didn’t have twins. And since we’re not having any more (one and done, baby!), the world is safe from having this duo in their classrooms and offices. But being a writer, it’s a fair bet that they’ll turn up somewhere down the line for me. If I can’t name my real children Zubanelgenubi and Zubeneschamali, my virtual children will have to be stuck with those names.

Tags: A to Z Blog Challenge, Apple, Crazy kid names, Libra, Twin, Z, Zubenelgenubi, Zubeneschamali

Y is for Yoda

I tried to go the whole month with only one Star Wars themed post. But alas, it is impossible. Not necessarily because I was compelled to write more about Star Wars so much as I couldn’t come up with another decent Y topic. The only other Y word that struck me was yellow, and meh. Not terribly interesting to write about. I like yellow, but not enough to write an entire post about it.

So Yoda it is. That’s okay, because he’s my favorite character in the SW universe. I don’t know if it’s his mix of humor and wisdom, his quiet strength, or his ears. Whatever it is, I adore him. My tattoo is a Yoda quote. My go-to purse is my Yoda backpack. I even dressed up as him for Halloween when I was in 5th or 6th grade. Yoda is my homeboy!

Me and Andrea and Yoda, hanging out in Harajuku. He's a world traveler.

He makes his first appearance in the best of the original movies, and has a couple of bad ass battles in the most recent editions. I admit it, the first time I saw him battle Count Dooku in Ep II, I cheered. Out loud. In the theatre. Cuz I’m a geek like that.

Yoda is one BAMF.

I have to admit that, although it was awesome to watch him battle in the new films, there was something about the puppetry of the original Yoda that actually seemed more lifelike. The Yoda of Empire will always be my favorite. I love that he’s short and unassuming. I love that he can go from goofy to stone cold serious in the blink of an eye. I love that he calls Luke out on his whiny ass. The scene where he raises the X-Wing out of the swamp? Always gives me a lump in my throat.

Raising the X-Wing.

“I don’t believe it.”
“And that is why you  fail.”

He keeps me believing and dreaming and doing, by his sheer force of will and faith in the Universe to deliver. There are many characters for whom I have great affection. Yoda, however, will always be my favorite.

Tags: A to Z Blog Challenge, Dooku, Harajuku, Luke Skywalker, Science Fiction, Star Wars, Y, Yoda

X is for Xi

Xi as in the 14th letter of the Greek alphabet. When I was in seminary, one of the most daunting tasks that I feared enduring was summer Greek. I had heard horror stories from friends who were in the ministry, and they said summer Greek was scary and painful. Thankfully, the school that I was attending for undergrad actually had Ancient Greek as a language option. Why not take two years of it and learn it slowly over time instead of trying to cram it all in over the course of 9 weeks?

And I didn't even pledge a sorority.

I wish I could say it helped. Alas, I cannot. Actually, in some ways it did because I’m pretty sure if I had taken Greek as a summer course, I would have flunked. I squeaked by with a C- and was so proud to have earned that grade, I tell you what.

Grandma used to say this to me while I was studying Greek. It never got old. Okay, yeah. It really did.

And it wasn’t because I had a bad teacher, because I didn’t. Professor Ken Diable was one of the best teachers I’ve ever had. I still hold him in high regard and admire him. Not only did I not hold it against him, we still let him preside over our wedding. He was exceedingly patient and did what he could to make Greek make sense. The problem was with my brain. It’s just not built for that language.

FUUUUUUUUUU

Greek was the only class that made me cry. In class. I was struggling with one homework assignment and could not make sense of the verb endings. Let me tell you, verb endings in Ancient Greek are VERY IMPORTANT. The way the verb is parsed makes all the difference in how a sentence is interpreted. And there are a bazillion different ways to parse a verb in Greek. I’m not using hyperbole when I say I had a poster sized sheet that showed all the different verb tenses. It’s very specific, with no room for interpretation or ambiguity. If the verb says this, it means this. Period. End of discussion.

Just a fraction of the number of verb forms we had to learn.

This particular day we were reviewing our homework and I was getting everything wrong. Everything. What I thought was a imperfect indicitive was ending up actually being a pluperfect subjunctive or some such nonsense. By the tenth or twelfth problem I was realizing I didn’t have clue one what I was doing. Poor Ken. He asked me to do the next sentence and I started out trying to read what I had. When he gently said, “Try again, wrong tense,” I felt my throat close up and the tears just started streaming down my face. He excused me for the remainder of the period and had me meet with him to try and tutor me.

Now I will suddenly understand and shit rainbows and kittens!

He tried his best. He really did. I wish this was one of those inspiring stories where one day it all clicked and suddenly I could read the Odyssey in its original text. It didn’t. It clicked just enough to pass the class, but I was never a good Greek scholar. Which probably explains why I majored in Old Testament Theology in seminary, because Hebrew? Waaaaaaay easier than Greek. Just saying.

I'm having flashbacks.

What did click was the reason WHY I don’t understand Greek. During one of our tutoring sessions, I was again frustrated and burst out, “This sucks. I haven’t had to work this hard since I was trying to pass geometry in high school.” Professor Diable burst out laughing. “Well, there’s your problem! If you don’t understand math, you’re going to have a hard time with Greek. It’s very formulaic. If you didn’t grasp the formulas for algebra and geometry, you’re going to struggle with Greek.” It didn’t make it easier, but it did make me feel better. My inability to understand it wasn’t for lack of trying, or because I was stupid. That part of my brain has just never been terribly strong. I can diagram the fuck out of a sentence, but trying to find the radius of a triangle?* Pfft. Half the time I can’t even multiply fractions well enough to double a recipe. I’ll just measure it twice to be safe.

Aorist active indicitive third person singular? For the love of gawd, make it stop! Now I'll have nightmares.

That was my adventure with Greek. And don’t be fooled by the tenses I dropped earlier- I had to look up some of them to even be able to give a good example. Greek was so traumatic, I think I have PTSD. I have purposely blocked out everything I learned in those two years. Sorry Ken. If it makes you feel better, I still know the Epic of Gilgamesh. Hopefully it’s a fair trade off.

Poor, poor Enkidu...

*So I was going to leave a snarky, smart ass comment about, “Yes, I know a radius is for a circle and not a triangle. Duh. I was being funny so you could see the level of ignorance I have for math.” But upon Googling it, I discovered that there is a formula and you can actually find the radius of a triangle. So the jokes on me AND my point was reinforced. All at the same time. Because I’m efficient like that. You’re welcome.

Tags: A to Z Blog Challenge, Ancient Greek, Epic of Gilgamesh, Greek, Language, Odyssey, Verb, X, Xi

W is for Wrens

I’m late posting because I had a brilliant, life-changing post all jotted down in a notebook. And now I can’t find the notebook anywhere.

No, just kidding. I was waffling on what I wanted to write on (good lord- I couldn’t think of any good W words, and now I’ve got four in one sentence. Go figure) and didn’t have anything planned in advance. Unlike EVERY OTHER POST I’VE DONE THIS MONTH.

I suppose one day of dysfunction is allowed, yes?

Anyway…

So I’ve been wrestling (again?) with what to write (LOL) and I started thinking about my personal harbingers of spring- the wrens.

I love wrens. Yesterday was the first day I heard them outside my window. I have a couple of birdfeeders on shepherd’s hooks outside our living room window, and a couple of years ago I added a wren house to the collection. The first year we didn’t get anything, but last year we had a couple nest in it (complete with babies!), and by the looks of it they’re coming back home for another summer.

Check out those itty bitty eggs! Adorbs!

I’m sure part of my love of wrens has to once again point back to Grandma. She was a modern day St. Francis, and took great pride in her “Beast Buffet” in the backyard, where she feed a wide variety of local fauna. She had a wren house attached to one of our fence posts, and she was so familiar with the birds that they would let her get close to their house and she would talk to them and they would chatter back to her.

Grandma, with an unflattering hairstyle.

The wrens have a very distinctive song (not familiar with what they sound like? check out their call here). It always sounds so cheerful and happy to me, and I love hearing them because they make me feel all smiley inside. This morning one was checking out the nest again and I watched it for a good ten to fifteen minutes as it bounced back and forth between the birdhouse and the bush, happily singing and chattering away.

Judge me by my size, do you? Hmmm? And well you should not.

They are diminutive little creatures, but their song makes up for their size. I can’t think of anything that makes me feel so hopeful about the change of seasons as the arrival of my wrens. I love waking up to their songs, and look forward to hearing them all summer long.

Tags: A to Z Blog Challenge, Art, Bird, House Wren, Nest box, Poetry, United States, W, Wren