A Cookie Even Kendell Loves!

My husband Kendell isn't quite as passionate about sweets as I am. (It's probably why he can stay so skinny) He can usually take a piece a cake or leave it just as easily. He doesn't keep secret stashes of candy. And he never, ever gets chocolate-desperate enough to eat chocolate chips by the handful.

Last night, though, we met in the kitchen over the last cookie. He'd already had one (so had I....yeah, I totally had already had ONE). There was only one left. And he wanted it. That's how good these cookies are! (I ate the last cookie. I had to stay up late and I needed something to fuel me!)

Orange Creamsicle Cookies
1 C butter, softened 2/3 C light brown sugar 1/2 C sugar 1 large egg 1 Tbsp grated orange rind	2 tsp orange extract 2 1/4 C flour 3/4 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 2 C white chocolate chips*
Mix together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add egg, orange rind, and extract, mix well. Add together the flour, baking soda, and salt; slowly add to sugar mixture, just until blended. Stir in white chocolate chips. Bake on greased cookie sheet at 350° for 10 to 12 minutes or until edges are lightly browned.

*I only ever use Ghiradelli white chocolate chips because they are the only ones without hydrogenated vegetable oil. Which is evil, people!!!

Snarky as a Shield: A Story

"Listen," she said, first thing after I'd answered the phone in my calm, quiet librarian voice. "You listen. I want something. Something about Franklin D. Roosevelt. The D. stands for Delano in case you can't find it."

I took a deep breath. Reference encounters that start out with a bossy voice and an insult are rarely my favorite. "OK," I said. "What kind of book do you want about FDR? A biography? Or something about his role in history?"

"Did I ever say 'book,' Honey?" she shot back. "I am 92 years old. I don't want any book. I don't have time nor eyes for books. I want a movie. Something I can watch, you know?"

92?  I thought. You sound like you're 32 and the boss of the world. Glad she wasn't asking for a movie about something obscure, I knew I could find what she needed. We have several movies with FDR in them. "Do you want a DVD or a VHS?" I asked as I sorted the possibilities.

And that moment was the one she lost her inner trenchant cat. "I don't understand that question," she said. Said softly, her voice changing into an old woman's. A 92-year-old woman who was a child in the roaring twenties, when radios, hair dryers, and movies with sound were the new technologies. For an instant I thought about how baffling the world might be to her, and wondered how it might be when I  am 92.

"Well, what kind of machine do you watch movies on?" I asked. "A VHS machine? or a DVD machine?"

"I don't know," she said. "Whatever my grandson set up for me. I just put the thing in and push the buttons and then I can watch movies on my TV."

"What shape is the thing you put in your machine? Is it round, flat, and shiny? Or is it a black rectangle?"

"Oh. Why didn't you say it like that in the first place?" she asked, vitriol back. "I have both of those machines, but the round shiny one isn't working so well."

So I gave her a list of call numbers for VHS movies about FDR. Now I have a story to tell about the sweet (deep down, she was sweet) old woman who didn't know her media type. It's a funny story, but it's also vaguely sad. How much the world has changed! Even just since I was born. It makes me wonder, really: what will the world be like in another fifty years? Where will technology take us? How will we live? I hope I will be able to keep up with progress and change, and not let myself get intimidated. I also hope that, when I am 92, someone will help me decipher technology. Even if I do hold up snarkiness as a shield against bafflement.

Movie-Star Doppelganger

I'm not a star-struck kind of person. People like the Kardashians or Paris Hilton baffle me—I can't figure out why they are famous. But I'm not really enamoured of movie stars, either. There are some I admire, of course. But I also don't think they're any more fabulous than the rest of us. (I am sort of star-struck by several authors, but that's a different post.)

When I was in college, one of my professors started the semester by having us answer a survey—random, slightly-quirky questions that would help him get to know us better. One of the questions was "what movie star do you most look like?" I remember that question because it stumped me...I don't think I look like any movie star. I turned to the person behind me and asked her for a suggestion. She thought for a good long while. "I don't remember her name, but she was in that one movie? About the two girls who were friends and met on the beach? When they were kids? And they grow up in the movie? And then at the end the one you look like dies?"

I'm still glad she didn't think I look like Bette Midler.

Ever since that day in class, when I've bumped against a similar question (like, in, say, a meme), I've stuck with that same answer: I guess if I have to pick a movie star I look like, it would be Barbara Hershey. She's my standard movie-star doppelganger.

Yesterday at work, I was helping an older patron find a magazine. When we finally located it, she thanked me and started to walk away. Then she turned back around and said, "I've been thinking this whole time you've been helping me that you look just like a movie star!"

"Oh, that's nice of you to say," I replied, that Barbara-Hershey thing coming to mind.

"I didn't say anything till now, though, because I couldn't quite remember who it was. But just now I finally did!"

"Well, don't keep me in suspense!" I teased her. "Who do you think I look like?" I completely expected her to say Barbara Hershey. (Or, if she was a blogger, maybe she'd say Lucy, whom I think I also sort-of look like.)

"Oh, I'm sure you've heard this before! You look just like. . . Annette Bening!"

Seriously? Nope, I've never heard that before. Never even thought that before! In fact, I had to google some pictures of her just to make sure I had the right image in my head. It made me laugh.

Because I really, really don't look like a movie star, be it Annette or Barbara or even Mary Elizabeth (Mastrantonio, who's the only other dark-haired actress I could think of off the top of my head).

But I am curious: who's your movie doppelganger?

on Organizing my To-Reads

I am not a very organized person.

There, I said it. I claim it. In fact, I wear that fact like a badge of honor. Don't you dare try to make me be organized. I won't let you. Yes, sometimes I spend much too much time looking for stuff that should be right here. When I scrapbook 25% of the time is used by me scratching my head and trying to figure out where I put my adhesive. (That's why I always have approximately 12 packages open simultaneously.) I spent 15 minutes yesterday trying to find my copy of My Antonia for a friend to borrow.

Sometimes my house is (gasp!) cluttered.

Usually it doesn't bother me. But lately, dare I confess, it sort-of has. Mind you, I haven't actually done anything about it. But I almost want to. And I think the almost-wanting will grow into full-on doing. One of these days.

I want to start with my books. I once made a layout about how I have stacks of them everywhere, but really: you have no idea. Right now, in addition to the regular, they're-part-of-my-interior-design stacks, there are columns of library books on: my bedroom desk, my dresser, my scrapping table, the bathroom counter, the kitchen counter, the kitchen desk, and a corner of the front room. That's not even counting the holds I picked up tonight and then hid in the back of the van because I wasn't sure I could find another spot to make a pile.

What makes me insane about the book piles isn't so much the clutteriness they add to my house, but what they represent: all my reading frustrations. Each was bought or brought home because I felt, passionately, that I wanted to read that book. But then I somehow only manage to live up to about 33% of my reading ambitions. (Meaning: 66% of the books I check out get returned without being finished. Granted, I check out a lot of books, but stil.) Mostly this is a time issue. Or maybe it's a focus thing. Say I have a half hour to myself. There are so many things I could do with that time! I could work on my writing. I could scrapbook. I could sew a few squares in the quilt I am slowly piecing together. I could nap! Or I could read.

Usually I am completely unable to decide what to do with my free time that I waste it trying to choose.

(Please note that I don't really want to spend those imaginary 30 minutes alone decluttering. No! You can't make me!)

So my books pile up.

And here is what I decided to do: make a list! It hit me today, the genius idea that just because I want to read something right now doesn't mean I also have to take it home with me (or put it in my shopping cart) right now. Instead I could leave the books on the shelf and simply add them to my list. I'm limiting myself to only having two novels out at a time, one non-fiction, one poetry, and ok, one something else. (Like: I read the library's copies of Writer's Digest and Creaking Keepsakes. Because it cuts down on the clutter!) When I'm full of passion about a book I want to race home and read, I'm just going to add it to my list until I can get to it.

Maybe that will cut down the book-ish clutter at least. And on the pointed glares at said book stacks. And on the amount of books I check out, pile up, flip through, and then return.

What I can't decide: a simple Googledocs spread sheet? Or should I use Goodreads? Or is there some other way to keep myself bookishly organized?

Tell me your tips, o wise ones! How, other than checking out and buying, do you keep track of what you want to read?  And let me warn you: I also need advice for organizing my spice cupboards. But that will have to wait for another post. When I'm organized enough to get around to writing it, that is.

redemption, of a sort

you know those moments when something sparks—a song on the radio, maybe, or just the way the light is falling on the mountain, or a text or a sound or a random scent—and  suddenly you're crying over whatever the spark shattered in you? And then you're crying over everything—the thing your daughter said, the lingering tension from a cold shoulder, the bill you're stressing over—and thinking maybe you shouldn't be driving because you're crying too hard but you really want to get home so you blink furiously and put on your sunglasses and make it home only to collapse in a weepy puddle in the front room?

Life and its troubles seemed like too much there, for a moment. An ugly moment.

The loud and persistent and startlingly spring-like sound of birds got me off of the floor. Birds! in February, on the coldest, driest day I can remember besides yesterday. I wandered to windows, trying to track which tree they were in, and found them out my kitchen window, in my apple tree. A whole flock of birds, fifty at least. Fat little birds with white feet and bodies that looked black in the shade but turned glossy and limned by rainbow in the sunlight. They chirped and flicked and clicked their beaks together, fighting over the lingering apples. The sound they made was pure joy. My tree a happy oasis in their flight to where ever.

And nothing changed. I still have that thing my daughter said; there is still a cold shoulder and the bill I don't know what to do with. My world still seems impossible. But, somehow, possible at the same time. Being a witness to this feasting by birds brought me redemption, of a sort. It made the ache slow down. They spoke their small, bright bird vowels, they fluttered each other off of apples; as a group at some sound I couldn't hear they stopped in fright, utterly silent and then, at some clue I didn't recognize, they moved again. And I, in my own fright and silence, began to move again, too.

Run Like a Girl

This month's Write Click Scrapbook gallery is up! We all made mini albums, and holy cow—there is some CUTE stuff on there. Set aside a half hour and be seriously inspired.

For my mini, I put together a little theme album I've been wanting to do for years: a place to record my races. Even though it's an album about running (which is a sweaty, tough thing to do, right?) I went with a girly feel, using my favorite color combination (pink and black). Here's the cover:

 

On the inside, I've got spots for 5ks, 10ks, half marathons (by far the thickest section!), marathon (for the glorious day when I finally accomplish one), and then miscellaneous distances (this is where, for example, Ragnar will go). You can see the rest of the album on the WCS site. (Well, not ALL of the pages, but an idea!)

I made the album simple by creating templates in my word processor. All I have to do, the next time I run a race, is open the templates, add my journaling and stats, print the photo, and stick everything down. It took me awhile to round up all my race photos and bibs (and, sadness, I couldn't find all of the bibs), but now that it's all assembled, it will be easy to maintain. Happiness! It's great to cross this project off of my perpetual scrapbooking to-do list!