Tales of the Domestically Challenged: Sugar Cookies

Today was a beautiful autumn day in Ohio. The sun was shining, the death-like cold wind that comes off the lake ceased for just long enough to let the temperature creep up to a whopping 59 degrees. Naturally, I spent this gorgeous day trapped inside the kitchen baking (ruining) sugar cookies. Since Saturday is Halloween I thought it would be nice to send David off to work, on Friday, with a batch of cookies for the boys who tirelessly work with him. After all, I am the "boss's wife". What better thing for a boss's wife to do than bake cookies? I wasn't doing anything else, anyway.

Originally, I was going to buy pre-made sugar cookie dough. You know the kind you just slice and shove in the oven, the timer dings! and mmm-mmm instant, delicious cookies. Somehow, I got it into my head that making sugar dough from scratch would be better. If at least, inexpensive and more time-consuming. I dug around online for a recipe and basked in my intelligence for requesting the necessary baking items on my wedding registry. Bright red mixing bowls,(so cheery!), cookie sheets and cooling racks (so useful!) and a hand-held electric mixer (so ergonomical!).

I threw the butter and sugar in a bowl and turned the mixer on...or I thought I did. It was plugged in and yet nothing. I thought about taking my mixer to the neighbor and asking her, "Am I crazy or is this thing not working?" She has a child and a husband and if anyone can help me right now it's her. I should have aborted the mission right then and there and hightailed it to the grocery store for that pre-made dough but I was determined. I set the mixer aside and poked at the butter and sugar with a spoon and followed the recipe. The dough was really crumbly, and I thought to myself, "This doesn't look right. Well, silly, of course it doesn't look right you tortured it with a spoon instead of using a mixer." Then I kneaded it with my hands and it instantly looked better. Then I shoved it in the freezer, don't ask me why, something about cookie cutters, but I had to take the gin out of the freezer first and shuffle the frozen pizzas around. Then I got on iChat and Facebook to pout. I left the dough in the freezer long enough for it to be unmanageable when removed.

I rolled the dough out and used Halloween cookie cutters. I begged David to pay $2 for six plastic cutters and I had to promise to use them year round. Which was fine, I was probably going to do that anyway. I don't care if I eat cookies in the shape of a cat all year long. I preheated the oven, stuck them in and watched them bake. Surprisingly, they smelled like sugar cookies. I was excited. This was going to work! Look at me, I'm baking cookies! GET ME A JUNE CLEAVER APRON STAT! Then I took them out and ate one. I chewed and chewed. Hmmm, they aren't bad but they aren't good either. Something wasn't right about them but since I didn't know what I just kept making them out of that first batch of dough. I sprinkled sugar on them, still no change in taste. I thought to myself "Sprinkles! What these cookies need are orange sprinkles." Because sprinkles would have made these atrocities taste better, really. I ended up throwing out the last bit of dough. Not because it was bad, (okay, maybe it was) but because I was sick of rolling and cutting. I did the only thing you can do in this situation, I sat down in the middle of the kitchen and cried. I cried because I had failed and I was alone and in Ohio. I was thousands of miles from the people I would normally turn to for help, mostly my mom.

So I threw in the cutesy dish towel, walked to the store and bought a soda. I was so defeated I bought two sodas. "What a waste of the day,"I thought to myself, "I could have walked to the library. I could have read a book or had a margarita." I called my mom. While my mom isn't the mommiest of moms she is still a mom and when I told her of my defeat in the kitchen the first question out of her mouth was, "Well, did you follow the recipe?". Did I follow the recipe?! Of course I followed the *$#&^% recipe! If I hadn't I wouldn't even have a mediocre finished product.

Being domestically challenged is like not being athletic or not possessing rhythm. Except those are all socially acceptable. Even though it's 2009 and not 1949 it is still socially unacceptable to be female and not be a domestic goddess. Today's women have to have a career outside "the home" and still know how to sew a button. I lack the genes needed to be a domestic goddess. I want to blame my mom for either not passing the genes down or taking me to the mall when she should have been teaching me to bake but I can't. I love my mom too much to do that. I guess I could try again or I could wait until David gets home, see the look of disgust on his face when he eats a cookie and vow never to try again. I could try and accept the fact that I am domestically challenged goddess.

A wise co-worker once told me, "If you can read you can cook." I believed her. After all, I read all the time. It's not that hard, this reading thing. Do you know what is hard though? Accepting yourself. Standing up and saying, "I can't knit and do not feel the need to bake a cake and procreate all at the same time. Do you see this man here? He married me anyway! Even if I don't know the difference between baking powder and baking soda, but thank God, the Internet can tell me. He loves me and all my faults and really isn't that all that matters?"

Please Won't you be my Neighbor?

When you live in California you don't really get to know your neighbors. You might wave at them while you are building the eight foot fence that is going to separate your yard from theirs and hopefully keep those stray baseballs from sailing onto your property. There are exceptions but I think knowing your neighbors is a Midwestern thing. Maybe you just don't need your neighbors in California like you need them here. When you are snowed in your neighbor might end up being the only contact you have with another person.

I grew up in a small town; if you weren't related to everyone, you at least knew them in some capacity. Way back then, half the houses on the block were family. Time passed and that changed until only a few strongholds were left. We never met the people who moved into those vacated houses. We just glared at them from afar and thought "That was the house my grandmother grew up in, it survived the flood of 1928 and you are defiling it with that Oakland Raiders flag." Slowly we forgot which houses were which and went about our lives.

David and I never really met our neighbors in the apartment complex. We waved or made polite conversation in the parking lot. We were the only ones on our floor so there really wasn't anyone to get to know. People who live in apartments are generally people on the move. In the seven months I lived there, out of the twelve apartments in our building, only half were occupied when we moved out. I knew when we moved into a house we would have to talk to our neighbors. Of course, I fretted about this. This was uncharted territory and required etiquette skills I knew I didn't possess. Or did I? Could I be neighborly? Could I learn to extend an olive branch if not at least a cup of olive oil if asked? David and I got lucky. The day we signed the lease the previous tenant/landlord walked us over and introduced us to the neighbors. David was sick that day and we were on our way to run errands so we were only introduced to one set. Did the landlord want to introduce us to the other set? I worried about our hasty departure. What if we never had the oppurtunity to introduce ourselves again? How do you know when your neighbors want to talk and be social and when they don't? I was nearly hyperventilating as David, between sneezes, growled at me.

Our neighbors, the set we were introduced to at least, seem like nice people. We greet them when we happen to be out in the driveway at the same time and have had a few chats. I hope they think David and I are nice too, but really, I fear we are weird in their eyes. They know we are from California and around here that means automatically strange. Maybe they don't think David is weird but let's be honest, David is as normal as apple pie on the 4th of July. He wears jeans and t-shirts, has a job in a warehouse and drives a car and has a normal name. I am unemployed and I don't drive. I have an unpronounceable name, I wear my hair in Princess Leia buns and big, Hollywood sunglasses in the backyard while I read or watch David rake leaves. God forbid, I pick up a rake and even attempt yard work. Bugs fly near me and I run screaming, arms flailing until I realize they are just ladybugs. I pick my way across the lawn because I think the crickets are going to bite me.

They must think we are crazy. We own two cars, but were only in possession of one when we moved in. The extra car was on loan to a co-worker of David's. The car broke down and we had it towed to our house to get it off the co-workers hands. The car was towed with his kid's car seats in the back. I wondered what the neighbors must have thought. Here we were telling them we had no kids and suddenly a car with not one, but two, kid's car seats appears out of nowhere. Another time David and I returned from a late night shopping trip and the neighbor happened to be in the driveway, which we share. David owns a board game called Friedrich.

Friedrich had been hanging out in the trunk of David's car so he wouldn't forget to take it to his board game buddy's house. As we were removing our shopping bags, I loudly asked David, "Does Friedrich stay in the trunk?". I just about died of embarrassment and quickly prayed "Dear Lord, please don't let the neighbors think we have a body in the trunk of our car. You see Lord, I'm really new to this whole neighbor thing and I really want to make a good impression and I must already seem like a neurotic California girl when I'm really not. Okay, so maybe I have a touch of OCD and hysteria but really doesn't everyone? Thanks for listening." It seems I have a long way to go with this whole learning how to be a neighbor.

Boo Who

Here is part two of my fake whohub interview:

What did you first read? How did you begin to write? Who were the first to read what you wrote?
(is it me or are these horribly worded questions?) I was no child prodigy I'm sure the first things I read were children's picture books and then as my skills evolved whatever was put in front of me or whatever I could get my hands on. Like every child, I was vain and began writing my name and then the alphabet in crayon. My mom was the first person to read what I wrote because she was the one who found me scrawling my name in books and on my toys. I avoided writing on the walls because no one wants to get spanked twice.

What is your favorite genre? Can you provide a link to a site where we can read some of your work or learn something about it? (there they go again asking for links.) I don't see how providing a link to my work has anything to do with my fave genre of writing. I really like to read books. Mostly chick-lit and newer lighter fiction with history,cultural studies, essays and bios thrown in to keep my adoring public guessing my IQ.


What is your creative process like? What happens before sitting down to write?
Sometimes I go out and have an "experience" so I have something to write about then I usually spend a few days pushing sentences and ideas around in my head. I get some caffeine then I power up the lappy and start typing. I force some internet troll friends to edit the post before and after it's been up then I keep revising mostly for technical errors.


What type of reading inspires you to write?
Reading short essays and other blogs. Reading the works of David Sedaris, Jen Lancaster, Jancee Dunn, Sarah Vowell and Chuck Klosterman.

What do you think are the basic ingredients of a story?
Believable characters, well-thought out dialogue and a just a bit of fairy dust. Either a story grabs you or it doesn't. Does anyone really know why?


What voice do you find most to your liking: first person or third person?
That really depends on the story being told. If a writer uses the first person, the risk of the audience thinking the author is just writing a thinly veiled memoir in the form of fiction runs high. Third person seems like a no-brainer but it can be difficult to create good characters because the writing can get hollow or overly
dramatic.


What well known writers do you admire most?
There are a lot of talented writers in the world who consistently produce quality work but I don't think I admire them. I really, really like them. If the line wasn't too long I'd like meet them and shake their hand. I admire people I know in real life.

What is required for a character to be believable?
How do you create yours?
None of my characters have ever been believable. If I knew what was required I'd be the first to share my wisdom. I'm a little short on wisdom today so how about some cynicism instead?

Are you equally good at telling stories orally? I don't know how to tell a story. That's why I started blogging.

Deep down inside, who do you write for?
Me, duh and my cat she's my biggest fan.

Is writing a form of personal therapy? Are internal conflicts a creative force?
Writing is an excellent form of therapy so obviously the more internal conflicts you have the better your writing is going to be for other people to read. Readers want to identify with the writing. What better way to do that than with the fears and problems every one faces daily? It's the whole "I'm not alone. I'm not the only one who throws salt over my shoulder. Thank God." thing.


Does reader feed-back help you?
Definitely. There is nothing worse than thinking your joke is funny when it's not. Honesty is the best policy.

Do you participate in competitions? Have you received any awards?
Not anymore. I did in middle school. Won some awards but they weren't national or anything. Looking back it seems more like a "big fish in small pond" situation.

Do you share rough drafts of your writings with someone whose opinion you trust?
Sometimes. But my dad told me to "trust no one" so yeah.

Do you believe you have already found "your voice" or is that something one is always searching for?
Sometimes I think I have found my voice but then sometimes I think I'm still searching. I like to start my search in the refrigerator. Alcohol loosens the tongue quite nicely.

What discipline do you impose on yourself regarding schedules, goals, etc.?
I lack discipline in all areas of my life.


What do you surround yourself with in your work area in order to help your concentrate?
(looks like a typo there whohub.) Caffeine, a window and iTunes.

Do you write on a computer? Do you print frequently? Do you correct on paper? What is your process?
On the lappy, no printing or correcting on paper. (we need trees for breathing not reading my drivel) Didn't you guys ask me about my process once already? This interview is getting long and I finished my Dr.Pepper like five questions ago. NEXT QUESTION PLEASE THANK YOU! I HAVEN'T GOT ALL DAY PEOPLE! THE SUN IS OUT AND I LIVE IN OHIO I NEED TO MAKE AN OFFERING TO THE GODS BEFORE THE SNOW STARTS!


What sites do you frequent on-line to share experiences or information?
Arrrgh! Again with the wanting of sites! I'm a hobbit I don't share my experiences with any other site except for facebook and blogger. WHERE'S MY AGENT OR MY MANAGER! THIS IS GETTING OLD FAST! WHAT DO YOU MEAN I DON'T HAVE A MANAGER? WELL GET ME ONE!


What has been your experience with publishers?
No experiences to speak of. Unless you count the self-published wackos that use to come into Stables & Grand Booksellers and demand that I sell their ISBN-less, spiral-bound book of conspiracy theories or they would have us shut down because they knew the CEO.


What are you working on now?
This interview and ya'll are working on my last nerve.

What do you recommend I do with all those things I wrote years ago but have never been able to bring myself to show anyone?
Is it poetry you wrote in high school before emo caught on? You might want to just burn it all and start over. Stories or essays you might be able to salvage. Join a class or a writing group and re-work the good stuff.

Then the Whos Down in Whohub Will All Cry Boo-hoo!

This morning, before I went winter coat shopping, I received an email to join whohub.net. I had never heard of whohub and immediately thought it was a scam. The email invited me to join a free community of artists and writers by answering a set of interview questions about my chosen craft. My answers would get their own snazzy (generic) page and my name would be listed in the directory next to other people know one cares about. I did a Google search to ascertain whether or not this whohub really was a scam. All I found were people,just like me, feebly yelling into the vast caverns of the Internet wanting to know if whohub was here to harm or help. There were a lot of people who said it was a scam but had not been victimized. Whohub never asked anyone for their credit info or spammed anyone to death. (Why are we so afraid of spam anyway? Just delete it people; it's not like you have to open it.) It seemed like whohub was just like that Who's Who Among American High School Students offer. Unlike Who's Who, whohub doesn't shame your parents into buying a book that has no more value than a flower press. In conclusion, Whohub is cheesy and useless just like all the other social networking sites we use.

However, my vanity reared its ugly head and I desperately wanted to answer a set of questions about my all so important creative ventures in order to network with other Internet trolls. After a lengthy iChat discussion with a friend we decided answering whohub's questions was harmless. It was important to remember this would not lead to jobs or fame like many people might have thought. I didn't want to join but my friend suggested that if I so desperately wanted to navel-gaze I could just answer those questions here on my blog. So I chose the two sets of questions closest to what I do, or think I do, and will answer them in a two-part blog. Enjoy!


What is your blog address? What subjects do you deal with?
Well, you are already here so it seems useless to repeat the address but what the heck: http://socalcentric.blogspot.com/. I tend to blog the most about being a California girl in a strange Ohio world and the never ending fun that is married life.

What was it that made you create your blog? On what date did you start it?
I started the blog as way to vent about the ways of a world I just don't understand and to keep my friends up-to-date about my life so I wouldn't have to repeat myself a hundred times a day. I started the blog in Spring/Summer of '08? when I learned my life was going to drastically change and decided it was "too late for second guessing too late to go back to sleep it's time to trust my instincts close my eyes: and leap".

What blogging system have you adopted and why?
System? Is that like what server I use or like my blogging process? Clearly, I am an amateur.

How many visits a day do you get? What type of comments do you receive?
I don't have a clue how many visits I get a day. Does blogger.com even keep track daily? I get comments sporadically. Mostly my friends and relatives lamenting and laughing with or at me.

How has 'having a blog' contributed to your life?
'It gives me something to do with my smart-ass attitude and Eeyore-like tendencies. Though that hasn't stopped me from being a brat in real life.'

Have you created relationships with other bloggers or readers of your blog?
Not really. I'm not sure. That's a tough questions relationships are two-way streets. Blogs tend to be one-way.

How often do you post? Does regular posting of your blog require a lot of effort on your part?
I try to post 1-3 times a month. Regular posting can be difficult if I haven't done anything blog-worthy. Let's face it no one wants to hear about what your cat threw up or how long it takes to brush your teeth.

Does blogging bring in income for you? Can one make a living from posting?
If blogging provided a steady income I wouldn't be wearing $5 jeans from the Goodwill. I'm sure there have been financially successful bloggers but you really have to be good or relevant or just lucky and I don't think it's the posting that brings the income. I think it's getting picked up by a news outlet or publishing a book. Today it seems to be all about branding not just musing.

How do you promote your blog?
Generally, I just yell at my friends on Facebook or post a link to it when I think the blog is especially amusing.

How would you define your readers? Have you got a faithful audience?
My readers are friends and family. So that means they have to be faithful they are blood. They are all about my age or share my sense of humor.

Are there any blogs you follow daily or regularly?
(this is where they ask you to list the web site addresses. I assume that's how they got my info and many other peoples.) Nah, I don't think the websites need listing. Mostly gossip sites and parody sites. I'm pretty generic so stuff like cakewrecks and perez hilton.

How do you see your blog evolving in the future?
I hope it gets technically better.

What advice would you give to someone who wishes to begin a blog?
I'm hardly one to give out advice. But I guess just go for it, write about what you want when you want. Just keep it cohesive, read it over, have others edit it and don't take yourself too seriously.

Let's not do this again some time

Summertime is the most advantageous time to relocate. The weather is nice and items that need to be loaded on and off the truck can be staged in the yard with no fear of inclement weather. If one has children, they are most likely out of school and if they are old enough to help pack and carry boxes even better. Once the move is complete the new tenants can enjoy the sunshine by walking the block, meeting the neighbors and sitting in the yard. Unfortunately, the lease for our apartment was up at the beginning of September or the beginning of the end of the good weather in Northeast Ohio. David and I were lucky the weekend we moved it only threatened to rain, the sky hissed and spit but never opened for a downpour. This move wasn't the easiest or hardest I've ever had to make.

At this point I estimate that I have moved at least a dozen times. Averaged out that's a move every 2 years. I am a seasoned and organized mover. I've moved across country, counties and towns sometimes by myself and sometimes not. I estimate David has moved half a dozen times with the most activity being in the last year for an average of a move every 4 years. David has moved more times by himself than I have and yet David is not an organized mover.

A week before the move David brought home boxes and assured me we would have help on moving day. I started to pack unneeded items and made a Goodwill pile. I packed the bathroom, kitchen and bedroom last. Those rooms would need to be unpacked first when we reached the new rental. David dragged his feet a little renting a U-haul and made me nervous but a truck was eventually secured. I staged as many boxes and furniture in the living room so when moving day came we wouldn't have to trek through the apartment to get stuff. I put items that couldn't go in the truck in a closet, to go in the car later, and closed the door. Mostly breakable knickknacks because the only packing material we had were the bath towels we registered for and those had to be used to pack the kitchen.

On moving day I was packed and ready to get going. I was like, "Let's go! Let's do this!" David was like, "Yawn, lemme get on the Internet and make sure Aaron Rodgers hasn't broken his throwing arm in a freak Wisconsin cheese-making accident." As he did this I hopped from foot to foot badgering him about breakfast. Was he going to eat? Because the frying pan was still out and we had eggs and if he wasn't going to eat I wanted to know if I could pack the rest of the kitchen. He wanted to know why I was asking him to make snap decisions and I snapped at him "BECAUSE IT'S SNAP DECISION MAKING TIME. JUST IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T NOTICED WE'RE MOVING TODAY". I was quickly descending into Kate Gosselin Territory and he hadn't even gotten the truck yet.

David got the truck and he took one look at the big pile of heavy boxes sitting in the living room and wondered why help hadn't shown up yet. Normally, when David is faced with a big pile of boxes he is at work and the boys do all the lifting. Due to communication errors help never came and David and I loaded and unloaded the truck ourselves. Toward the end of the first loading we were just throwing items willy-nilly into the truck and David was just throwing his unorganized stuff into boxes in the same fashion. We almost had the right amount of stuff to fit in one trip but due to the haphazard loading of the truck we made two trips. The truck wasn't very full the second time around so I stayed behind and started to clean the perpetually grimy apartment. I turned on all the lights with the intention of turning off the light when the room was completely cleaned.

The apartment was in bad condition when David moved in and I wasted time and energy trying to scrub crayon, dirt, silly string and spit balls, damage we didn't do, off the walls. I called my Mom for advice because my arm was hurting and I hadn't even cleaned the kitchen and bathroom yet. David and I were exhausted but we soldiered on and my goal of cleaning the apartment in one day didn't come true. We still needed to get to the new rental and set up the bed, sleep, and go back the next day and finish cleaning. I told David to prepare to not get the deposit back even though the apartment is cleaner than when he moved in. So far we haven't heard from the apartment manager and we dropped the keys off a week ago and David has called a few times. All I keep hearing in my head is, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith"(2 Timothy 4:7).