Samina Gets in the Paint

Last week I crossed one more activity off my "Becoming a Clevelander" list. This activity was probably the most important, I went to a Cleveland Cavaliers basketball game. Everyone here is Cavs crazy because Lebron James is going to lead us to the Holy Land or at least an NBA Championship and then everyone in Cleveland can stop being so damn miserable.

As a former Southern California resident it's difficult to watch any basketball game that's not a Laker game. But it's "root, root, root for the home team!" even if my heart is in LA. Plus, the Cavs have SHAQ now! Who wants to see Lebron throw some baby powder in the air when, instead, you can see SHAQ shoot stiff free throws? (curse you Taco Neck Syndrome!) I DO, I DO! So when David came home and said, "Guess what?" I am getting two FREE really good tickets and a parking pass to the Cavs game on Thursday!" I said, "Thank you cardboard box supplier who works with David!"

The day before the game I called and gloated to my basketball-watching brother back in Laker Land that I was going to a Cavs game. Like a true Laker fan he spit and said, "I care not for your Cavaliers." I was okay with that. This was really about the seats!

I was slightly bummed David only had two. I prefer to go into Downtown Cleveland and new places with more people. Preferably, natives who know the Quicken Loans Arena like the backs of their mitten-ed hands. But I was going with David which means we left later than I would have liked and missed the first quarter. But the game went into overtime so maybe that makes up for missing whatever way basketball games start. Football starts with a kick-off. Which makes it easy to badger David about missing the beginning, "Seriously, you are taking a bath right now? Right now? Don't you know that kick-off is at 8 PM and it takes at least 30 minutes to get downtown?" Basketball starts with what, a whistle? a coin toss? a jump ball? Either way, I was being my usual passive-aggressive bitchy self and did not tell David when I wanted to leave. I just let him take his bath and fumed about not being in our seats before the game started.

Parking was easy because we had the pass. We were so late there was no crush of people jostling to get in so we waltzed through security. Then I followed David through to the concourse to find our seats. This concourse was like no other I have ever seen. It was carpeted, clean and well-lit! The people traversing it to get to the concession stands were dressed in business attire. The concessions were serving the normal fare, hot dogs and Bud Light but also bruschetta and gluten-free beer! I started to pull back on David's hand,"Are you sure this is where we are supposed to go?," I asked. I frantically started to pull my blue-collar down under my coat. Indeed, we were in the right place. We found our really good padded seats and smiled apologetically at our row-mates as we squeezed by. We also picked our jaws off the floor long enough to order drinks from our "designated server" who we didn't have to shout for. She just magically appeared every so often took our order and then another server came with our drinks. We weren't court side with Josh Cribbs but we were definitely far from the nose-bleed, cheap seats David sat in all last season.

Sitting in awesome seats is probably not the best way to see my first Cavs game. We will be back in the cheap seats next game not being able to see if Anderson Varejao is on the ground trying to win a "Best Exaggerated Fall in an NBA Game" award or if it's Moondog horsing around. It's all downhill from here.

It's Snow Problem, really

Over the weekend the Mid-Atlantic/East-Coast region had a snowstorm. You should know that already if you own a TV, have the Internet or read a newspaper. Washington DC got some disgusting amount of snow that totaled in feet and sent the capital to its knees begging for mercy — but not before they cleared stores out of milk and bread. The President was calling it "Snowmageddon". At our lakeside hamlet we got about 3 inches. Which isn't bad when compared to 3 feet, right? Ah, ignorance! It is bliss.

On Friday night Mother Nature brought the pain. David was an hour late coming home because he decided to buy a copy of Turbo Tax. He did not call me and inform me of his little detour. Naturally, I figured he was dead in a ditch because every time I looked out the window it became increasingly difficult to see across the street. The snow plows couldn't come out and play because visibility was so bad and the wind just kept blowing more snow onto the streets they did plow. The snow drifts were the height of a small child. David, however, did make it home and we had a wonderful time staying up until 1 AM doing our first tax return as a married couple. A time spent wondering just where exactly is our money going when we pay the Regional Income Tax Authority (RITA) hundreds of dollars? RITA's motto is "Collecting Taxes that Benefit your Community in a Variety of Ways". Really, RITA, then can you explain why we don't have sidewalks or more than a handful of police officers? I've never been a pitchfork-wielding, answer-demanding citizen, but if I don't see some of the basic components of a town sprouting up around me soon I am going to get a pitchfork, a straw hat, some overalls and some answers.



Saturday dawned and I peeked out the window. The neighbors had about a foot of snow piled in front of their door. I couldn't open our front door much more than an inch. The back door opened just fine. Our narrow residential side street hadn't been plowed, but other than that didn't look too bad. Our driveway was relatively free of snow. The newspaper confirmed my observations that our county didn't get hit that hard. We decided to order Chinese food for pick-up. I dressed and went out to check the mail. As I hit the end of the driveway I sank almost to my knees in snow. "Hmmm, that's not optimal", I thought, "We don't have any shovels or anything. But we have the car! Certainly, the heavy car can get over this!"

David got stuck in the street barely out of the driveway. I watched him from the safety of the house. I tried to convince him to get the car back in the driveway and we could cancel our order. I watched a neighbor help get him unstuck (didn't take very long) and when I went back to the window he was gone. "Damn him, that stubborn...I told him to come back!" I started to panic, thinking, "I should have gone with him. That way if something happens at least we'll be together. Not that I'm any good in a snow emergency. If something happens to him or the car while he is out getting Shrimp Fried Rice for me I'll die of guilt." I, Samina, lapsed Catholic, did the only default maneuver I knew: get a rosary and start praying.

Not ten minutes after our car disappeared down the street the snow plow came by. The street is now navigable and, thank God, David wasn't blocking the street! As I am rejoicing, I notice there is now a wall of snow blocking the driveway. Shit! There is no way David can get enough acceleration to get over that wall. I debate borrowing a shovel or going across the street and asking the neighbors to shovel the drive — they have offered before. Just then a kid walks down the street, shovel over his shoulder and thermos in his other hand. I pull on my boots and run out the door after him screaming, "Excuse me! Excuse me! You there with the shovel and red hat!" (What is this a Dickens novel? Good Lord.) Finally, he turns around and I ask him to shovel the drive for a few bucks. I see the neighbor who helped David get unstuck and I thank her. I tell them both we are from California: always seems to be the best explanation.

Normally, I don't employ the snow-shoveling youth who wander the streets looking to make some extra cash. They are like stray cats. You feed one then next week you have a whole litter of them begging at the back door. Plus, I've heard stories of people being robbed while the shoveling is happening or later in the day the shovel-ers come back to see what else you might have. Paranoia, I know, but better safe than sorry.

I call David and tell him someone is shoveling the drive so he can pull back in. The oddest thing happens as I am chatting with the kid. The street comes alive. Suddenly, everyone is pulling out of their shoveled drives and heading out on the freshly plowed street. I realize then that if the street isn't plowed, there are giant snow drifts and more than an inch on the ground no one leaves unless they must. How the people who must leave get out is beyond me. The entire time I kept thinking about how unsuited I am to live in this kind of climate. If it had been me stuck in a snow drift, I wouldn't have known what to do. I guess you learn. Natives get stuck, too, though. Last night, a friend visiting our neighbor got stuck in the ditch across the street. Also, I learned that the local newspaper is a liar. "Minuscule" snow fall my frozen foot.

Tales of the Domestically Challenged: Coffee Shortbread Cookies

Many months have passed since the Halloween Sugar Cookie Debacle. Since then, I have mastered several batches of Buttermilk Cookies and Chocolate Chip Cookies and I figured it was time to try something new. I jumped on the Internet and found a recipe for Coffee Shortbread, a coffee-flavored rolled cookie. The recipe looked easy and my ego was just inflated enough to think I just might make a successful batch of rolled cookies this time.

I skipped to the kitchen to retrieve my cookie cutters. I picked through the shapes and selected the cat. I decided to call my creations, "Coffee Cats". The recipe called for melted chocolate to be drizzled over the finished product and I thought the cats would look cute striped with a chocolate chip for an eye. Oh, the cleverness of me! I should have known that being obsessed with the finishing touches of cookies before one dozen even came out of the oven was a bad sign.

Like my failed sugar cookie dough this coffee dough was crumbly so I shoved it in the refrigerator or maybe it was the freezer, whatever. Anyway, for some odd reason, whenever I make crumbly dough I think that putting it in a cold place will make the dough get together and throw a party. Of course, that is not what happened so I had to knead the stuff...with my hands, that had long, glorious, painted nails. Nails that took me months to grow because I am a nail-biter. Nails painted with OPI's "Lincoln Park After Dark" a purple-black color that is easier on the eyes than plain ol' black. Obviously, dough got all up and underneath my nails and I had to cut them off rather than pick at them.

Then the dough must have been too dry because no matter how much flour I coated every surface with the cat's heads and tails kept breaking off. I rolled out two complete cats before saying, "To hell with you cookie cutters! You can just shut up and get out of my life!" Then, I decided to roll the cookies into balls. Unsatisfied and frustrated, I slammed each ball against the cutting board with the heel of my hand flattening them into something resembling a circle. They looked boring, just a flat, putty-colored disc of dry dough, so I dragged a fork across the tops making them look like sand-dollars. "There, you little @!$#%&*s get in the oven and STAY THERE! Don't come out until you are edible and delicious! DO YOU HEAR ME?", I said to the sand dollars.

David isn't a fan of chocolate and he is the primary consumer of baked goods in the house so I debated adding the chocolate topping. However, I AM NOT A QUITTER and these cookies aren't a finished product without the chocolate. The decision was made to decorate only half of the cookies with chocolate. I dumped some chocolate chips in a bowl, shoved them in the microwave and got distracted chatting online to one of my brothers-in-law. Suddenly, I smelled something burning. The microwave had smoke pouring out of it (at least it wasn't the cookies in the oven, right?) and pulled out the bowl of half-melted, half-burned chocolate chips and threw it in the sink. DAMN! I guess that's not the preferred method of melting chocolate chips. But I wouldn't know what is because the recipe doesn't say how to melt chips and I wasn't born with a set of measuring spoons in my mouth. Now the house smelled of burnt disgusting-ness. Normally, when you burn food, you open a window to let in fresh air. What happens when the air outside is 15° and dropping? Do you still open a window? Despite the freezing Lake Erie air I opened a window. Awesome, I found another drawback of living in cold weather.

The cookies came out edible and David said he liked them. But I don't care what he likes because I am through with rolled cookies. From now on all cookies that I make are going to be drop cookies. Drop cookies don't require coating utensils with flour so they are cleaner. They are easier to make and I am all for easy cooking, baking, living, whatever is easier that's what I want. Do you know what that means? MORE STORE-BOUGHT COOKIES! Well, I'm off to throw my cookie sheets into the lake! Oh, wait, it's frozen...damn.