The mac and cheese was a hit, as I predicted it would be. In preparing the cheese for the sauce I noticed that I had bits of several kinds so I put them in along with my usual sharp cheddar, so it was a cheddar/pepper jack/parmesan/brie sauce spiced up with some Grey Poupon and adobo. Not conventional perhaps, but delicious and very much in keeping with my current, "oh, what the heck" state of mind. The Boy Wonder tried a couple noodles (I used rotini) and preferred to eat plain pasta instead so he got lots of approval for trying something new.


Dinner tonight is a little less thrown together. I've got a roast in the oven and have just added some carrots to cook along with it. We're also having spoon bread and homemade applesauce. The leftover roast will go into tomorrow's Bigos while the leftover spoonbread will become tomorrow's breakfast, with stewed apples and thick cut bacon. As evidenced by this menu, it's either very cold outside or I'm getting nesty again. Actually, both are true.


I'm also quite a bit calmer after this fiasco of a week. My husband sent me out to go the library and have a manicure (he knows where I seek peace!) and told me not to come back until I was nice and serene. Who am I to argue with such wisdom. The only fly in the ointment was that today's viewing at Happy Nails was a movie featuring (in the 25 minutes I was there) two gun battles, a large explosion, and two men being shot in the head, execution-style. No one else seemed fazed by this, so maybe I'm just being oversensitive. Seems to me, though, that this is not the kind of entertainment such an establishment ought to be offering.


My friend Mike once had a manicure on the "mens' floor" of a swanky Philadelphia spa as part of a bridal party (the groomsmen and bridesmaids all took part in this outing, which was followed by lunch). Anyway, he said that sitting in the polished wood and brass room getting his nails done and watching the last quarter of a big Eagles game was sort of like how he always imagined heaven would be. Fair enough - and proves my point that the right viewing at the right time can complement the whole indulgence business. The wrong viewing can be just too bizarre. And, today, Happy Nails was nothing short of bizarre.

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The grad school problem very well might be solved. I am exhausted by all this drama, but somehow feel invincible. In the immortal words of Cake: She uses a machete to cut through red tape. That's me, the girl in the Short Skirt, Long Jacket. Except that I usually wear jeans and ratty sweater. Other than that, though...


It's snowing lightly here in Charlottesville and that can only mean two things: crazy drivers and that it's time for a nice, hearty dinner. The driving I've complained about before, so let's skip right to the dinner part. What do you think? Stew? A roast with homemade mashed potatoes? Oohh...I know! Homemade mac and cheese - the kind with the nice, bubbly crust on top. Yep, that's it! A winner every time.


Since I'm just sitting here waiting for UPS to make it through the snow to deliver my (client's) laptop from it's short vacation back to HQ, I will tell you a story. So we've been talking with our three year old about babies and such, hoping to prepare him for our new family member. He usually asks a couple questions about how little she'll be or if she can play with his duplos and such before he wanders off in search of something more interesting to do. Last night, though, he became quite upset when the subject came up. He asked how the baby would be coming and I told him that I would go to the hospital and that Daddy and the doctor would help me have the baby and then we'd come home. WELL. He started to cry, saying that he didn't want the doctor to hurt me. "I don't want the doctor to cut your tummy and make you hurt!" he wailed over and over. In the investigation into this fear, we discovered that one of his classmates has a new baby brother who was delivered via C-section and he gleaned just enough information to be scared for me. It took us a while to calm him down and answer his questions, but he eventually seemed satisfied that Mama, Daddy and the doctor would all work together and Mama will be very happy to have the baby with such good people taking care of her. Poor sweetie - the world is so scary when you're three. Can you imagine? He carried around the thought of me being hurt all by himself.

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Just a quick update to say: the "Charlie Foxtrot" documented below has apparently been (mostly) solved. It took just another three hours of discussion/being on hold with tech support in a three-way call with one of the administrative assistants at the client's headquarters, whose patience and ability to take a Zen-like approach to the whole mess made it possible for me to make it through the day without bursting into tears.


Tomorrow, I'm going to try and fix one of the other big problems in my life - my grad school's inability to clear me for graduation based on the fact that my "student number" has already been retired from the "system" when it's required for diploma generation. So, issue me another number and link it to my transcript? Too easy - so you know it can't be done for whatever reason. Restore the number? Nope, can't do that either. JUST ISSUE ME MY GD DIPLOMA! Sure...what's your student number?

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Everything I've touched the last two days has turned into a major "Charlie Foxtrot" (as my dear, sainted Grandfather would say). Just one example: One of my clients has issued me a brand-new, whizbang laptop on which to work. Fine. I discovered yesterday that some of the software required for the project was not installed so I called up the support line to make arrangements to send the laptop back to have the software installed and then sent back to me. I also needed to have one piece of software registered, so I was going to ask them to handle that, as well, since they kept onsite all of the documentation. Simple plan, except for the fact that the IM group has absolutely no record of me, this laptop or how I got an e-mail address on the company's system. Basically, they sent me a piece of equipment worth many thousands of dollars and made no record of it at all. Because there is no paper trail for this machine, I cannot get software installed or registered. "So, let's create a paper trail right now," I suggested, reading the number off the inventory control tag on the bottom of the computer. No, can't do that, in case the original paperwork shows up - can't have duplicates. So now I'm just waiting while various people check their desks for the paperwork corresponding to me and the equipment. Until it's found, no alterations will be made. Who configured the machine in the first place? We'll have to check the documentation, once it's located. I also suggested that they check their UPS shipping logs to see who sent a package to Virginia recently, since that might prompt some recollection of who actually worked on it, but was told that they don't keep track of who ships what where.


This is just one of a series of nightmares, professional and personal, that have filled my days recently.


To cope, I've taken out my cross-stitch box. I made a couple nice cross-stitched bibs for my son when he was born and I thought I'd make a couple more now for the baby. There's something deeply therapeutic about needlepoint that helps to erase the stresses of the day. Plus, now that cooking is becoming more and more difficult as it's harder to be on my feet at the stove, it satisfies my need to do something domestic and nurturing.


To take my mind off of the computer problem I went out yesterday to buy a new diaper pail and changing pad. While I was in the babystuffstore I also picked up some infant tylenol, gas drops (when did they start costing $12.99 for such a little bottle? I guess they know that many parents would sell plasma to pay for anything that promised to ease their babe's discomforts - not to mention lesson the agonized yelling that accompanies said discomforts), freezer bags for milk and other little sundry items. I have to admit that I'm starting to enjoy these preparatory activities. It's very agreeable to spend an hour or two organizing for this little person and making the environment just right, particularly when I seem to be running into roadblocks everywhere else.

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Dealing with all kinds of guilt here at Hot Water Bath. Last night's dinner was underwhelming, so say the least, and the Boy Wonder didn't get nearly enough mommy time. Plus, I didn't get all the work done that I need to and the house is a wreck. In short, nothing is being accomplished to the degree that I need/want it to be accomplished. Today I'm going to have to be a much better multi-tasker to keep everything from tipping even further over the edge. So far this morning I've unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher and finished taking the lights off the Christmas tree - all while on hold with a client's help desk! I was never so glad to be on hold.


Keeping in the spirit of taking control of my existance, I've placed a container of hash mix in the fridge to thaw. That, with the addition of some diced spuds, will be dinner along with steamed broccoli and maybe some fried okra if I'm feeling ambitious. The hash mix came about after a failed experiment in making salisbury steaks - a disaster is many ways - but I didn't want to waste the meat. I discovered that, while the recipe didn't actually result in anything resembling salisbury steak, it did make a mighty tasty hash. I'm glad I froze the remainder since I really, really need to do some shopping but finding it in the freezer will buy me another day.


This weekend is Bigos weekend. I'm making a huge batch, some of which will be eaten and some of which will be frozen for baby time. Bigos is most often translated as "hunter's stew" and it is truly a wonderful thing, keeping generations of people warm and full through long Polish winters. My half-Polish husband came from a non-cooking family, so he had never heard of it before a friend of ours, a cold-war era emigre, made it for us. He wouldn't share the recipe (grrr) so I had to suss out my own. Because I do share my recipes, I'll be posting it here for your enjoyment.

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Every year since my first "real" job (at age 19) I've convinced myself that the ramp up after the winter holidays would be slow and steady. No need to rush...everything's fine...let's just get back in the groove here. And, every year I've been wrong. Slammed again. I'm not sure what it says about me that I've not learned my lesson after all these years, but it can't be good.


Dinner tonight is a wilted lettuce salad and leftover penne with beets followed by a dessert of 3-4 hours back at the computer.


Delicious!

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Like Smallhands, we are in the midst (actually, "throes" might be a more appropriate word) of a cleaning and home repair frenzy of the kind where things get exponentially worse before they start to get better. All the Christmas doodads are in their color coded bins and the garlands and bows are down from the front porches. I have only the lights to take off the tree and get the tree down and into its huge-o-rama box. While I've been working on this, my dear, dear husband has been painting the bathrooms and preparing to lay down new flooring (he says it's "nesting by proxy"). In the middle of all of this we've got the Boy Wonder learning to find places for all of the wonderful gifts he received ("No, honey, I think your new Eagles football would be better off in the outside toys basket than in the laundry baskets."). In short, it's a mess.


Still, I have the warm glow of accomplishment. Yesterday I froze the equivilant of three pizzas' worth of crust and canned several half-pints of grapefruit marmalade (I'm already planning a nice Christening cake using the marmalade - yum!). I used a standard marmalade recipe you can find anywhere by googling for one: grapefruits, sugar, water, juice of one lemon. Not sexy, but another lesson in how the most common ingredients can produce the most wonderful stuff with just a little care. On the other hand, I am super proud of my pizza dough recipe and thought that I'd share it here. With this, you can have a pizza in the oven within 30 minutes, if necessary, and out ready to eat in another 15. That competes with most delivery places and no one risks life and limb in the process of driving it to you. If for no other reason try:


- a teaspoon or so of room temperature yeast in a largish bowl


- add half a teaspoon of sugar and


- a cup and a half of water and blend


- allow the mixture to stand for a few minutes - it should start to foam a bit as the yeast activates


- Begin adding flour about half a cup at a time, stirring with each addition. I've used unbleached white flour, wheat flour, rye flour, chickpea flour and combinations of all of these (you know, what's left at the bottom of the bin) with great success. Just put it all in and stir. How much you'll need will depend on the flour, how much water you used and how dense you like your dough.


- When you can no longer stir the flour mixture easily, add another cup or so of flour and turn the whole mess onto a clean counter and begin to knead. Back and forth, back and forth, until the flour is mixed in. It should be pretty non-sticky by now and you can either roll it out or pat it into the pan or, if you like a more dense crust, knead in yet more flour. At this point, you can also let the dough rest a bit - say 10 minutes or so - to develop more of that nice, chewy pizza-esque character, but it's not strictly necessary.


- Once it's rolled out and on your pan, cover with your toppings of choice and pop into a really hot oven (450-500 degrees or so) for 12-15 minutes. If you put cheese on top, it should be browned a bit and bubbly.


- There you have it. Pizza at home quickly, easily and, more or less, cheaply. And, as you may have gathered, the dough freezes really well, too. So if you have extra, pop it in the freezer for those days when everyone's clammering for something quick but no one really wants to go out. Seems like those days are all I've got, lately!

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