Fall, we hardly knew ye

A couple of days ago I had the heat on in the house and it was cold at work. Today I had the AC on in the car, and I'm going out to cut the grass in shorts and a t-shirt. I hope we get back to fall before Thanksgiving, because I am making a turkey for Sarah and me (it's just going to be the two of us for the first time), and I like to brine it. I don't have room for a turkey bucket in our refrigerator. The last time I did it (2001), I was able to brine the turkey in the attic for three days, because the temperature in the attic was well below the green zone. I don't think it's been that way since then. And it would be fantastic to have snow on Christmas, even though we may be driving to be with my sister and her husband. I know I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but I really like this time of year, but it's not right if it's this warm out. I will keep my fingers crossed.

Old Friends

This morning I had a friend request on Facebook. It was my childhood best friend Steve, who moved to Ohio in the summer after 5th grade. I was very sad to lose him, but it may have been better than what happened with a lot of my elementary school friends. We ended up drifting apart and hardly speaking once we got into middle school and high school. The same thing happened to Steve and I, but I chalked it up to being a distance problem. When you get to middle school, you're no longer with the same people that you've been with for the last 5 years, and there's a lot more people to talk to. So you do drift apart, but I think you get more life experience that way.

Back to Steve. I don't know if we met in kindergarten or first grade. We didn't become really close till probably 3rd or 4th grade. I could be wrong, because short periods of time when you're 10 seem like they lasted an eternity when you're approaching middle age. I think it might have been the Beatles that brought us together. We were both big fans, and he had a lot more of their records than I did. He made me some tapes of them, and I remember him loaning me his white vinyl copy of the White Album, which I didn't have because it was a double album and therefore cost prohibitive. One of my most vivid memories of Steve was on the morning of December 9th, 1980. My mom had left me a note that John Lennon had been murdered the night before, and I went downstairs to watch it on the news. I was sad about it, but I didn't really know yet what had been lost. After awhile, I thought I would go to the school early (it was across the street from my house) and see if Steve was there yet. He apparently had the same thought, as he was walking up my sidewalk when I went out the door (the only time that I can remember him doing this). He managed to look stricken and angry at the same time. I don't remember what we said to each other, but it was good to be together then.

We spent a lot of time together. We would wait outside the school in the mornings, and many times we would cross Hamilton Blvd. and go to the Corner Deli to get baseball cards or Jolly Rancher Apple Stix. We made up a band called the Jumping Doodles, and I had a tape recorder and we recorded a song that Steve had written called "We're All Going To Camp Gitchee Gumee." Another classic was "Lick Your Hand and Smell It." This is what 10 year olds do, I guess. He had a blue hoodie that had the string in the hood, which I coveted. I had to get my clothes at Sears, and they apparently didn't have any blue hoodies or my mom wouldn't get it for me. I finally got my own blue hoodie last year, and it makes me think about Steve whenever I wear it.

If I'm remembering correctly, his moving was a sudden thing, because I remember it hitting me like a ton of bricks. I was very upset, I may have even cried about it. I was moved enough to get him a going away present, which was AC-DC's Dirty Deeds album. I went to his house to give it to him a day or two before he moved, but he wasn't home.

I suppose we did actually drift apart. His moving meant we didn't see each other everyday anymore, but we could write letters to each other. He wrote me a letter, but I don't think I ever wrote him back. I was never much of a communicator, which extends to my adult life. I did call him once when I was on a trip to Michigan, and I think that's the last contact we had, until this morning. It's much easier to keep in touch with people these days with the internet. Steve still lives in Ohio, but Ohio is a lot closer these days. When I was a kid, I had to get permission to call someone who was that far away, and visiting was pretty much out of the question unless we were taking a vacation in the area (I didn't make it to Ohio until 2005, on a Beatles related trip, and I think we were very close to where Steve now lives. Dammit). But now, I can email, or catch up on Facebook, or call (which I probably won't, as I hate the phone, sorry Steve). I can even drive out there and see him if I want, which is not a bad idea at all.

Filler

Just doing my nablopomo obligation today, sorry about that. I know you were expecting some meandering sentences without a proper resolution today. Sorry to disappoint. Saturday is usually relaxing day, I work the most hours of the week (usually) and I have a catch-up nap. Then Sarah and I eat nachos for dinner and watch television. We are watching the IFC Monty Python documentary, and we are just getting to the part where they start making movies, which is what Sarah has been waiting for. My coffee is ready now, so I'll see you tomorrow.

Christmas Foods FTW!

You know how when you watch the Food Network this time of the year, and they have promos that say "Season's Eatings?" I take that to heart. Archway Cookies (which briefly went out of business last year and scared the crap out of me) makes a Holiday Assortment every year, and they're usually the only way I can get pfefferneusse (sometimes I can find Stella D'oro, but they're not as good). I am a fan of Archway on Facebook, and they announced that the assortment was now available. Today I went to the only store that I have found them in, but they did not have them yet. They did have a Christmas food half aisle, and they had those giant Panettones and Jane Parker fruitcakes. I bought a dark fruitcake, and ohmygod is it delicious. I bought some egg nog too. I usually get Southern Comfort egg nog, but they didn't have that either, so I got some Lehigh Valley nog. I put some bourbon in it when I got home, which made it a little tastier. This store had these great marzipan-filled stollens last year, but not today. They had a lot left over last year, so I'm worried that they won't have them this year. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

But you're a baker! I hear you cry. You can make this stuff yourself! Yes, I can, but I've never had any luck with pfefferneusse. I make stollen at work, but I have grown disenchanted with the recipe I was using. I've been trying some new recipes out in the last couple of weeks, and the first one was actually pretty close to the one I got at the store. I'm going to try a few more; I have some old bakery formula books from the 40s and 50s that have stollen recipes in them that I need to reduce in size, which I'm afraid might make a difference. Plus they have weird stuff in them that would be hard to find these days (does anyone still use powdered ammonia?) I do make a good fruitcake (which I need to get started on, actually), but it takes awhile to absorb all the bourbon and cure. I DO have one that I made over a year ago. I was supposed to send it to my dad, but I never did. I really want to eat it but I would feel bad. I can't believe I haven't eaten it already. It taunts me everyday.

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My blog really sucks this month, I can't put cohesive sentences together anymore. Sorry about that, fair readers.

In exciting news, we got our new scale at work, and now the process of labelling baked goods is more precise and streamlined. If only we could get the baking to that point. We have two old 4 door deck ovens (basically pizza ovens). I'm pushing 40 (holy crap, that's the first time I've had that thought!) and those ovens are older than I am. Earlier this year we got a 2 door convection oven. I had been asking for a rack oven with steam for many years, but we got the convection oven to implement the crappy ones we already had. I had never used a convection oven before this, and I told them that. We got it anyway. I was told that it would be good for pies and cookies, but not for yeast-raised stuff, which is my department. A convection oven, for those who don't know, has a fan in it to blow the hot air around, baking everything evenly as well as faster than a regular oven. It baked evenly for awhile, but now, not so much. One of the problems with the deck ovens is that we have to turn almost everything around halfway through baking, which gets to be a large pain in the ass (and my back too, the bottom doors are about 10 inches off the floor). The convection oven was supposed to correct this, but lately we have started turning pans around in there too. Lovely.

When we first got it, we had to figure out how to use it, because the manual was not really forthcoming in this department. We figured out the pies first, they come really nice now. We had trouble with the cookies and bar cookies (brownies et. al.), and people would complain about the cookies that were baked in the convection oven. So now, we don't do any cookies at all in there. I experimented with some of the yeast raised stuff, and the bread in the loaf pans comes out great, as does the cinnamon rolls. I bake the pastries and danish in there too. All in all, I think the convection oven was a bad idea. If I had known more about it or worked with one before, I could have told them, but I was assured that it would be great. I learned after the oven came in that many convection ovens have a switch where you could turn off the fan. This would be great if ours had that, because we bake a lot of cookies, but we can only bake 4 pans at a time in the regular ovens. There are only 2 doors where the cookies come out right, even when messing with the temperature. It's very strange.

Thanksgiving is almost here, so the convection ovens will be very busy with pies, so we'll get our money's worth out of them then. But come January, when it gets slow, we won't be using it very much. Some days it probably won't be worth it to turn it on.

Day off.

Wednesdays are my usual day off from work, along with Sunday (the store is closed then). I've been off on Wednesdays for as long as I remember, because that is the day that was the least busy in the old days when there were bakeries everywhere. That's not always so these days, but it works out pretty well for me, work-wise. Sarah is not off on Wednesdays, so I am home by myself from 9-5. I usually wake up and take care of the animals, and most times I make breakfast for both of us. This morning I made ham omelets and toast. It was pretty good.

After Sarah leaves, I have trouble focusing on what I need to do that day. I make a lot of plans but hardly get any of them done. I often end up sitting on the internets for most of the day, or I am constantly breaking up my tasks with visits to Facebook. This is actually what I'm doing right now. I have laundry going that I should be folding, but I'm here instead. I am also ripping CDs on my slow PC to put on iTunes on our Mac, which really isn't necessary. But it also breaks up the tasks. I have finished putting out the recycling, but I still have to vacuum, which I'm not looking forward to.

This happens every Wednesday, and I don't know how to buckle down and just do what I have to do, and I'm not sure if I ever will. I have found a program for the Mac that will shut down the internet for 8 hours, but I think that would drive me absolutely crazy, and I don't know if it would work. There's still the tv, and I can still use the Mac for other stuff. I guess I'll get my tasks done eventually, right? How do you stay off the internet or avoid distractions?

Paranormal Activity - WTF?

Sarah and I went to see Paranormal Activity tonight. We were expecting a good movie, what with all the giant hype that surrounds it. It was really, really bad. People keep saying that it is the new Blair Witch Project, but it really isn't, unless you mean ripoff. I can't understand how people were so scared by this movie, I didn't find myself feeling scared like I did at Blair Witch (which maybe isn't a fair comparison; we saw PA at a multiplex, and BWP in a drive-in, surrounded by trees, and the drive-in owners made up some of those tree-branch figures in the movie and hung them up all over the place. It was very cool). I guess I was just expecting a lot more based on the hype. I remember reading about the movie a few years ago, and even then reviewers were saying it was the scariest movie ever made. I'm a big chicken when it comes to that stuff, and I figured I would have to sleep with the lights on tonight (which happened after Blair Witch). I think the ending (suggested by Steven Spielberg, thanks a lot Steve) instantly negated that feeling for me. I just watched the original ending, and it was better, but not something we haven't seen before in a George Romero movie (spoilers, I guess). Two guys behind us said "You've got to be kidding me" and "Horrible movie" as they were leaving. My sentiments exactly. Sometimes too much hype can be a bad thing, but not in the money department for the writer/director! A sequel has been announced! Let's hope the actors can make more of this than their Blair Witch compatriots did.

Random weird thought for the day: At work this morning, I was walking back to the bakery from the bathroom, and I had to walk through the gift shop stockroom to get there. There was a section of the floor that had a lot of glitter on it. My impulse was to draw a chalk outline of a fairy in the middle of the scattering of glitter. Alas, no chalk.