The Christmas Cookie Adventure

My friend Ashley is one of the best people I know for those times when you really need to let loose and have some fun.  We're well-suited to each other, too, as we're both introverted animal people with minimal energy for maintaining friendships.  We can ignore each other for months, then hook up to hang out for a night of shenanigans and be perfectly fine with the arrangement.  She's also a fellow rat lover.  It's just a good fit. 

Anyway, Ashley invited me over to bake some Christmas cookies yesterday.  Seeing as how I've been so busy for weeks (and can barely remember what day it is most of the time), this seemed like an excellent chance to escape the daily grind.  It also seemed like a good opportunity to bake some cookies for a cookie exchange I'd agreed to participate in. 

So, eager and excited, I packed up a few ingredients I wanted to experiment with (including a tupperware of frozen pumpkin I'd pureed myself) and headed down to her house. 

It didn't start so bad....

We spent a while catching up.  I said hi to her dogs, then went back to the rat room to meet her new acquisitions and admire her Critter Nation cage.  We discussed strategies for socializing her terrified new rescue.  By the time we were done with this, we returned to the kitchen to see that her husband (who's much more practical than the rest of us) had already started on the cookies.  No worries.  We'd just have a nice drink and relax until he was done. 

So Ashley mixed me up a hot cider with Goldschlager and caramel vodka, and it was the most divine thing I'd ever had.  So good, in fact, that I needed a second one.  And a hot chocolate with the same treatment. 

By this point, I was feeling quite a lot of Christmas cheer.  So I settled in to start experimenting with my pumpkin. 

Things started to go sideways here. 

Upon adding flour, sugar, pumpkin and egg, the resulting mixture looked (not unsurprisingly) rather like cake batter.  Dismayed, but not to be discouraged, I added....more flour.  (In hindsight, it occurs to me that maybe I should have opted for something less glutinous.  Oats, perhaps.  Or dry cereal)

The cake batter was now beginning to look an awful lot like very loose bread dough.

"No worries!" I say, feeling rather confident.  "It'll be great.  I'll just take it, and chill the dough.  That'll make it firm right up!"

So I roll it up in parchment paper (there was no plastic wrap) and (after almost dropping the entire droopy log) manage to wrestle it into the refrigerator.  Ashley, meanwhile, was rooting through the liquor cabinet. 

"Have you ever had whipped cream vodka?"  She asked, drawing out a bottle and a glass that was most definitely not a shot glass.  "Here, try this!"

The Christmas Cheer kept spreading. 

I decided, on a whim, that the ever-spreading log of amorphous dough in the refrigerator should be turned into a pinwheel.  Stuffed with cream cheese frosting.  It'd be delicious! 

(somewhere in the back of my mind, a quiet voice is saying, "I don't think that's exactly how those are made...." but I summarily quiet it)

Pulling out a chunk of fridge-cold cream cheese, powdered sugar, and a fork, I set myself to the task of making frosting.  Ashley, meanwhile, is mixing butter-cream for the sugar cookies with her hand-mixer. 

"I'm really not sure why I'm using a fork for this," I said, looking over enviously at her creamy frosting. 

She graciously offers the mixer, although she has some misgivings: "I'm not sure your bowl is big enough for this." 

"It'll be fine!" I say, confidently, as I drop the spinning mixers into a small bowl mounded high with powdered sugar and chunks of cream cheese. 

Predictably, this does not go well. 

Ashley helps me pick up chunks of cream cheese from the counter.  I dust the powder from my shirt and return humbly to fork-mashing.  When this fails to provide me with the results I desire, I pour in some milk.  That helps with making it mixable, but does little to alleviate the lumpiness of the cream cheese. 

"We also have this," Ashley offers, looking a little hesitant and holding out an old-fashioned crank mixer. 

I decide to try this.  The mixer will spin, but only for two revolutions before coming to a stop.  I can't figure out if the frosting-concoction is too thick or if the mixer just doesn't work.  I say as much to Ashley as I hand it back to her in defeat. 

"It probably doesn't work," she says, holding it upside down and examining it.  "That's probably why you gave it to me in the first place when you moved." 

She cranks the handle experimentally and the beaters spring to life, spinning fiercely -- and splattering her, point blank, with a flying spittle of icing. 

This is nearly too much for me.  I'm laughing so hard by this point that my hands are shaking and tears are streaming down my cheeks.  My belly hurts.  My legs are trembling.  I head to the fridge and steady myself by cracking open a beer. 

Once I've recovered somewhat (and made significant headway on the beer), I decide to remove my log of pumpkin dough from the fridge.  I try to unroll it.  The parchment paper sticks, leaving me to peel it off in chunks, losing a fair amount of sticky dough in the process.

(again, that niggling voice in the back of my head insists that this is really not going well)

I flour my work surface and spread out the dough.  It rolls beautifully, smooth and elastic.  I spread it with the "icing" -- a liquidy, semi-transparent white soup dotted with mysterious white gobs. 

I attempt to roll it up.  It sticks to the table, making the rolling a challenge.  As I roll, the dough stretches and sags.  Icing oozes out of the middle.  I try to stem the flow by folding in the ends, like a burrito.  I try rolling it up from the bottom.

Once it's sealed, I look around for some way to lift it over onto the baking pan.  I try a spatula.  It's far too big for that.  Finally, I'm stuck with lifting it with my hands -- awkwardly, as it's drooping in the middle -- and chucking it as quickly as I can onto the pan.

We both look at it uncertainly.

"Maybe it will still taste good," I say.

"This is going on Facebook," she tells me, snapping photos.

Nailed it. 

 I grab another beer and head into the living room to nurse my shame. 

To its credit, my pumpkin-bread-phallus experiment actually tasted fine.  Not like a cookie, a cake, or a cheesecake pinwheel, of course, but serviceable.  Pumpkin-ey.  The texture, however, left something to be desired: A hard, bread-like outer crust containing a gooey, semi-baked lump of pumpkiney goo in the middle. 

"Okay," I admit, finally, as I deviously spread more "frosting" over the bottom half in a particularly NSFW way, "Maybe I need to make something else for my cookie exchange."  

(The rats (in her household and mine) thoroughly enjoyed it, though) 

Happy Holidays, kids (and try to drink the goldschlager after the baking is finished)

The Holiday Spirit

I can't believe I'm a week into December already!  I've been so busy that things are passing in a blur.  After a long dry spell, I have more work right now than I can handle.  This is certainly a good problem to have, but it is a bit stressful, and it sometimes feels like I'm doing my best just to tread water.  So, apologies for falling off the face of the planet recently!

In-between "so busy I can barely think" and "hibernating through having the flu," I've also spent this last week or so being thoroughly invigorated by holiday spirit.  I can't wholly explain this.  As an atheist and non-consumer, I rarely get swept up in all the holiday hype.  And yet, here it is...a little glimmer of warmth in my heart that is undeniably part of the "magic" of Christmas. 

Maybe I've just been watching too many Christmas movies.  My main computer has been in the shop since Friday, so I've spent the weekend on the couch with my laptop, playing every Christmas movie I have for background noise.  After systematically working my way through National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, The Grinch, Scrooged, Nightmare Before Christmas and Edward Scissorhands, it's hard not to feel some peace on earth and good will toward men. 

But I think it goes a little deeper than that.  Actually, I can think back and pinpoint the exact moment when I got infected with this holiday cheer. 

I spent Thanksgiving with my parents and one of my brothers.  The holiday itself was quiet and low-key, just how we like our holidays in our family.  But after Thanksgiving, I went with my mom on a quest to buy some luminarias for her house -- and along the way, I stopped off at a Walgreens to pick up antacids for my partner.  They had a Toys for Tots donation box, and I had a bit of money in my pocket, and I suddenly had the urge to drop something in. 

So I picked out a stuffed raccoon from the shelf -- a very cute toy, and one I couldn't help but cuddle a little before I bought it and dropped it in the box.  And somehow, the tiny act of buying a $10 stuffed toy for an anonymous child, caused something deep inside of me to waken and stir. 

Holidays and the Spirit of Giving

The next time you start to feel miserable and overwhelmed by the wanton cruelty and greed int he world, here's a factthat should cheer you up: According to science, human beings (as all social animals) are actually genetically hardwired for giving.  Being generous is actually in our DNA.  Which would explain, perhaps, why every major religion values compassion and generosity.  And it's probably why even a cynical atheist like me gets the warm fuzzies from the simplest acts of kindness. 

It's my belief that empathy is at the very core of what makes us human.  Our ability to recognize others and realize, "They have feelings just like me!" is the glue that makes all of our social interactions work.  We choose not to hurt people because we ourselves do not want to be hurt.  This is, I think, why storytelling is so important: By learning to care about fictional people, we build the emotional tools necessary to deal with real ones.  By telling monomyths, we create cultural markers that we can all gather around and celebrate. 

Holidays are one of those cultural markets.  We need them because we are creatures of superstition and ceremony.  We need rituals and talismans.  We need magic.  We need an excuse to celebrate so that we can remind ourselves that the long night will come to an end and all will not be cold and darkness forever. 

My Season of Giving

My partner is more naturally inclined to random acts of kindness than I am.  He has a big, loving heart and he can't stand to see people suffer.  He also has no guile or mouth filter; he says exactly what's on his mind and is perennially unembarrassed about being himself.  Where my social anxieties might hold me back from reaching out, he just steps in and lets his heart guide him right through his life. 

I really respect that about him.  So I try to follow his lead, as best I can. 

Yesterday, we went out to pick up some lunch at a local Vietnamese restaurant.  A man outside asked if we could spare some change so he could get some food.  Instead of turning him down or digging for loose change, David invited him to come inside and eat lunch with us.  We bought him some food (enough for two meals - he took some to go for that evening) and had a nice chat about his life and circumstances.  We connected like humans. 

For me, it fed that glowing warmth in me, that Christmas spirit that's been building all week.  For David, it was just what a decent human being is supposed to do. 

If you've never tried it, I urge you to go out tomorrow and do something kind for a stranger.  It doesn't have to be a big thing: Pay for the person behind you in line, tip generously, help an old lady load groceries in her car.  Just reach out to another human, and see what happens.  You never know...even atheists can get a little Christmas miracle sometimes ;) 

And a Bit of Housekeeping...

Tagestraum is still slated to be ready around Christmas, if things go according to plan, and I'm still very excited for it. 

I also have a very special Christmas story planned for all of my newsletter subscribers.  If you want to get it, be sure to subscribe to my newsletter before Christmas!  The link is over there ===>

Review: Freakonomics

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Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

This is a really excellent book. 

I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to get around to reading it.  It was recommended to me some time ago by my brother, who knows precisely what type of books will appeal to me, and he was right: I devoured this book in two sittings and eagerly wished for more.  I understand that there's a documentary version of it that's also quite good. 

Anyway: Freakonomics isn't a how-to, precisely, nor does it deal with any particular economic problem.  Instead, it's roughly divided into a few essays that seek to find the relationship between apparently unrelated things: it talks about cheating among sumo wrestlers and teachers; it discusses the role abortion plays in crime; it questions whether parents really play an important role in the outcome of their offspring and whether names make a difference in your success.  It does all of this in an engaging writing style filled with anecdotes, a style that easily breaks down complicated concepts.  

What makes this book great isn't its conclusions (which are themselves quite insightful) but the fact that it shows you how those conclusions are made.  It teaches you how to think critically, which is a skill sorely lacking among many people.  It also adds a humanizing side to economics, which can seem horribly abstract and dull. 

If I were to design a home-school curriculum, I would include this book as a supplemental text -- that's how good it is.  (I often think of home-schooling my future children.  As a home-schooled kid myself, it seems only natural). I recommend this book to everyone. 

Who Does Not Work Shall Not Eat

For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat  (2 Thessalonians 3:10)

So...Food stamps.  Everybody is eager to share an opinion on them.  Those opinions can get pretty heated.  If you catch them on a bad day, they also can fill you with despair and loathing toward most of mankind. 

For my part, the war on food stamps is a little baffling.  Not because I don't understand why it can feel good and righteous to hold opinions about other people's lives and habits (nah, I get that), and not because I don't get outraged at the way my tax dollars are spent (I totally get that, too) but because the people who are most upset don't seem to care as much about other uses of their tax dollars.  They're bizarrely hyper-focused on food, on what other people are eating, and I think it stems from a few causes:

• SNAP benefits are applied unevenly and don't seem to make much sense sometimes, so people who make just slightly too much money to qualify end up having less money for groceries than they would have if they were getting SNAP.  This can lead to a lot of bitterness that the people on SNAP are eating better than they are.  
• People always have an example of "someone" who's cheating the system, although it's hard to get precise details on how that cheating is happening (or why it's not considered cheating when a corporation gets a government hand-out).  Quite often, I suspect that the "someone" doesn't really exist -- it's an urban legend that gets passed around between people as truth (as urban legends tend to). 
• Food purchases are viewed in isolation.  If you're standing behind someone in line and they're paying with food stamps (and, incidentally, why the hell are you paying that much attention?  it's a card they swipe -- do you look to see if they use Visa or MasterCard, too?), you're getting only a small glimpse at their life.  You can't extrapolate a whole lot from that.  Maybe the lady buying potato chips and soda is attending a potluck for work, where not participating could have consequences for her relationship with her boss but she has no time to cook (I've had that job).  Maybe the dude buying crab legs is preparing a special dinner at home for his girlfriend so he can propose since he can't afford a nice restaurant.  You have no way of knowing.  And, also, it's none of your business.  
• It's easy for people to get outraged about what other people are outraged about.  In other words, since it's in the news, people feel qualified to give an opinion.  If people were aware of many other things that go on in the world, they'd likely have opinions about those, too. 

Incidentally, the majority of people receiving SNAP actually have jobs, (or are too young or too old to work) so Paul's admonition in Thessalonians is irrelevant here (even if you find anything Paul says to be relevant in the first place, which is an utterly different conversation).

So here's my moral to you, if you've ever caught yourself being outraged at people receiving food stamps: 
If you want people to stop relying on the government for food, lobby for a living wage.

If you're not okay with the idea of people being paid enough to feed their families, then go ahead and openly admit that you don't believe that humans have the right to eat (and, by extension, survive).

And, seriously, why are you paying so much attention to what type of plastic a person uses to pay for their groceries?  (Paul would, surely, chastise you for being a busybody if he knew about this).

Is It Our Job to Be Miserable?

A quick glance around my family and friends yields astonishingly few people who are happy with their jobs. 

It also seems that people are working harder to have less.  People pay $1,000 in child care per month so that they can make $1,200 at a job -- a net profit of $200 (not including the added expenses of gas and work clothes).  Is it worth it?  Wouldn't it be easier to trim that $200 from the budget and just have one of the parents stay home?

Or the people who work at retail or fast food jobs, and end up turning around and "reinvesting" their earnings immediately back into buying whatever it is they sell.

The people who never see their spouses or families because they're always working in a desperate attempt to provide for them.

Or the people who are accustomed (or even wedded) to the comforts afforded by the day job they hate, so they don't dare leave it to pursue the things they're truly passionate about. 

One of my core beliefs is that you should strive to live on a budget that allows you to do what you want with your life.  There's no point in working hard and earning money if you don't have the time to spend that money.  There's no point in buying yourself a lifestyle if you then can't actually live it.

And yet...isn't it a cultural "given" that you must pay your dues, work the shitty job, and be miserable?  Shouldn't you be grateful to even have a job at all?  

Isn't it a message that you're not allowed to opt out of the system?

There's a lot of bitterness in all that, and there's a lot of cultural baggage to unpack, and it gets more complicated the more I think about it.  After all, there will always be jobs that people don't want to do.  For someone to be on the top, someone has to be on the bottom, right? Not everyone can follow their dreams.  Or can they?

Where do you stand in all of this? 

Book Review: Freedom Through Frugality

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Freedom Through Frugality: Spend Less, Have More
by Jane Dwinell

To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure that I was going to like this book when I started reading it.  The first few chapters, where the author extolls the benefits of frugality and establishes her credibility, had me rolling my eyes quite a bit.  Like many authors in this niche, Dwinell tries too hard to to establish herself as an expert, and the result comes off as a little sanctimonious.  You know those people on Pinterest who seem to have perfect lives, and how you want to punch them?  It's kind of like that.

I'm glad I stuck with it, though, because the rest of the book is jam-packed with useful, pragmatic tips.  Many of them are pretty basic or things I already knew, but I did get a few decent ideas, and I came to like the author more by the end of it -- once I realized that we perhaps have more in common than I'd thought.

The audience for this book is obviously the overworked middle class (isn't that the audience of all of these books?), and she does pander to them a bit, but she also sticks to her principles, and I respect that.  The basic message of the book is that frugality allows you to have more freedom -- by having fewer material possessions and needs, you can cut down on how much time you need to work and spend your time pursuing your passions instead.  That's certainly a message I can get behind.  She also looks at frugality not as a means to an end but as a philosophy -- being frugal isn't about having few things, it's about really appreciating the things you have and being thoughtful in each decision you make.

This is worth reading.  If you're pretty new to budgeting and need some practical tips, this is a good place to start.  The ideas stay fairly vague, so this is more of an entry-level book than a blackbelt's guide, but I'd still recommend it.

Today's Frugal Accomplishments

Today is a good day.  This afternoon, I went with my partner, David, and a couple friends to see Thor: The Dark World.  The theater we visit has a special on Mondays:  If you go upstairs to the cafe, you can order a pizza, wings and four drinks for $35 and get four free movie tickets.  Seeing as four movie tickets on their own cost roughly that much, it's a good value if you were planning on seeing a movie anyway.  Also, the drinks are refillable (unlike the ones at the concession stand), so you squeeze out a bit of extra value that way too. 

Part of the excitement about this movie-watching plan is that it's been in the works for a while.  It was supposed to happen last week but was delayed (Veteran's Day means I didn't get paid on Monday, so no luxury spending for me!), and anticipation makes things more exciting.  There's something to be said for the power of delayed gratification.  

This also gave me an occasion to wear my new t-shirt, which doesn't sound very exciting, but it's big for me because I very rarely get new clothes, so I get excited over each and every piece.  Actually, this is my first item of clothing purchased since my birthday in September, and the first non-thrift-store item I've gotten since last Christmas.

It's the Master Sword made into a keyblade.
Thanks, TeeFury, for being awesome. 

Other frugal accomplishments of the week: 

• I ordered a set of 20 free holiday cards from Wal-Greens.  Relatives and in-laws will likely be delighted to get some photos of the two of us, as we don't tend to take many pictures of ourselves.  
• I made a batch of homemade mustard.  It turned out a little thin and vinegary (I didn't have the ratios quite right -- I'll work on perfecting it before Christmas!) but I used it as a Carolina-style barbecue sauce for some pulled pork sandwiches (using pork I'd cooked and frozen a few weeks ago) and it worked out just fine.  I also made deviled eggs with the mustard and some homemade pickles.  
• I inherited a whole stack of delightfully vintage 1970s-era cookbooks from my parents, who had been cleaning out my late grandmother's house.  My love of old cookbooks is deep and maybe a little obsessive.  
• I made some homemade cleaning solution of vinegar and lime peels.  David was a little skeptical at first, but between it and a bit of baking soda, we got our rather grimy stovetop looking as sparkly white as it ever has

Now off to squeeze in a bit of work before I settle in for some reading and late-night closet organizing.