Tangents
I am getting really tired of thinking up titles for posts. At one point I used to try to be creative. That was probably three years ago. These days? I am just pathetic. I feel all storied out. Sometimes I wonder why I even keep this thing active.
Anyway. . .
I made a mess of things with my blogroll the other day. Basically I thought I was fixing it but I wasn’t so I had to get a new one and I didn’t fix it right. How’s that for a terribly constructed sentence? Why should you care? Because I know I am missing several of the blogs that I had on there originally and I can’t get to my original list anymore, so please leave a comment if you know you were on there or you think you should be on there. I generally try to link to everyone who links to me unless the blog is just a collection of quiz results.
I am finally feeling some enjoyment with this pregnancy! I’m very happy because that means there might be some hope for me in the Positive Person category. I hate being a Negative Nelly, but I can’t seem to stop myself. I blame my grandmother entirely. Or not, I don’t. I was positive until I became a full time teacher. That gave me an undesired dose of realism and I became a cynic.
But now I’m happy! I’ve been feeling the baby quite a bit the past couple of days and it has really made things a lot more fun. Last night he had the hiccoughs and it was very ticklish, which made me laugh. It’s about time I laughed!
I also want to apologize to pregnant women in general for thinking that “pregnancy brain” was an exaggerated myth. The other day I was asked for my zip code and I had no clue what it was. I stared blankly and didn’t even know what number it started with. Seven? Four? Nine? Nope. It actually starts with a two. Why oh why do these places need zip codes and phone numbers anyway? I remember when I was a kid we had to go buy some special batteries at Radio Shack and they demanded to know our phone number. I don’t know what happened to my meek and mild mother (when I was young she was meek and mild. . . menopause has changed all that) but she went nuts. She refused to give them the phone number and I thought they were going to refuse to sell us the batteries. They had quite a fight over it, but my mom emerged triumphant and they didn’t get our phone number.
Tangent over. . .
Anyway, we were grocery shopping tonight and I was doing the usual slide-the-debit-card-enter-PIN thing when I realized I was just inputting a bunch of random numbers instead of the PIN. I finally did remember it, but it took awhile. My brain has been put out to pasture, apparently. I hope I get it back soon.
Is it wrong that I’m still depressed over the cancellation of Joan of Arcadia?
I had a huge, long rant half-way written yesterday but the power went off in the middle of it. I blame the people who are vacuuming the roof of our building. It must be their fault.
Yes, you did read that right. Apparently our roof is dirty and needs to be vacuumed. I didn’t know you could vacuum a roof either. There’s a big truck sitting out in our parking lot that says Vac-It-All and it has three gigantic canister things on it. There is a huge hose that goes up to the roof. What else could they be doing?
I am in a much better mood today, so I think I’ll skip the rant. Basically, I just hate stupid people but I need to bow to the wisdom of julival and realize that 75% of the world’s population has a lower IQ than I do. Her theory is a sound one. Twenty-five percent of the world’s population has a lower than average IQ. Fifty percent have an average IQ and twenty-five percent have an above average IQ. I fall in the top 25%, so it stands to reason that I am more intelligent than 75% of the people. This is cold comfort when faced with the likes of my sister, politicians who make no sense and CBS executives.
I was craving pancakes for dinner tonight, but I have a small, shameful secret. I’m 31 years old and don’t know how to make pancakes. I tried once, in junior high, and ended up with a bunch of scrambled up bits of half raw batter. My mother hated cooking and had no patience for teaching me to cook. I learned everything I know from FoodTV, and pancakes don’t seem to be a popular topic. I really didn’t want my mom to teach me to cook. Her food brings on new meaning to the word “disgusting.” I bet you’ve never had spaghetti made with plain canned tomato sauce, taco meat, grated cheddar cheese, lettuce and salsa. It’s even more disgusting than it sounds.
I did manage to make my pancakes tonight with a minimum of trauma, but they were really not good at all. There has to be something more flavorful than Bisquick.
We saw a really great movie today, which makes me happy. It’s a British family film called Millions about a strange little boy who finds a bunch of money from a robbery and tries to do good with it. There’s a lot more to it than that, but I wouldn’t want to spoil anything. The ending was very ambiguous and Mike and I are not entirely sure what it all meant, but it was a very enjoyable experience. I just wish they would subtitle British movies so I could catch everything that was going on. I have a terrible time understanding accents.
And I do believe that is enough unrelated ramblings for this evening.
May 30th, 2005 at 11:19 pm
Try looking at some boxed muffin mixes. Corn, blueberry, cinnamon apple, etc. Most have an alternate pancake recipe on the box somewhere, and they come out great!
May 31st, 2005 at 3:34 am
How to make pancakes (the very, very easy recipe that even works for a person who cannot cook to save herself). I call this the 1-1-1 recipe. This is actually more like a crepe recipe, I think – they’re very THIN pancakes.
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
1 egg
pinch of salt
(You can add a dribble of oil to stop them from sticking, but actually if you cook them over a very low heat they shouldn’t stick anyway.)
some sugar if you want them to be sweet (I don’t, usually – I cover them in sweet things anyway)
METHOD
Put all of the above in a blender, and mix.
(You’re supposed to then leave the mix for an hour or so in the fridge before using it, but I never do. When I make pancakes it’s because I want to eat them NOW.)
Use a pancake-sized frypan on very low heat, and melt a dollop of butter in it. Put the butter away now. After the first pancake, you will not need more butter.
Put one large spoonful of pancake mix in the frypan. Move the frypan around so the bottom is covered. I make them almost paper thin – just enough to cover the pan.
Cook over a VERY LOW heat, and wait until the edges curl up a little bit and show golden underneath.
IMPORTANT: do not try to turn the pancake too soon. That’s when it sticks. Leave it until the edges are curling.
Turn, and wait until the other side is done. (About as long as the first side took, duh.) Be patient. You won’t be able to make them as fast as you can eat them, but if you turn the heat up they will burn.
When it’s golden brown on both sides, flip the pancake onto a plate, and repeat with the next spoonful of pancake mix. Do not add more butter. The second pancake will not stick. And no, I don’t know why, either.
Like I said, these are very thin, so they’re more like crepes. You can make them thicker by using more mix for each pancake (and cooking them a bit longer), or I suppose by increasing the amount of flour, but I like them thin. And to make them, all you have to remember is 1-1-1: one cup of flour, one egg, one cup of milk.
I had some last night. I ate half with lemon juice and sugar, and the other half with Golden Syrup. Yum yum.
May 31st, 2005 at 4:51 am
Yup, my brain fell to bits when pregnant. A very similar phenomenon occurs when I have PMT, and on first day of period. What bugs me is, what earthly use could this have for evolution?
June 3rd, 2005 at 1:37 pm
I have used the Joy of Cooking recipe for years — it works very well — particularly when you beat the egg whites and fold them in.