Curses

My last interview of the season was this week. I am suspicious that this interview was cursed.  

Courtesy of another two inches of snow and a flight that left ages before snowplows ventured out again, I had to drive on rather slick roads. Courtesy of the woman in the red Suburu who felt the need to drive recklessly in both of our lanes at 4:30 this morning, I missed my exit. Courtesy of my abysmal sense of direction, I got hopelessly lost immediately after this. All of this added up to having to park in the airport at the exhorbiant rate of twenty American dollars a day. I like to say it like that... American dollars. As opposed to un-American dollars. They only accept patriotic cash at my airport.  

(On a side note, I just found a bay leaf in my pocket. No idea why it's there.)  

Back to my disasterous trip. I made it to the airport a little too close to the check in deadline and had a lovely discussion with the counter man about the advisability of printing my boarding pass in spite of that. I dashed to my favorite security checkpoint and slipped past the brimming Casual Traveler aisle down the empty Expert Traveler aisle. A middle age couple in Hawaiian shirts proceeded to berate me for cutting in line. I tried to explain to them that it wasn't cutting - there were two lines. Like at the grocery store - just because my line is moving faster doesn't mean I cut. It means you picked the wrong line. And that you probably have a huge carry-on, a laptop in a separate bag still zipped up, shoes that don't slip off, none of your liquids out in a bag yet, a winter coat and a fleece still on, a huge purse, and a backpack that you are planning on stuffing your purse into to qualify for the "one carry-on, one personal item" rule. You earned the slow line. I said it in a much nicer way though.


Boarded the plane on time (hooray!), and then sat on the tarmac for 45 minutes waiting on deicer. Deicer is an important part of the flying experience when one lives in The North. Except someone must have forgotten to place a refill order. They ran out of deicer. I would understand this if I were flying out of Hawaii; I imagine they have little to no need for deicer. Running out during a freak snow storm is acceptable.


However, I live in The North. We haven't seen grass in my neighborhood since November. There is a solid two feet of snow on my yard. My side road has been covered in snow and ice since December. I don't know if the pavement underneath even exists anymore. When we live in a place like this, there is no excuse for running out of deicer. We should have deicer stockpiled somewhere.


The only explanation: Cursed.

Ready for kids?

DH and I aren't yet blessed with munchkins.  I am still able to enjoy the bliss of sleeping in on weekends, the joy of spontaneous vacations, and the indulgence of indulging myself.

DH is gone on his annual President's Day weekend fishing trip, so it was just me and Pup last weekend.  She started my day bright and early 3 a.m. Friday morning by barking her pretty red head off to be let out of her kennel. I sleepily rolled over and opened the door.  She excitedly jumped on the bed.

And promptly threw up.

On my bed.

At 3 a.m.

I was displeased. She looked miserable, but I hardened my heart and put her back in her kennel.  It wasn't as difficult as one might think.  I changed the sheets and blankets, rinsed out the gross ones, and crawled back into my chilly but clean bed.  All was well until approximately 5:37 when she started barking again.

I wasn't taking any chances.  I let her out of her kennel and walked her around in the snow outside just in case she had to use the bathroom or, heaven forbid, throw up again.  She took this opportunity to make friends with the neighbors by barking at a rabbit under their window.  We're quite popular in the mornings, Pup and I.

Back inside where I snuggled up under the blankets, and she settled in at the foot of the bed for about five minutes.

Then she threw up.

On my bed.

Again.

I was out of clean sheets and patience, we were both miserable, and all I could think was "she's only a dog ... what on earth will I do with children ... I don't think I'm allowed to put them in a kennel."

Just looking for the pharmacy

I miss my patients today.

Taking this year off to get my masters degree has been fabulous ~ I've gotten to cook and play and hang out with my family.  I've finally caught up on my sleep. Although that will go straight back out the window come July, I appreciate every single day that I get to snuggle under my pierzyna, sip steaming hot tea, and watch snowflakes fall outside my bedroom window.

I miss my patients today though. They make me laugh and make me cry.  They infuriate me, and they break my heart.  I'm bored without them.

Once last spring I was rounding with my attending, and a healthy looking man approached us.  He had a prescription in his hand.

"I'm looking to get this filled doc."

My attending took it and gave it a quick once over.  He handed it to me to read then gave it back to the gentleman.  "The pharmacy is on the second floor."

The guy happily headed toward the elevators.

Through his laughter my attending told me, "The pharmacist will know exactly what to do with him.  On to the next patient."

The script had read:  "MOFEEN   1 lb."


*We warned the pharmacy. The script was confiscated and destroyed.  I do not know what became of the gentleman.

Oh la la!

There's a new love in my life.

He's strong, flashy, and cooks like a dream. He stands out from my usual crowd. He's making Valentine's dinner this year - the famous bouef bourguignon from Julia Child's cookbook.

He's my new Le Creuset French oven.

Isn't he a hottie?  DH surprised me with this hefty beauty for my birthday.  I have a feeling he and I will be very happy together.

Must be the butter

I love to cook.  Baking....baking, I'm not so good at.  It's all so very precise.  "Measure 14.2 grams of flour and 1.3 grams of salt."   Blech, I say.

I have plenty of preciseness in my chosen profession.  I am very precise when tying flies or when building furniture. I cook when I need to stop thinking. Cooking should not be about preciseness.  It should be about smells and tastes and textures and adventure and daring. Most of my favorite dishes I know by heart and have made my own.  A little more cayenne pepper here, a dash of turmeric there.  The recipe is merely a starting point from which you can throw yourself headfirst off the cliff.

Not that all my cooking adventures have ended well.  There is the infamous case of "The Purple Chicken".  Usually, however, it works out famously rather than infamously.

Baking is an entirely different matter.  Crusty French breads, rich challah and babka, flaky croissants - I adore them all.  I have been more than willing to pay a little more for the masters of flour and egg to make these heavenly creations for me so that I am not crushed by the failures coming out of my oven that I dare not call 'homemade bread'  This winter though, I have some time on my hands.  I have decided to learn to bake.

It is not going well. Today there were "The Croissants."

"The Croissants" actually had their start this weekend.  The detrempe has to sit in the refrigerator for 24-48 hours immediately after it is made. Apparently it needs a time out.  Detrempe is a fancy French term that I think means sticky water yeast butter flour goo.  One would normally cover the sticky ball of dough that one shoves in the back of the fridge.  However, the book I'm using does not mention this step.  I was committed to actually following the recipe this time.  I didn't cover it.

I should have covered it.

Two days after I made the detrempe and had almost forgotten it existed, I pulled it out.  There was a thin hard dough-exposed-to-cold-air crust on the top.  Yuck.  I took a sharp knife, had DH hold the bowl, and sliced off the grossness.  Underneath it was golden, yeasty, yummy-smelling dough.  It was ready for the butter. 

Step 15 in this process is to make a butter block.  Croissants take a lot of butter.  No, I mean a lot.  Three sticks.  Fourteen croissants.  You figure it out.  I used my lovely cherry rolling pin (thanks Grandma!) and a scalpel to roll out and square up my butter block.  I don't have a pastry knife people.  I have a scalpel.  This is how my kitchen works.  

Then you take the detrempe and plop the butter block on half, fold it, let it rest, roll it out, fold it, let it rest, roll it out, fold it...you get the point.  You do this until you have 81 layers of thin, buttery, doughy goodness.  At this point, I'm supposed to roll it out v..e...r...y...c..a..r..e..f..u..l..l..y so the layers don't tear, cut triangles, and magically shape them into croissants.  Mine weren't quite croissant shaped.  They were more straight line than C-shaped.  But they were done.

After all of this, you let the croissants "proof" for 2-3 hours.  This has something to do with proving that you haven't killed the yeast.  Not a problem in my kitchen.  The yeast in that little red jar know they better pull their weight or it's off to the compost pile for them.  I met DH for lunch while the little yeast soldiers did their work. The soldiers got a little overzealous. 

When I came back, the croissants had not doubled in size.  They had tripled.   The croissants were all scrunched together in one tiny little pan trying to elbow each other out for more real estate.  I did what any baker would do.  I stuck them in the oven. I had low hopes for these guys, but I refused to waste all that butter.  We were going to eat them.  DH ate that purple chicken.  He would choke these down too because he loves me. Forty minutes later, I had enormous golden croissants.  

They were amazing. 

Holy smokes, were they amazing.  It was like eating buttered air.  Warm, flaky, close-your-eyes-they-were-so-good buttered air. 

I can't wait to see what they taste like when I get them right.

Poor helpless me

In general, I love being competent.  I have little time for the helpless female role.  The other day, however, I wished I were more of the damsel in distress type of girl.

It was snowing and freezing, but I was on a mission.  I needed to get to Wal-Mart, the doggie park for my darling Pup's don't-drive-me-crazy exercise, Sam's Club, the grocery store, and the library.  All those stops and a two and a half hour window in which to do them.  Not a problem.  Until I got to my car.

Stuck on ice in the driveway behind my landlord's van.

Three flat tires.

No windshield wiper fluid.

Gas gauge hovering above E.

At this point the damsel in distress music should have begun, but I pointed out earlier I'm not really the type.  I put pup in the car, switched my heels for those infamous snow boots, and chipped out the snow and ice to get traction to get around the van.

I knew there was an air pump at the gas station a block down on the corner.  I inched the car there only to be greeted by a large "Out of Order" sign covering the air pump.

Sigh.

I filled up with gas and topped off the wiper fluid.  Then I inched back out onto the road.  I knew there was another service station three blocks up.  I very, very slowly drove that way.  The man in the car behind me was less than appreciative of this fact and did not seem to care one whit that my tires were flat.  He honked his horn at me. Continuously.

For three blocks.

This is why I sometimes think being competent is overrated.  DH would never have let this sort of thing happen if I were the helpless maiden type.  He would have puffed out his manly chest, checked everything, and taken care of all problems beforehand so his dainty little wife wouldn't have to dirty her pretty hands. I explained this theory to my neighbor and revealed my new plan to be helpless.

He smiled and in his darling Polish accent informed me, "That's good idea Q, but no one who has met you will buy it."