I Have to Stop Swapping Like This

I am participating in another yarn and goodie swap on Ravelry, a May Flowers Swap to celebrate the end of another long winter. Here's a picture of my spoils from my swapper, thedish! Thanks!

All Done

The Bruins season is over. I haven't said much to anyone about it since I sort of needed a few days to think about it. I know I must sound completely ridiculous to some people. I'm sure some of you don't care even a little bit. It's just sports, right? But I do care. I've cared for over thirty years now, and I don't see that stopping any time soon.

I'm going to do my very best to avoid the inevitable landslide of news that will accompany this loss. I don't want to hear the excuses or the attacks. I will not wander down the road of "what if." What if Bergeron hadn't gotten hurt? What if we had seen Manny Fernandez this year? What if Phil Kessel didn't end up on the bench for three games? What if Glen Murray could have played all of game seven? What if the officiating went our way? None of that matters. It didn't matter a few months ago and it doesn't matter now.

I'm going to go outside of all of this and give my Bruins some love. I'm not going to say that I'm not really disappointed. I am. I couldn't watch most of that game. I knew the odds were still kind of against them, but I wanted to believe that it might be different this year.

They gave us a better season than anyone expected and now that I've had a bit of time to be realistic about things, I'm very pleased about that. I have a truly positive feeling about this team now and I hope that it continues. I'm almost on the verge of saying that maybe Bruins management finally have a clue and may actually have the wherewithal to give us a team worthy of their ardent fans. I enjoyed watching this season. Almost. Ask me again next season.

At least now I can console myself with the evidence that even in victory, Montreal fans are classless idiots. I'd be ashamed to be a fan of the Habs right now. Shop windows were smashed, five businesses were ransacked, people rioted in the streets and three of the dozen police cars destroyed were set on fire. Can you imagine what it would have been like if they had lost?

What Was That?

Seriously. The Bruins won last night. We're actually going to a game six. Against Montreal.

I have to admit that after Montreal scored the first goal, I wandered away, heartsick and a little disgusted. I said after the Bruins won their first game of the series that I was just happy that they didn't get swept. I lied. I want them to win this series. I want them to make the Habs cry like little babies. (Generally I'm a complete softie about things, but hockey apparently brings out my hostile side.) I came back a little while later and was pleased to see the score tied at one. I was speechless for the next four goals. Should Kessel have been benched for the last few games? They don't pay me to make those decisions, so I'll just say I'm glad he responded the way he did.

I had pretty much resigned myself to letting go of this series and saying "maybe next year." I can't decide if I'm happy that they won or if they're just tormenting me by prolonging the agony. As a Bruins fan, I am used to the disappointments. It has become (in my mind) similar to the Red Sox not winning the World Series for 86 years. I know that some thirty-odd years since winning the Cup is not 86 years, but it's been most of my lifetime and it's getting old. I would love to see the Bruins win and stop being the forgotten team in this area. A little respect is all I want.

And speaking of respect, Harry Sinden - WTF? Once again you have shamed the Bruins and their fans with your stupid, pointless remarks. You should have let go of this team years ago. You are the direct cause of many of the problems the team has faced in the past few decades. There is a management team in place, finally, that seems to 1.) Know what the hell they're doing, and 2.) Actually care about what happens. Time for your big ego to go retire to Florida. Maybe you can hook up with Phil Esposito and reminisce about your glory years. Bye now.

In any event, I am looking forward to Saturday nights game with my usual mix of anticipation and nausea. I'm a little scared to hope out loud for a positive outcome, but oh, how I want it.

If Not Now, When?

Never, that's when.

If I don't start writing blog posts right now it will just keep getting harder and harder to come back.

So many factors have conspired to prevent me from blogging. There are many times during the week that I will think of something or see something and compose a little post in my head. That's as far as it usually gets. By the time I get home, I'm usually exhausted and don't feel like writing. I did all the work to think of it, why don't you just read my mind? Thanks, that would be much easier.

Another thing that often keeps me from posting is my fear of not meeting expectations. I start to feel sort of hemmed in by the parameters of this blog, feeling like I need to talk about knitting, or cooking, or some sort of catastrophe. Thinking that most of the things that I feel like writing about don't really fall into any of those categories. Feeling like what I write should be funny or sarcastic or at least some sort of wry observation. To be honest, there hasn't been a whole lot of funny in my life for the past six months or so. My sense of humor has let me down quite a bit lately, and I'm not used to that. I feel that by posting an entry that is not about any of the expected things or if just isn't funny, I'm letting someone down.

It occurred to me this weekend that this is in fact my blog. My place to write whatever the hell I want. And I want to write stuff. It isn't going to be pretty, and it probably isn't going to be funny. It might be about knitting, it might be about the Stanley Cup playoffs, it might be about the Red Sox, it might be about a book I just read, it might be about the tricycle riding demon that lives downstairs or the ass who cut me off on the way to work. I don't know. I don't care anymore. I just felt like saying hi, and maybe I'll keep stopping by.

dammit dammit dammit

Ever put together a nice long spreadsheet of numbers in Excel that you've pulled from other worksheets, moved things around, totalled different columns for different purposes... inserted the totals from that sheet into a larger calculation... only to find (by freak chance) that an equation was wrong?

Number of curse words = COUNT of people you've already shown your incorrect figures to
Degree of stupidity = SUM of total screwed up subtotals
Reminding myself I'm only human = also being thankful that today is Friday and my boss and coworker have the weekend to try to forget what a twit I am

Erg. Time for a Friday-style beverage.

Red Sox Swap

I decided to participate in a swap over on Ravelry in my Red Sox Knitters group, and I just got my package today! Sheila sent me some great stuff, and since I'm having trouble getting my pictures up over there, I'm posting them here too!

Holiday baking stress

When I talked to my mother last week, something possessed me to volunteer to make everything but the ham for Easter dinner. We're not really a get-dressed-to-go-to-church bunch, and Dad's a chocoholic, so the holiday is pretty much about food and springtime in our family. So... spring eats would be things like asparagus, mom's lemon meringue pie and sweet, fluffy rolls like my grandmother always makes. And bacon. My aunt swears that there is very little that can't be improved by the addition of bacon.

Please note that I named other people in relation to some of the food choices. That's because these are items I have never made. I've never had to, mom and/or her mother always has. My mother is gluten-free, so that makes baking interesting at times. It generally means two pies (one with gluten free crust, which has it's own special challenges). I was confident I could juggle all of this noooo problem. Which isn't untrue... I can generally pull off family catering, but the no problem part should never be an assumption. I do it to myself every time, despite the "Abort Mission" faces my Better Half makes when he hears me rattle off menu selections and available time frame. "Don't worry" I say "it will be fine". It usually is... often with his help.

I had pie dough in the fridge leftover from a pie fit a few days earlier, and figured I could just use it for my lemon meringue. This is the point where I found out that pie dough really needs to be used the next day (not the day after the next day), and that I was completely unprepared for the rigors of pre-baking the shell. Don't laugh, it stressed me out! When I saw my first attempt, I shuddered... butter should never be applied towards something so nasty. Frankencrust met trash can in a matter of seconds. I bought a "pie chain" recently, for exactly this kind of thing, to keep the bottom crust from bubbling up. Wasted my money... not big enough, not heavy enough, and the sides slid down like a pair of queen sized pantyhose on a toddler. I now know that a pie plate full of good ol' dried beans would have been fine. Steve helped me mix up fresh dough, and I used that lame pie chain and another pie plate to force the crust to keep its shape, and it worked. Lemon filling from scratch... no problem. Meringue? Completely intimidating. I broiled it just before we left the house, and to my great relief, it was lovely. A nice high mound of fluffy sugar. We packed it carefully, and it was transported without event. Only to find out, when we pulled it out for dessert that meringue shrinks. A lot. I even piled it right to the crust, hoping to anchor it a bit. My mother tried to console me by admitting that she always has that problem no matter what she does. But the image of beautiful meringue skating around the lemon filling committed me to some research on this subject (anyone have any tricks?).

Rolls. One of those things that seem easy to make until you actually think about how much time it takes to let things rise. I didn't realize what a family tradition dinner rolls were for me until I found myself stressing out about whether or not these would be able to meet the expectation of our collective tastebuds, conditioned after years to Gram's parker house rolls. Thanks go to my other grandmother for the gift of her bread machine! On the dough setting it kneaded the rolls for me, and the recipe I used gave me very simple shaping instructions. A relief to my ugly-crust traumatized brain. They turned out quite well actually. Not the same of course, but I will definitely make them again.

Very rarely am I worried about trying new recipes. I usually dive right in, and grumble about the results later. But this time, it felt like I had the ghosts of the bakers in my life peeking over my shoulder. Worse, they were joined by the ghosts of those accustomed to eating their baking! I'm pretty conscious about family tradition, particularly when it comes to food, so I was a little surprised to discover this anxiety in myself. It really was fine, and the bacon in the scalloped potatoes was heavenly... and I just may have finally learned not to be such a smarty pants about my baking.

Weird Pie the First

It could have been a disaster to blog about, but it wasn't. I made an Avocado Pie last week. Think key lime but creamier. Crumb crust (store bought, not Heather's homemade yummy crumb crust), sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, egg yolks, lime juice and a mashed avocado. The recipe called for lemon juice, but never one to follow any instructions to a T... I'll try the lemon next time, as the lime dominated the pie and I'm not sure that was the intent. Once out of the oven, I poured on the sweetened sour cream topping and chilled it. It was pretty good! There was a bit of greeny avocado flavor and the creaminess of the fruit held through baking. The sour cream top was a nice contrast. It was a pretty pie, the avocado baked to a nice light green color - the same green people seem to want key lime to be, and I sprinkled lime zest on the white top.

The recipe came from a book called Blue Ribbon Pies, which takes recipes from state, county and local fairs. Most recipes are quite simple, with few ingredients. I may have to try the Southern Buttermilk Lemon Pie, or the Zucchini Pie next. The latter promises to taste like apple crisp!