Ever have one of those days when there’s ONE thing you really need to get accomplished by the end of the day, but at the end of the day, it remains undone?
I had one of those days yesterday.
I did laundry, then had to use the dryer instead of hanging it out to dry because it looked like it could rain.
I chopped cucumbers and onions to make sweet pickle relish – good god, what a time-consuming pain in the ass, but I didn’t want to use the food processor, because I like my sweet pickle relish to have those little cubes rather than shreds. I could have used my Vidalia Chop Wizard, but that died a few months ago in a tragic “GODDAMN IT, YOU WILL CHOP THIS ONION, WHY ARE YOU BEING SUCH A PAIN IN THE ASS???” accident that might have involved someone putting it on the floor and stepping on it, then bouncing up and down to force it to chop the Teflon-skinned onion someone was trying to chop. After chopping and chopping and chopping for hours yesterday, I ordered a new Vidalia Chop Wizard so that in three years when the 6 half-pints of sweet pickle relish I made yesterday AND the five half-pints I made a few weeks ago are used up, I won’t have to chop by hand (although I’m sure my Chop Wizard will have died again by then. Don’t they make a version of that thing that is NOT made of plastic?).
I paid bills and balanced the checkbook, which I’d been putting off since the middle of last week.
I ran over to the post office to drop off a box and to mail my bills.
I got home and checked my mail, to find that a book I’d dropped in the mail box at the post office on Friday was over 13 ounces, so they attached a “Bitch, I don’t even think so. You have to hand this to a person. IT MIGHT BE A BOMB AND HANDING IT OVER TO A PERSON IN PERSON WILL ENSURE THAT IT IS NOT A BOMB.” sticker to the front.
I went through the buckets of vegetables Fred had brought in from the garden on Sunday, picked out the oversized zucchini to feed to the chickens (they adore that zucchini), washed off the cherry tomatoes and put them in a bowl to finish ripening (the majority of them tend to have just a tinge of green when Fred brings them in. Sitting on the counter for a day usually takes care of that), washed off the remaining zucchini and summer squash, and looked balefully at the ONE partially-ripe tomato sitting on the counter. We have 50-something tomato plants, and have gotten just a handful of tomatoes. I suspect that in a week or two, I’m going to be awash in mostly-ripe tomatoes and I cannot WAIT. I’m planning to make my own ketchup this year!
I put laundry away and threw a load of towels in to wash.
I had to go to the bank to deposit checks and of COURSE I didn’t think to bring a magazine or book with me. And of COURSE I didn’t think about actually going inside the bank to make my deposit until after I was trapped in the drive-thru. So I sat there for 15 minutes and cleaned out my purse, used a wet wipe to wipe down the dashboard, looked in vain at my pocket calendar, checked my phone for games to play (there are no games on my cell phone, damnit, except for a trial version of Ms. Pac Man) and just generally cursed this whole fucking antiquated business where people write on pieces of paper, necessitating that you have to take said pieces of paper TO THE BANK to get your money, and what is this, 1734? Can’t they just mentally zap the money into my checking account or something? GEEZ.
Since I was in that end of town anyway, I decided to go check the PO Box. I don’t check it that often, because I’m usually not expecting anything, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, and I figured at the very least there’d be magazines I have no desire to read so that I could get annoyed by the previous owner of the PO Box for not filling out the card to have her mail forwarded. I wasn’t quite sure what my exact PO Box address is (I haven’t memorized it yet), so I called Fred and made him check my contact page so I could be sure. Then I went into the post office and my fucking key would NOT open the box.
I called Fred and double-checked to be sure I had it right. I did, I tried it again, and the key would go in, but it wouldn’t turn. I stood in line for 10 minutes, told the lady at the counter my problem. “Oh,” she said. “Your rent must be due. Would you like to pay it?” I said I would, and she went to bring up the account for me, but since I wasn’t within 30 days of the bill being due, I couldn’t pay it. In other words, the rent? Not due yet. She went back and looked at the box and checked with someone, then told me that she’d pull “the green stick” (I didn’t ask) out, and I should be all set.
I went back, and again the key went in and wouldn’t turn. I went back and stood in line for another five minutes so I could tell her that it wasn’t working. She went off to consult with someone, who eventually came out and went to the box with me, saw the nonworking nature of my key, and went back into the back to see what the hell was going on. It appears that the issue of Garden & Gun magazine that Douchey McGee, the previous box owner, was subscribed to had been pushed up so that it was under the turning mechanism, thus stopping the turning mechanism from, well, turning. I’ll be writing to those goddamn magazines (Douchey McGee also received her monthly issue of Entrepreneur as well as Parenting. Well-rounded interests, that Douchey.) to stop the subscriptions from arriving.
I had hoped to be home from my errands by noon – by the time I got home, it was almost 1:00. I went out and gave the dogs their mid-day snack (shaddup), tossed scratch to the chickens, checked for eggs, and then came inside and ate lunch. We had BLTs for dinner the other night – the bacon from our most recent pig; we took them to a different place for processing this time around, and they smoked the bacon for us and HOLY CRAP was it good – and there were two pieces of bacon left over, so I had a BLT for lunch.
It was fabulous.
After lunch, I drained the chopped-up cucumbers/ red and green bell peppers/ onion, made the syrup for the pickle relish, boiled the whole mess for five minutes, canned it all up, put it in the water canner, and then cleaned the kitchen while the canned pickle relish boiled merrily for ten minutes. I think I mentioned that I ended up with 6 half-pints of the stuff. The perfect addition to chicken or egg salad! And best of all, I think we can skip a year of cucumbers, unless the gherkins I’m going to make next week (assuming I have enough cucumbers) are so good that I need to make more next year.
Once the canning of the relish was done, I pulled the zucchini and summer squash out of the fridge, sliced up a shitload of it, dipped and coated it, oven-fried it, let it cool, and then put it in the freezer (still on the baking sheets) to freeze. Once it was frozen, I piled up all the slices and popped them in a freezer bag. This winter, all I’ll have to do is bake those ’til they’re heated through, and we’ll have ourselves a decent side dish with whatever the hell we’re eating.
We are some squash-loving motherfuckers.
While the squash was cooking, I pulled the ears of corn out of the fridge and started cutting the kernels off the cobs. Fred harvested a load of corn last week, and I boiled up a couple of ears and it was really good, so I froze the rest of it. Then he waited too long to harvest the rest of the corn, and it got past the point of being any good, which we discovered on Saturday when we were eating corn on the cob with our burgers. It was chewy and just plain gross. Since we can’t toss ears of corn on the cob into the big chicken yard lest George and Gracie snatch them up, eat them, and then require $63 million in vet care (eating the cobs can cause intestinal blockages), I decided to cut the corn off and toss the kernels in the big chicken yard, and the leftover cobs in the little chicken yard (there was enough corn left on the cobs to make it worth their while for the chickens to peck at the cobs).
I’d just tossed the cobs into the little chicken yard and the kernels into the big chicken yard when someone pulled into the driveway. I looked at the time and cursed Fred’s existence. Someone was stopping by to buy hatching eggs, and Fred KNEW that, but it was just after 3:30 (he’d told them he’d be home at 3:30), and where was Fred? NOWHERE TO BE FOUND, THAT’S WHERE. I answered the door, made sure it was the egg-buying guy (it was), then called Fred on his cell phone to find out how many eggs they were buying, and how much. When he sells eggs on eBay, he sends out 14 eggs to allow for egg breakage in shipping, so I wasn’t sure if he maybe gives in-person egg buyers 14 eggs as well. (He does not.)
As the egg buyer was pulling out, Fred pulled into the driveway. We talked for a few minutes, then he went out into the garden to make more work for me because he’s a hateful motherfucker. I puttered around the kitchen, and eventually started dinner.
For dinner last night: sausage browned with onions and chopped-up zucchini, mixed with spaghetti sauce, served over spaghetti squash. Side dishes: roasted pattypan squash (sliced too thin, as it turned out) and oven-fried sliced okra. It was pretty freakin’ good, if I do say so myself – and we’ll be eating it again tonight, this time with thicker roasted pattypan squash.
After dinner, I dealt with the produce Fred had brought inside, then sat in front of the computer and Googled pattypan squash recipes. I got a sudden brilliant idea – why not dehydrate zucchini slices, which I could rehydrate in the future to use as lasagna noodles? So I Googled around about dehydrating zucchini slices and found a bunch of information about dehydrating shredded zucchini, which you can then rehydrate and use in zucchini bread, or just toss into soups and stews. So today, I’ll be running the dehydrator!
I had enough time before I was due to do Snackin! Time! to go out and fill up the bird feeders and refill the bird baths, so I did that. By the time I was done with that, I had a few minutes to do a little more reading on Google about dehydrating zucchini slices (to blanch or not to blanch first, that is the question I am pondering), then it was Snackin! Time! I fed the cats, scooped the litter boxes, cleaned up the kitchen (the cats make more of a mess in a five minute Snackin! Time! session than I make all day long, I swear to god), and then it was Snackin! Time! for Fred and I, and we settled down in front of the TV. He put in a movie, and I surfed on my laptop.
(Side note: We’re working our way through Season 7 of CSI (Vegas), and I have to say that if Sara Sidle says ONE MORE THING that she thinks is clever and then PURSES HER GODDAMN LIPS TO INDICATE HER SEXY, SEXY WIT, I will go through the TV screen and I will throttle her.)
(Other side note: I’ve told Fred that Gil Grissom is totally the weirdo at Thanksgiving dinner. So when he goes off on one of his informative tangents, lecturing to his fellow CSIs, I say, in a whiny kid’s voice, “Mooooooooom, Uncle Gil is DOING IT AGAIN!”)
(Other other side note: It drives me crazy when one CSI finds a weird piece of evidence and says, basically “Golly, I wonder why that is?” so that the other CSI can condescendingly explain what’s going on so we stupid, stupid viewers won’t be left in the dark.)
(Last side note: All bitching aside, I really do enjoy the show. I swear!)
We went off to bed at 9, and guess what? The one thing I woke up wanting to get accomplished that morning didn’t get done. This house desperately needs to be vacuumed in the worst way.
Guess I know what I’ll be doing today!
This rooster cracks me UP. He’s part Crested Polish, thus the mohawk. I love his devil-horns comb!
I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before – Dwight is a sniffer. Every night while we’re watching TV, he climbs up on Fred, and he sniffs Fred’s breath. Then he tries to stick his nose up Fred’s nostril. He’s not picky, though – usually a couple of times a day he’ll approach me and try to stuff his entire head in my mouth, wildly sniffing the entire time. I don’t know if he’s doing a breath check, checking to be sure we’ve brushed our teeth, or hoping to find some food in there, or what. It’s seriously cute.
Phyllis and Creed are both sniffers, too, but not to the extent that Dwight is. They’re hobby sniffers – Dwight, on the other hand, would like to make it his career. I wonder how much a breath-and-nostril sniffer makes these days?
She is SUCH a pretty girl.
“What?”
Note the droplets of water on his nose.
Previously
2008: Here’s a tip: if someone teases you about being a Housewife of Doom and a perfectionist, it is difficult to refute that assertion if you’re caught in a compromising position.
2007: No entry.
2006: Damn freaky cats.
2005: “It’s cancer,” Fred said. “That’s a tumorous lip if I’ve ever seen one!”
2004: I didn’t tell her that I think scars are badass and it can scar up all it wants.
2003: God, I hate people.
2002: No entry.
2001: So the house situation, oh what a story it is.
2000: This week, the devil won.