This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for ...

... my family, my health, yeah, yeah, sure, I'm grateful for all that stuff. But as I was baking cookies last week, I realized what I'm really thankful for: GADGETS!

Gadgets are cool! Gadgets are fun! Gadgets make life easier! "Gadgets" begins with a G! (Whoops! Word Nerd isn't returning until next week!)

Here's one that I just discovered a couple of weeks ago. Now, in general I love my DVR (aka TIVO) and you can have my remote when you pry it from my cold dead hands. I not only use the satellite service to record and playback TV shows, but also to listen to XM Radio. They have two classical music channels with little or no commercials (or even talking), something sorely lacking on regular radio in my area. Since this is a radio channel, they broadcast a still picture with the music, and the "info" button shows the title, composer, and performer of the piece. Now, because it's a still picture, after a few minutes the TV goes into "screensaver" mode, blank except for a DirecTV logo that bounces around the screen. The bouncing logo can be fun; Boy and I like the game from "The Office" where you wait for the logo to hit the corner perfectly, although TSU thinks we're nuts. But a few weeks ago, a miracle happened:


The bouncing logo is now a box with all the title/composer info, so I don't have to find the clicker if I want to remind myself if a piece is Brahms or Schubert or one of those other guys I forget about. Hallelujah!

So I'm listening to classical radio as I begin baking, occasionally glancing over to get title info, and I come upon another favorite gadget. I luuuurve my KitchenAid mixer, which has a certain sleek mechanical beauty to it. More important, it saves my increasingly tender elbows and wrists from overwork as I make a double batch of cookies (4 cups of flour is hard to mix) or a tasty cheesecake (it makes quick work of lumpy cream cheese). It's heavy, but its motor could probably power a small lawnmower. It's perfect and I'm so thankful I have it this time of year.


Last, there's this tiny little kitchen gadget I love for making cookies: this doohickey that ejects whatever goop you might scoop with it. It's perfect for making rolled cookies; much easier than the "two-spoon" method and much cleaner than pinching dough with your fingers (I hate getting dough under my nails). Nope, with this baby I just scoop some dough, squeeze the handle, and with a satisfying "snick!" I have just the right size ball of dough to roll (and dip in sugar). Even if I didn't like eating cookies, I'd bake them just to use this gadget.


Although there are other little utensils I enjoy, I'm going to stop here with my list of gadgets for which I'm grateful. Gigi, however, would like to add she is thankful for the gadget we call the "Flat Rat." It's a little hunk of fur with a leather head and tail, and she loves to chase it so much she's been fetching it back to me as I write this entry so I can throw it over and over. Sigh. A cat-slave's work is never done. Maybe I should invent a gadget to chuck cat toys....

Dance with the devil...

... at least, that's what my felines would think about the following:

Photo of the Week--11/17/08

Sunset. A schooner. A Greek island. Sometimes, you just luck into an awesome shot, as I did when we visited the island of Santorini, and one snap is all you need for perfection.

And now, a commercial interruption...

I'm still looking for a "G" word to explore, I have a cool picture/post about basting quilts and writing I'm thinking about, and I should have another haiku review soon. But now, I'm too crazy busy to spend much time on the blog. This was my schedule last night:

4:30—Take Boy to the orthodontist
5:30—Go to high school and pick up/order scrip for fundraising
5:45—Pick up pizza on way home for dinner
6:00—Don't eat pizza, but go to TKD instructor's meeting
7:00—Duck out of meeting and go to band rehearsal (late)
10:00—Get home and eat rewarmed pizza for dinner.

And here's today's schedule:

morning—make double batch of cookies for craft fair bake sale
afternoon—make poster thanking businesses who allowed us to post signs; stop at grocery store to pick up milk and posterboard
???—squeeze in some writing? I do have an assignment due by the end of the year.
3:00-5:30—help set up at craft fair
5:00—duck out early to place craft fair signs near freeway exits
6:00—help officiate at TKD testing

So instead of cogitating on the letter G, or the parallels between basting and writing, I will be making gingersnaps. Sad for you, Dear Readers, who need a little amusement in their day (extremely little); but Happy for me, who will be required to perform quality control on said gingersnaps. (Hmmm, G is for Gingersnaps? I will think as I bake.)

And if you're in the Plymouth-Canton area Saturday, please stop by and do a little shopping at our holiday craft fair. It supports the wonderful Plymouth-Canton Marching Band, who were National Finalists once again this year and placed 11th in the country!

Random Rants

The cold has frozen my brain, so I find myself unable to think of anything clever to write about. I'm feeling irritated, and unable to overlook the little things that annoy me, so I'm going to inflict them on you.

#1 rant: my neighbor's ugly car, which they have parked directly behind my driveway so that I have to be extra careful every time I back out into the street. I saw you had a "For Sale" sign on that white, rusting, crappy Jeep earlier this summer, and I bet no one wanted it because it doesn't work. At least, I haven't seen any sign you've even moved it from that spot across my driveway since August. I mean, I know the economy sucks, and you probably want to get something out of your junky car, but it's not going to look or work any better by keeping it out on the street to block my way and make the neighborhood look trashy.

#2 rant: people who volunteer to help out and then never show up. Okay, I understand people are busy. Maybe you thought you had more time when you first volunteered. But you can't even be bothered to send an e-mail or phone call to let me know you can't help? I can understand having to say no. But not even bothering with the courtesy of letting me know, so I can adjust my plans—that's just rude.

#3 rant: clueless drivers. Sure, this is a constant, so it's not even really worthy of rant space. But really, going 35 in a 55 mph zone? I don't care if you're lost, you're not being safe when you go that much under the speed limit. This is the probably the same guy who pulls out in front of me and fails to accelerate, when he could have waited 10 seconds and had no traffic behind me to impede his putzing car. This is probably also the same guy who creeps through the green left turn light, ensuring only one car of the ten lined up behind him can follow. Grrr.

#4 rant: TEENAGED BOYS. They're obnoxious and they argue too much and I'm going to stop doing their laundry and cooking their dinners and then we'll see who's won the argument!

Fun with numbers!

I looked at my statistics yesterday, and realized that this would be my 100th post in The Blathering. That's a pretty impressive number—at least, if you're a math nerd who loves playing with numbers, like me. (Example of math nerdery: while at Nationals this summer, I told my teammates that it was easy to remember my room number: it was a perfect power of 2, on the 5th floor, so of course it was 512. I saw quite a few head shakes in response to reciting this fun fact.) Anyway, I thought the way to celebrate my 100th post was to look at all the fun numbers related to this blog, which I started at the beginning of June:

170 days to write 100 posts
23 travel photos posted
13 posts about writing
9 haiku composed
9 posts about sewing/quilting
8 posts about cats (it only feels like more; sorry!)
8 posts about words
6 posts complaining about how boring Moby Dick was
5 ranting posts (although I feel another coming on, about the ancient piece-of-crap Jeep perpetually parked across from my driveway)
5 posts that prove I'm a total nerd (some might argue the number is 100)
6 manuscripts sent to publishers/agents
4 rejection letters
2 agents/publishers who need to speed it up!
11,068 words written for pay
untold* words written for fun
1 blog follower (Thanks, Mom!)
untold** regular readers

I'm kind of amazed that I've managed 100 posts, writing about nothing much at all. (Although I suppose if Seinfeld managed nine television seasons of a show "about nothing," this little blog isn't that much of an achievement.) Still, it's been fun to write, and even better when people stop by and comment. I plan on sticking around for at least another 100 posts, just to see what happens.

*Actually, I fear I would be depressed if I calculated how many words I've written for fun. Not as many as I'd like, that's for sure.
**And I appreciate all six of you.

Photo of the Week--11/10/08

There were all sorts of perks about living in London, but one was that Boy's school had a full week's vacation in late October. (Iin part to make up for no Thanksgiving, but also to correspond with British school schedules.) Anyway, in the fall of 2000 we decided to take a cruise that visited various Greek islands, plus Ephesus, Turkey; we spent a couple of days in Athens before sailing. As you can see, there are many hills in Athens and we climbed quite a few. This one gives a good view of the Acropolis in the background, and Boy and I felt like King and Queen of the Hill.