Gee, Your Cake Tastes Delicious

The Pony made an Oreo Cake on Saturday. He used the mix and the frosting we had left over from the Christmas cakes, and from his apartment kitchen. So the frosting on THIS Oreo Cake was chocolate! I LOVE chocolate frosting. I won't eat an Oreo Cake with that too-sweet vanilla frosting.

Anyhoo... I had a piece on Sunday night, and it was delicious!

Okay. So The Pony was a bit sloppy with the frosting. Didn't change the taste! There were actually two kinds of chocolate frosting. He used one for the middle and top, and the other for the sides. He really made it so he could take a slice to his Second-Bestie, who drove down from the city for lunch. Not that she has a discerning palate. She's the one who ate a year-old cookie she found on the floor of his Nissan Rogue.

 

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

OOPS! I Did It Again, I Flayed My Own Skin

No. There are no more lyrics. Too much to type. Which is hard with seven fingers and two thumbs. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. I deserve a stern talking-to, or a retired-people safety class. Or to be dipped in divinity fudge, wrapped in meringue, and stuffed into a giant cannoli for my own (delicious) protection.

Who would have thought that reaching for a half-moon cube of ice in FRIG II's icemaker bin at 7:15 a.m. would be so dangerous? Not this old gal!

 

 

There's the wound. Let the record show that my lair desk is not green-tinted. Nor do my fingertips have bulbous ends like the toes of a tree frog. I don't know what's going on with my SamGalA5, but that darn phone can't take a decent picture of my injuries when my hands are involved.

It was my middle finger. The BAD FINGER, as my kids used to call it. Not mine specifically, mind you. But in general.

I had gone upstairs late for bed (!), after falling asleep in my OPC (Old People Chair). I was checking inside FRIG II's freezer to make sure the icemaker was working. Sometimes it gets jammed by a pile of ice holding up that little lever. So it thinks it's full when it's not. 

Uh huh. There WAS a logjam of ice cubes. I reached back to knock them away from the back ledge of the bin, and into the bin proper, so the lever could close up, and signal that it was okay to dump another load of ice. 

YOUCH!

I might just as well have reached my hand into a nest of vengeful baby scalpels! The pain was intense! Some of those half-moon cubes are hollow inside. They don't freeze all the way. Which makes them freeze together in a clump, with the half-sides of the cubes in various stages of closing over. This one was razor sharp.

I turned my hand over, to see if there was an actual cut, or if it was like a papercut, painful, but a superficial slice. It LOOKED okay. I reached back to knock that clump down, from a different side, and saw a smear of blood on the white plastic back wall of the bin.

Sweet Gummi Mary! Do you know how hard it is to clamp a thump on your bad-finger tip to staunch the flow of blood, while trying to wipe off a blood smear with your index finger? Pretty gosh-dang hard! Blood freezes! That feat was impossible. Nor was it easy to open a band aid with one hand, and peel off the strips, and put it on the bad-finger to keep me from exsanguinating overnight!

Of course the next morning (by that I mean 11:30 a.m. after a few hours of shut-eye), I was making a pot of chili. Requiring the dicing of onions. That was not possible to do with a band aid on the end of the finger. The cut kept opening up every time I washed my hand or squeezed too hard on my Pioneer Woman ceramic knife handle. I DID manage to keep the finger off the food, even without one of those little finger-condom thingies they make cuttees wear on those cooking shows.

I've been through two band aids today. I'm currently between handwashings. Every tap on the keyboard reminds me that I'm injured.

Retired clumsy ice-addicted people problems.

Pony Poppie Parallels

Did you have your black-eyed peas on New Year's Day? We did. At least 2/3 of us did! The Pony decided to be recalcitrant. If anybody needs good luck for the coming year, it's THE PONY! I really thought I had him roped into ingesting a few. You know how many a few is, don't you? THREE! 

 

I cooked up my saucepan of black-eyed peas and FREE bacon from the Ponytail Guy on Friday afternoon. I set them in FRIG II until suppertime, to marry the flavors. Common-lawly, not holy-matrimonially. I was planning to have ham sandwiches on biscuits, with the black-eyed peas on the side. 

 

Of course The Pony decided he was having corn dogs at 4:00, rather than supper with us at 6:30. Then Farmer H declared that he'd just as soon have the bacon that I didn't use in the black-eyed peas, along with some FREE eggs-in-a-carton from the Ponytail Guy. You may say, "HM, of course they are eggs in a carton. Have you taken leave of your senses?" I assure you, I have not. This is a quart carton, waxed cardboard, like milk comes in. Or used to. They are labeled as WHOLE EGGS. But they are liquid, orange like orange juice. I guess they have been taken out of their shells and blended together, whites and yolks. Anyhoo... They're easy to cook, and Farmer H volunteered to make them himself! 

 

All I had to do was put biscuits from the can into the oven. Because, you know, that's TOO COMPLICATED for Farmer H. He would have gone without the biscuits. Which would have been a travesty, since the expiration date on them was NOVEMBER 17! Don't worry. They were fine. And at least we found them in time, before they exploded, as in the Original FRIG, cracking a plastic door-shelf.

Anyhoo... by the time I got upstairs to start the biscuits, I could hear The Pony above my head in the humming jets of the big triangle tub. That rascal had escaped without the black-eyed peas in his feed! I went to the bathroom door. Pounded on it so he could hear me.

 

"PONY! You forgot to have your black-eyed peas! Remember? I said you only have to eat 3 of them. I'm going to leave them in a ramekin by the stove. With some bacon. You can warm it in the microwave."

 

"I won't eat them."

 

"WHAT???"

 

"I won't eat them! Don't leave them out!"

 

Well! That was definitely an uncharacteristic balk by The Pony. I truly wished I could strap on his feedbag and cover his nostrils until he swallowed them! How dare he! It was like when Jerry's girlfriend (Poppie's daughter) told him to eat Poppie's pizza, and he REFUSED, mouth clamped shut, shaking his head, because he'd seen Poppie leave the toilet without washing his hands! Except I WASHED MY HANDS before making the black-eyed peas and bacon.

Anyhoo... I ate a few extra black-eyed peas, just for The Pony. Although I will certainly consider it MY GOOD LUCK if The Pony lands a job this year!

They Know How To TAKE An Order. They Just Don't Know How To SHIP An Order.

Oh, yeah. They also know how to ACCEPT PAYMENT for an order! They're missing the part where I am entitled to the item I PAID FOR!

Sweet Gummi Mary! As if I didn't have enough trouble getting that parcel, the one I ordered December 5, that was shipped December 8, and arrived on December 28. It contained Niecy Jr's light-up unicorn, plus four gifts for The Pony. OR SO I THOUGHT!

We opened it at the kitchen table, after I carried it in from the lock box by EmBee. Since Christmas was already past, I didn't see the need to wrap those gifts for The Pony. I sliced through the tape, pulled out the unicorn box, and told him to have at it.

Wait a minute! The Pony was only pawing over THREE items! I snatched the shipping list. It plainly showed the unicorn, plus FOUR other items, all for The Pony. I quickly deduced that the missing item was a book called Strange Science. I was NOT happy! I showed The Pony the list.

"See? I've been telling you the truth! You had FOUR gifts coming late. Now this one isn't here. I'm so mad! Now I have to deal with that. Maybe you'll still be living here when it eventually arrives! IF they even send it!"

I looked at the instructions on the list. I could CALL the company. Or send an email. Yeah. I wasn't about to waste my time on HOLD on the Monday after Christmas, with a company who took three weeks to get my order to me. But no way was I going to forget about the hassle, and just forget about the missing book. Sure, it was only $6.75. But it was for THE PONY! He was already enjoying his Strange History book, which said that Mozart or some famous old-timey composer was obsessed with FARTS!

I sent an email with all the pertinent information and code numbers off the shipping list. 

The next day, I got an email:

 

Thank you for contacting XXXXXXX!

 

We have received your email and a representative will respond as soon as possible. Our email response time is 2 business days.

 

In the meantime, our helpful FAQs should be able to answer most common questions. Please click on the link below to review our FAQs or get additional Contact Us information when our email response has been delayed.

Um. Did you see that LAST SENTENCE?

The Pony will probably be liver-spotted and bi-focaled by the time he gets that book!

A Day Late And $23 Short

After my disappointing Mo Money Monday, I left home on Too Tardy Tuesday with anticipation. Just like I had on Monday. Sadly, with the same result. I'd been sure I'd find those new Missouri scratchers ensconced in the glass case of the Gas Station Chicken Store. But no. The case was full. But with tickets I am already familiar with. I bought a couple of $3 tickets, NO 44 OZ DIET COKE (not in a fit of pique, but because I had other errands), and went in search of the elusive SHOW ME tickets.

I'd pretty much given up hope. The Gas Station Chicken Store is always the first place to have their tickets out. Casey's and Country Mart might take until the end of the week. But Even Steven was looking out for me Tuesday, because when I stopped by the Sis-Town Casey's to use their bathroom, between the Sis gift drop-off, and my rendezvous with the bank for bond-redeeming purposes... I SAW THEM IN THE CASE!

It was even more important, because The Pony had given me money to buy him some new tickets. He'd looked them up on molottery.com, and was itching to have a $10 and two $5 tickets. I bought them, with the intent of keeping one of the fives for myself. Surely you don't think I'd go a whole day without getting the latest tickets, and then ANOTHER day without one, just so The Pony could have TWO!

They're really pretty tickets. While sitting at the bank drive-thru for 30 minutes, I took pictures, to send to The Pony. An ti ci paaa aaaa tion!

 

That's the $10.

 

 

That's the $5, which did NOT want to be photographed, and SHUT DOWN my phone about five times, causing me to do a forced re-start by holding down the VOLUME DOWN and START buttons for ten seconds.

 

 

That's the $3, which is not part of the series. You uncover the symbols under the $$, then scrape off the ones you have on your prize grid. Any complete row or column wins the prize.

Let the record show that ALL OF THESE TICKET WERE LOSERS! But I'm glad I had the chance to play on the first day they were out. I got some more on Wednesday. The Pony won $10 on his pink $10 ticket, and $2 on the purple $2 ticket I am going to show below (although it's my loser that I scratched already). I won $5 on a blue $5, and $3 on a $3 Gold Mine. So at least they're paying back!

 

There's also a $1 ticket, half the size of this purple one, in bright green, with a top prize of $5000, loaded with $50 prizes. I won't be buying that green $1 ticket. They're too small to hold onto!

 

So... our first day, we struck out with the SHOW ME tickets. But the second effort garnered us mainly money back. There WAS a losing blue $5 for The Pony, and two losing $3s for The Pony, and a losing pink $10 for me. But we made more back than my customary 40 percent.

 

I'll keep buying them until I get bored with them, or they stop paying anything. I really like the $3s.

Niecy Has An Aunt Problem

Heh, heh! Don't you love those Geico commercials? The young renter couple who have a bit of a clogging problem? The new homeowners out in the yard, admitting they have an issue with the neighbors' fencing? And the poor couple who have moved into a new home, with an aunt infestation.

I'm afraid my niece, Niecy, might make a commercial about HER aunt problem! That would be about ME! I don't mean to be a problem. But I DID give her young daughter, Niecy Jr, a little Christmas box with only a picture of her future present in it.

Well. That present arrived on MONDAY, after 3:30, when I came home from town to see that the mail had finally been delivered. I sent a text to my sister the ex-mayor's wife, telling her that it was here, and that I was going to wrap it and get it to Niecy Jr on Tuesday, when I came to town.

Here's the thing. I haven't been in Niecy's house. We don't hang out. She hasn't been out here since she was a kid. We always meet at Sis's house for holidays. I told Sis that I was in a hurry, not planning to get out, and Sis said I could just bring it to HER house, and she'd get it to Niecy Jr. They babysat her until she started school a couple years ago. She's there a lot now when Niecy is busy doing teacher stuff.

I opened up the box to make sure the Unicorn Night Light was okay. It was. It's a hard plastic or resin, white, with pink accents, and GLITTER WINGS! The light is inside, with an ON/OFF switch on the bottom, no plugging into a socket necessary. I wanted to put in the 3 AAA batteries so it would work when she opened it. There was a tiny Phillips-head screw holding the battery door closed. So Farmer H took it downstairs and put in the batteries I'd fetched. When he brought it back upstairs, I wrapped it.

Of course I forgot to put the instruction sheet back in the box! So I had to fold it up and stick it down the side flap of the wrapping paper. I told Sis to take it out, and then put it in the box after Niecy Jr unwrapped her unicorn.

I don't know what Niecy and Niecy Jr had planned for Tuesday. I told Sis that I would drop off the unicorn after 2:00, on my way to the bank. Ironically, Niecy's house is right by the turn I make to get to Sis's house. I mean RIGHT BY the turn. If I turned left instead of right, I'd be on the road 50 feet from Niecy's back door. But she didn't need to know that! For all she knew, I came by AFTER the bank, so was in a different part of town.

Anyhoo... when I got to Sis's house, I parked by the garage doors, and texted her that I was there. She raised a garage door and came out. Their kitchen has a door that opens into the garage. The temperature was 35 degrees. Sis came out and opened T-Hoe's passenger door for the unicorn present, and said,

"I don't have on any shoes!"

"Well! Climb in for a minute! You don't need to be standing on cold concrete!"

"I can't step on your running board!"

Well, excuuuuuuuse me! I live a mile up a gravel road. T-Hoe's running board will gather dust and dried mud. I don't stop to wipe down the passenger side running board when I get to civilization! Sis is lucky that we didn't have slush and snow, in which case she might have busted her very own rumpus by climbing onto the icy running board.

Anyhoo... she climbed in, which was kind of entertaining, because it's a higher step than she has on her own Ford Excursion running board, which is automatic, and closes up until the door is opened, when it reveals itself for stepping. The main problem was that Sis has that bad thumb from slicing herself with the Ex-Mayor's Christmas knife while opening one of Niecy Jr's gifts. So she couldn't grasp the OH BLEEP HANDLE (as The Pony calls it) to hoist herself into T-Hoe.

Once she got in, and I'd managed to hide my smirk, I noticed that Sis was not barefoot, but had on ankle socks. Which are perfectly capable of being laundered. Sweet Gummi Mary! Sis had acted like my running board was molten lava as an excuse not to get inside.

Anyhoo... we chatted for about 5 minutes. I saw the thumb wound, which was healing nicely. The color was good, there was hardly a scab. She moved the thumb all around. But it's still useless to her without feeling.

"I really miss it when I try to put the back on my earring. I can't feel anything."

"If you went to a doctor, they might try to do microsurgery to attach the ends of the nerve together."

"I'm not crazy about being in a hospital right now."

"I know. If you have that feeling like when your tooth nerve is numbed, and you can feel your finger tap on your thumb, then the nerve might grow the ends back together like mine did in my jaw. But it won't happen overnight!"

"I think I'll just wait and see what happens. It looks okay. I just can't feel it."

Niecy hasn't got it so bad with her aunt problem. She could have a numb thumb!

Too Tardy Tuesday, When New Scratchers Come Out To Play

Imagine my surprise when I peered into the glass-topped scratcher case at the Gas Station Chicken Store yesterday, and saw an EMPTY ROW! There are only five rows. Twenty percent of the merchandise was missing! It had been double-decimated!

The newest clerk was standing by, while Man Owner himself puttered around, a bill of lading, or a shipping list, or some such document in his hand. He was not his cheery self, like Ned Flanders, whom he also resembles. 

Clerk Boy waited on me as I cashed in a $20 winner from a $3 ticket. Man Owner stepped aside.

"Oh. Are you doing some spring cleaning in the lottery case?"

"No! I had it all ready. We were supposed to get new tickets today."

"I know! It's MO Money Monday! But the lottery website wasn't even updated! I checked after midnight Sunday, like I do for the last Monday of every month. But it wasn't showing the new tickets! That's happened once before. I was not happy. What are we getting?"

"A whole bunch. Like when they do that series for every denomination. We'll be getting a new 10, 5, 3, 2 and 1. All are the series, except the $3 ticket. I called the lottery office this morning, asking about our tickets. The lady said, 'Well, maybe you'll get them tomorrow.' It must be nice to have a state job! I just finally hung up on her. There is no reason not to have them today. They should have gotten them all ready to bring out last Thursday, before the holiday. They knew it was going to be MO Money Monday!"

Seriously. THEY picked that slogan themselves. Not Too Tardy Tuesday. It's MO Money Monday! 

At least, as the Clerk Boy pointed out, they were selling a lot of their older tickets, as customers saw that was all there was available. Surely you don't think people coming in to buy scratchers would NOT BUY, just because the new tickets aren't out...