I decided to make a cake, but I don't have any sugar. I looked in my cupboard and found I have a can of almond ... stuff. I don't know where it came from. It's sort of the consistency of that pecan/coconut frosting? But with almonds, obviously.

I figured since that is very sweet, it could be used in place of sugar to add sweetness.

I mixed up the dry ingredients that I felt would make a good cake. I'm sure there is some sort of magical ratio, but I didn't want to do a Google search. This has only worked out in my favor a handful of times.

I mixed up the wet ingredients that I thought would make a good cake, which included the can of almond stuff and then added the flour mixture to it. Here's is where I went wrong.

I should have seen that there was not enough wet ingredients to make a batter. Instead, I made something akin to cookie dough. Here is where I went wrong again.

Instead of turning them into cookies, and maybe even a type of those yummy jam thumbprint cookies that I love so much, I added more milk to the bowl.

And then, since there was a small amount of oats in the mix, it turned into a gluey mess. But it was the correct cake batter consistency, so I put it in the oven and am hoping for the best, but expecting a brick. A delicious brick.

EDIT: Wow, I'm awe-inspiring, guys. The cake turned out as if I knew what I was doing when I made it. The texture is perfect. It's not very sweet, so I can't really think of it as a dessert-type cake, but it would be really good with coffee or tea (I would choose coffee). It's almond-y, oat-y, slightly cinnamon-y and tremendous.

They're making ice cream sandwiches smaller and smaller.

I'm probably somewhere between Rizzo and Frenchy.

Back from Costco:

Frank: (After seeing the peanut butter) Peanut butter nuts! Peanut butter nuts!
Violet: (After I asked her to put one of the bottles of shampoo from the twin-pack into each bathroom) Hold on, let me unplastic it.

This happened in rapid succession and I realized then that we all talk a little funny.

Last year, taking advice from my sister, I buried the insides of a cantaloupe and grew a bunch more cantaloupes.

One time, when I was over thinking this gardening business, she said to me, "Look, they're seeds. They want to grow". She was right, as usual.

My question is this: It worked for cantaloupe - now can I just bury the insides of a zucchini? Tomato? Cucumber? Can I bury a buncha strawberries?

When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,

I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.

Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

Come down to the Sonoma County Home & Garden show and buy a tankless water heater!

:D

With all the sketchy things you have to deal with in a public restroom stall, at least you won't have to worry about someone barging in on you during a delicate time or having to invent a new yoga pose while you struggle to pee AND keep the stall door closed anymore.

FINALLY.

creactivity's mom invented this. She was on American Inventor for this invention, too. Now look - she's patented and ready to sell!

Go look. Go buy. Go spread the word about a really neat, super useful new product!

Let's help get the word out - can you put something up in your blog, on LJ, your Facebook, Myspace...have we finally found a good use for Twitter???

The first thing you should know is that I've been taking my vitamins.

Last night was the weekly worship over at my new friend Katie's house. You may remember another time that I wrote about being over there.

So I'm sitting in my room with Ced and Jasmine watching an episode of American Idol from a couple weeks ago. For some reason, I'm hunkered down like I don't have anywhere to be in 20 minutes. When I notice the clock, I also notice that I have to go to the bathroom, but I don't want to be late so I just grab my keys and go.

(I go to Katie's, I mean. I ... don't *go* until I get there. You understand)

I walk in at one minute to seven. Feeling pretty good about myself for getting there on time in spite of myself. Remembering the next task at hand, I wander down a hall until I find a bathroom.

Now, you know how when you take vitamins your, um, well, your pee sorta glows? Well, I've been taking my vitamins. And then I peed. And then I flushed, only not so successful with the flushing.

The water comes up - it doesn't go down. I search in vain for a plunger in the bathroom. I am forced to go ask the hosts for a plunger. I checked the same, lone cupboard three times. Is there any worse social situation than to have to walk into a roomfull of new friends and ask for a plunger? Nothing like drawing uncomfortable attention to the unspoken workings of your digestive cycle.

Rob goes and gets a plunger. I reach for it because there is just no way - NO WAY - I'm letting him plunge my nuclear pee.

As I'm walking back to the bathroom, I hear Katie make a funny comment - I can't quite make it out, but I hear the tone. Something about what I've done to plug it up, I am guessing. I am thinking, "YES. Please, someone just keep the jokes going", because nothing is worse than being the only one laughing while everyone feels bad for you. But then I hear Rob say something like, "You're going to embarrass Jeney". Oh dear. Now, I am standing, head bowed, laughing so hard my make-up runs down my face.

Off to the bathroom with the necessary utility. I am married to a plumber. I have also plunged before Successfully. But all these advantages do me no good this night. The water - it just gets higher.

I try all my techniques - some patented. I try little bursts of plunges. I do the one giant plunge. I pray. I sweat.

The water rises. It's now at critical mass. If it goes any higher, it's going to spill onto the floor. Needless to say, I'm...well, I don't need to say it. You can imagine.

I have to once again appear at the end of the hall and tell the crowd that I have a problem. I tell Rob that the water is just getting higher. I walk back to the bathroom to try again, and Rob follows me. It is now me, Rob, my day-glo pee and a length of tissue wafting gently in the bowl. He grabs the plunger to take care of this, I leave because there is just no way. No way. No way I can remain in this room with this gathering of desecration.

I walk back to the living room in tears. I'm laughing and crying and - yes - thinking about who I can tell about this. And this new woman has arrived in the room. I assume it is Katie's mom, since I heard she was coming. I walk up, wiping my eyes and trying to compose myself, and extend my hand to introduce myself (I just realized when typing this that I didn't wash my hands. Oh, snap!). At the same time I extend my hand, she makes like she's going to hug me. I think, Okay, I guess she's a hugger. And I hug this elderly stranger.

Then I lean back and smile at her and she says, "Oh, you're not Patti". I told her that it's true that I'm not Patti. That I'm just a very friendly guest who hugs strangers.

And backs up their plumbing.

Rob comes out and says it's all taken care of. I tell him, "It could have been worse". He agrees. I hope we've silently agreed to never speak of this again, but I've told Troy so I don't really see this going away any time soon.

I just shushed a television.

My grandma died on Christmas eve.

We had our family/friends party on Christmas eve. It was really fun. When I was talking to my cousin's wife earlier in the week about grandma (when we knew she was going to be gone very soon), we talked about how it would be special if we could be all together when we got the news. And we were. We were wrapping up the evening when we heard she had died. My grandma loved Christmas eve with the family. I bet she would have loved to know we were all together on a special day when we heard the sad news.

I was telling journeyto about some special things that I think about when I remember my grandma. I remember how she used to always say, "Remember the formula" whenever we'd leave her house. The Formula was that she would hug us and then we'd pass the hug on to someone who wasn't able to make it for the visit.

I remember the sweaters she'd pull from her closet and make us wear no matter how much we'd try to convince her that we weren't cold.

She called all her grandkids "angels" and we each had a number according to our birth order. I was Angel #4.

She made the best macaroni and cheese. I don't know why. It was just Kraft from a box, but when she made it, it was something better than it should have been.

She used to make us hot cocoa and buttered toast. I'd dunk my toast into the cocoa.

There was a shallow cupboard in her kitchen. She'd put three cookies in there when we'd come to visit. One for me and each of my siblings. It was the Secret Hiding Place. We'd scramble there after giving them a hug and a kiss. Flaky Flix or Iced Raisin or Iced Oatmeal. Or whatever. Cookies, always. I remember that my grandmere would put slices of pizza in the cupboard for us. I'd always be a little alarmed that it wasn't refrigerated.

I remember being very small and sitting on her lap while she read me The Pokey Little Puppy or I Wish That I Had Duck Feet. I remember listening to her sing while she played the piano. Or hearing her "sing" daa daa daa dee da dum dee dum in the kitchen while she cleaned up.

I remember her taking care of Tante Elsie. An old woman taking care of an old woman. Grandma was always helping someone. She wanted people to feel loved and to know she loved them.

In the recent years, she wasn't quite the same woman. Small strokes caused dementia and she lost a lot of what made her who she was. But still she wanted people to know she loved them. She'd put her hands on the cheeks of her great-grandkids and tell them, "Look me in the eye. I love you". It freaked the kids out, for real, because she was so intense about it. But that was because she wanted to be sure we all knew she loved us. We did.

I could probably fill up the internet with stories and memories. I bet I could do that.

I miss her. I've missed her for a long time. She's gone now and she died so peacefully. She was alert and smiling - laughing even - before she fell asleep and died. I was able to see her before she died and I told her how much I loved her and that we all knew how much she loved us. I wanted to be sure she knew that we have always known she loved us so fiercely.

I think about her today and where she is and there's no sadness in that. The sadness comes when I think that my mom's mom is dead. My mom lost her mom. I can't imagine that grief. I know some of you can. I can't.

Sometimes I feel like I lost a big part of my history. I know that isn't true. But it feels that way. The house we spent so much time in is being lived in by a young family who have no idea how special the previous occupants were. My grandparents are gone. All the things they were to me in some of the best, worst, weirdest, hardest, most joyful times in my life - I feel like I've lost those times. I've had some of the best and worst moments of my life in that house they lived in together. But now they're gone and I'd take all those moments back - good and bad - if I could be sure that I could keep them forever.

This is life, though. It ends. And that's okay. I was lucky to be her granddaughter. I wish she was still in her living room watching "new" episodes of Perry Mason, but it's okay. She's happy now and I know that she is as happy as she could ever be at the best family reunion she has ever attended.

Last week I went to a new friend's house to join them in their weekly worship. It was the husband, wife and a friend of theirs. All new friends to me. Which means that I am feeling a little more insecure than I normally do, and I reside on the skittish side of security as it is. The micro-group isn't helping me to blend into the wallpaper.

So I walk in and this dog greets me. Pretty outrageous dog right from the gate. Average sized, black, poodle-type dog.

Langley (the dog) starts to go a little nuts with me. Rob asks me if I have a dog, what with the way the dog is sniffing and licking me. I say no. He says he's never seen his dog act this way with someone. Indeed.

I sit down and in a few minutes, someone opens in prayer. A good, solid prayer. Very serious. Everyone has their eyes closed, even.

Me - I'm sitting and trying desperately to get the dog off of me. The dog has his paws on my shoulder and is eating the hair on the top of my head. Then he is sniffing my neck and trying desperately to lick my face while I try desperately to hold push him away from me. This dog doesn't take no for an answer. I've had dates that were easier to fend of than this aggressively amorous dog. I am laughing like you knew I would be. Close to tears.

The prayer ends and Katie suggests putting the dog in the other room. I tell her that it's really ok. The dog is probably just happy to have a guest (though he didn't react this way the last time I was there). He will calm down. Let's move on.

The dog does calm down. He's laying next to me with his head on my lap. Two of the people there are playing a beautiful song guitars and singing together and the other is sitting on another sofa drawing. They are all very much in their own space. Alone in their worship.

And then there's me.

The dog is done relaxing. It was just a ruse. He now has his nose down my jacket sleeve and is biting the cuff. Making that sound dogs make when they don't want to give up their toy. I am pulling away my sleeve and he is all "rrrrrr, I don't think so, lady". Eventually, I get him to release my sleeve, but only because he has started to hack. As in, hacking up an invisible hairball. And then: On to my other sleeve. And then more hacking. And then sniffing, and trying to lick my neck and face. At one point he was EATING THE HAIR on the right side of my head (the longer side). This dog is clearly out of control.

I am dying. Tears are streaming down my face. I am laughing in that way where you think if you don't breathe in the next second, you will surely never breathe again. The scene is so absurd, that it's hysterical. Everyone serious before their God. Singing praises. While I get to second base with a poodle.

The song ends (played all the way through, praise the Lord). Katie says, "Ok, that dog is going to the garage. She's all puking on you and stuff".

The hilarity would have stopped there, except nobody else was laughing. And we all know that Humiliating + Hilarious - Anyone Else Laughing = Uncontrollable hysterics. And then that laughter becomes absurd. And it becomes the song that never ends. The great circle of life. The Catch 22 of embarrassing social situations. Which is to say - my world.

I have a funny story, a weird story and three updates. But instead of those, I'm just going to say this.

It's weird how much things have changed. The things I was interested in (or obsessed over, depending) a year ago, I couldn't care less about today. I suppose it isn't so weird. I change. People do that.

Tell me if you do this, too: I observe things. Interests, music, people, etc. Sometimes I find something that makes me look closer. Something new. I look into it and see if I like it. I learn about it. Sometimes obsess over it, depending. Then I'll either add it to my life - my list of interests. Who I am. Or I decide that it's just not for me and I set it aside. I like to think of it like trying on a coat: Sometimes the coat fits, sometimes the coat is too small and sometimes the coat smells.

A lot of things I thought fit, but they started to itch a little until they were unbearable to wear. A lot of things ended up reeking to high heaven.

But some things will always fit. They can't be outgrown. They never go out of style. I can never grow weary of them.

And right now, I've got a closet filled with coats that were tailor made just for me.
---
Well, okay, I'm also going to tell the weird story. It's really short.

The other day I had a splinter in my heel. I couldn't find it, but I could feel it. It hurt.

Finally, I found it. It was in the calloused part of my heel. And it was a tiny hair.

I had a hair splinter.