Happy HoliYUMdays!

As mentioned, it's that time of year when we have a little nosh, followed by a light snack followed by a quick meal followed by elevensies followed by a nap followed by about a forty pound weight gain if we've been counting calories.

So, in honor of the occasion, I've decided to review two foodly items, one extremely good and the other getting a gazillion thumbs down.

Homemade Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls with sugar-free glaze
Rating: the aforementioned gazillion thumbs down
Comments: What kind of sick mind comes up with such things? Cinnamon rolls are intended to be softly white with all kinds of sugary goodness to augment the cinnamon flavor. The dough is gently handled to prevent toughness, and the nature of the assembled uncooked product - dough, butter, sugar/cinnamon - insures we are biting into something soft, rich and ever so delicious when it is done baking to a golden brown in the oven. Recipes vary, but nearly all use such phrases as, "stretch gently," "sprinkle generously," and "DO NOT OVERBAKE."

Whole wheat by nature is tough! It's God's way of ensuring we don't die of colon cancer! It's intended to clean out the residual bits of perfectly-made cinnamon rolls after the holidays when we are back to be diet-conscious and slightly depressed folks. If you want a birkenstock sort of pastry, then EAT A BRAN MUFFIN. But if you make cinnamon rolls for the office and you use whole wheat flour, be kind and tell folks? I had to use five pats of butter, a tsp. of salt AND a significant amount of creamed and sugared coffee on top to make the thing edible!!

I mean, really, what's the bloody point?

Tim Tams
Rating: A most emphatic thumbs up and I can't wait to get home tonight!
Comments: Ok, aussies are a strange bunch, but they do have the Tim Tam.

I've just had my first, and it was followed quickly by a second. I ate the first and immediately came to the conclusion that this delicious cookie treat would be perfectly paired with a nice cup of coffee. I also felt the experience could be enhanced if the Tim Tam was zapped for 5 seconds in the microwave to relax the caramel layer inside. A few minutes later, I was enjoying a variation of the Tim Tam Slam without even realizing there was such a thing.

I plan to try a Tim Tam Suck tonight if the canadian will oblige :)

Stay Awake

WHERE THE HELL IS MY DREAM ANGEL???? I looked everywhere in dreamland, and she was NOT THERE. I looked all along the inner perimeter where she usually patrols just outside my peripheral vision; she wasn't there. I climbed the bookcliffs to see if perhaps she was patrolling the outer perimeter, and I couldn't see her there either. She was nowhere on the dreamscape!

And I have to tell you, it took a lot of courage for me to climb up to the top of the bookcliffs and look because the draemons sometimes hide out in the caves just below the bookshelf and, when I was standing there, looking far and wide for my dream angel, I could feel their malevolence; the air positively reeked with the stench of their foul-mindedness, so I'm pretty sure they were very close by.

So since I couldn't find her, I headed back to the center of dreamland, back to my bedroom and my magic bed with its magic covers, and the draemons had gotten there first! The bedroom had shrunk to the size of a double bed plus a mere foot on either side, and the hardwood floor was covered in small brown cockroaches, they were literally swarming over each other hurrying absolutely nowhere! And I couldn't stand the thought of stepping on them and hearing their little crunchy sounds, and I didn't want any crawling up my leg, so I leapt to the exact center of the bed which is where the magic happens, only to realize it was also covered in them, even under the magic blankets and magic sheets!!

So I called for my dream angel, "WHERE ARE YOU?" I cried, and all I heard was draemonic laughter that spilled out a gazillion more cockroaches to run across the floor and up the bedframe and across my feet as I danced like an absolute lunatic in an attempt to keep my feet off the bed and away from the bugs. Needless to say, that was an extremely restless night of sleep.

And the rest of the week was just as bad! I dreamt about exes and my mom and the American flag and all kinds of crap! Last night I dreamt that I was trying to get the kids out of the house and into the car before the thermostat that was really a timer counted down to 0000 and the living room exploded. And one of the children hid in the coat closet and refused to come out because she said I was scaring her cuz I was crying and insisting they leave in the middle of the night when they were still wearing their jammies and if everything was really ok then why couldn't they put on regular clothes first. So I had to grab at her which scared her more and when I finally got hold of her and bundled her into a coat and out to the car, she went kicking and screaming which broke my heart, but what could I do??? Then when we got in the car and drove away, I bought them each a balloon to cheer them up, and the balloons turned into draemons and the kids started screaming all over again!!

And in that dream, I looked all around for my dream angel, I really, really needed her to be going all Lara Croft/Tomb Raiders-ish on the draemons, but she was still nowhere to be found. And there were no throwing stars with sayings to stop the draemons, sayings like "Crimples are cute curls too," and "You can't say thanks too much;" she and her vast arsenal of most excellent weapons for fighting evil thoughts WERE NOT THERE.

I finally just got up and sat in the living room and stared at the blue light on my code monkey's computer until the sound and smell of the draemons disappeared from my sleep-deprived mind. Then I went back to bed and curled up in some very strong and capable arms and decided that perhaps during my waking hour I should quit thinking about how many days are left to the end of the year and the start of the new year which you might recall is 2010, The Year of Smooshing Small Spiders.

Let Them Eat Cake

Main Entry: tunnel vision
Function: noun
Date: circa 1942
1 : constriction of the visual field resulting in loss of peripheral vision
2 : extreme narrowness of viewpoint : narrowmindedness; also : single-minded concentration on one objective
— tun·nel–vi·sioned \-ˈvi-zhənd\ adjective

Wikipedia lists several causes for tunnel vision, including "extreme fear or distress, most often in the context of a panic attack" or possibly "a bite from a Black Mamba." I've never been bitten by a Black Mamba, but I do regularly suffer tunnel vision induced by fear and distress. When this happens, I generally see inanimate objects first, usually a single object. Then slowly, as I adjust to the stressful conditions, other inanimate objects come into focus and eventually people, although I cannot recognize them even when they are people I know and love, even when they are the fruit of my very own womb. It's a strange and uncomfortable distress response and it leaves me feeling a little drained and definitely disoriented. It's also embarrassing as hell when you don't recognize your own daughter in a grocery store or airport.

It's the hols!! I love this time of year because it gives me an opportunity to experiment in the kitchen. This year, because my b-day fell on Thanksgiving and I have a perverse desire to steal a turkey's thunder (even though it is dead and I am not), I went a tad overboard on cooking and tried some unusual dishes that turned out reasonably well, in my opinion.

For instance, we had Oysters Rockefeller. I forgot to squeeze a little lemon on them, and the spinach/cheese sauce wasn't as creamy as when served in a five-star restaurant, but they got eaten so I'm pretty sure everyone enjoyed them.

(NOTE: One downside to combining Oysters Rockefeller with a turkey dinner is the tryptophan in the turkey offsets the aphrodisiac effects of the oysters and a nap is more likely to precede unbridled, orgyanic sex - so keep that in mind if you are hoping for orgyanic sex, unbridled or perhaps with bit, crop and spurs, either way, on t-day or your b-day...)

We also had Prime Rib which I didn't even dare look at Monkeyboy during the eating of because last time we went out for prime rib, every bite he took was accompanied by a look of such pure bliss, such orgasmic pleasure, that I found it difficult to perform adequately afterwards for fear he was rating my unbridled sexual behavior against the pleasure previously derived from eating a mostly dead cow.

I know we had a ton of other foods, and you'd think I could remember the various dishes having planned the menu myself days, even weeks, in advance. But I can't. 'Twas a tad stressful day accompanied, of course, by the aforementioned tunnel vision. In review, I remember very little about that day. I don't remember bustling about, although the girls say I did, and they say it is what ultimately cost me a seat next to my handsome boyfriend who did eat the Oysters Rockefeller and, I'm sure, would have played footsies with me under the table had we been sitting anywhere near each other; I don't remember drinking anything but surely I did because I wasn't dehydrated from all the running around; I vaguely remember the irish lassie next to me picking tiny specks of chopped black olives out of her stuffing, and I think she might have been drunk well before dinner but I'm not entirely sure. But I do remember one thing with remarkable clarity.

I remember a beautifully set table and friends, good friends, very dear friends sitting next to my lovely and talented and oh, so very much loved daughters. I remember who sat on either side of me and who sat across from me and who sat down the way from me and I can, even now, close my eyes and see their very dear faces sitting at a long and beautifully set table. And can I just say that, if I remember one thing about this holiday, just one thing, I hope it is always and forever just that - my lovely, lovely friends and family; oh, and the chocolate cake :)