(no subject)

The weather is really, really weird today. It was gray when I got up, turned bright and sunny, slipped back into gray, degenerated into a 20-minute snow- and rain-storm so fierce all the precipitation was moving sideways across the street, was bright and sunny again, and has reverted to heavy snow. No wonder my sinuses are all screwed up.

Inside, however, it's nice and warm, and I'm making chicken broth for poor columbina, who has acquired his boss' nasty cold. The broth will turn into chicken noodle, chicken barley, or possibly Thai chicken and coconut soup; I haven't decided yet. But it's nice to have a quiet weekend in which I actually have time to cook, because I find it relaxing and meditative, and god knows I could use more relaxation in my life.

I was thinking about this on Friday night as I made biscuits to top a chicken pot pie. Making biscuits is easy -- flour, butter, salt, leavening, buttermilk. You can do it in a food processor, but as with making pie crust (the first dough I learned to make), it's almost as fast to do it with your hands, and I think you learn a lot more about the process this way. Do it often enough, and your fingers know when the butter is finely and properly distributed, how sandy the dough should feel, how moist you have to make it before it's too moist, how much to handle the dough before too much gluten forms to toughen it. And it only takes fifteen minutes. That's fifteen minutes during which I'm not thinking about work, or whatever other responsibilities I might have, because I'm concentrating on making lovely, buttery food.

Biscuit therapy: cheaper than massage. Though perhaps not so great for my waistline.

(no subject)

Something, somewhere in my house is missing a small suction cup. The cats aren't talking, but clearly they know where it came from, because I found it on the floor.

I can't think of anything we own that even uses suction cups. And yet of course I can't get rid of it, because the instant I do, the mystery object will reappear in desperate need of its missing accessory.

I hate when this happens.

(no subject)

OH MY GOD THERE IS SOMETHING IN OUR LIVING ROOM THAT BEEPS RANDOMLY ONCE A DAY AND I HAVE NO GODDAMNED CLUE WHAT IT IS.

It's probably whatever needs the suction cup. Either that, or a phone tap from the FBI and NSA. Hi, guys! What, Echelon wasn't good enough for you?

I'm going to bed now before anything else in my home appears out of thin air or attempts to report me to a government agency.