Gingerhell

It all started with a pin. A pin on Pinterest of children at a library, decorating gingerbread cookies for story hour. Here it is.

And then we discovered a recipe for gingerbread which seemed okay. It said it would make 40 cookies, and we did the math (April did the math, actually) and figured that if we made three batches of the 40-cookie recipe, we would have 120 cookies. This would be enough for story hour and several preschool visits.

So then April said, "You've got a standing mixer, right?" And I said yes. "Can you mix them?" And I thought, sure. That isn't too many more cookies than what I've made in the past, so I could mix them up and bring them in, no problem.

I went to the grocery store. I bought supplies.

I went home. I had run the recipe through a calculator, figured out how much of each thing I'd need, and I began to mix things together. I had tripled the recipe and then halved it, thinking that I'd  be able to do the liquid ingredients for one and one half of a batch, transfer it to a big mixing bowl, and then add in the flour and water.

That was when it all went wrong. I think when I opened the first bottle of molasses it released evil powers or the gateway to hell opened up and spilled forth sticky agents of darkness. It was all falling apart and there was nothing I could do about it because once you start pouring molasses, you are COMMITTED. There is no escape, there are only cookies and all the places the molasses has adhered to you, your shoes, and the counter.

The liquid ingredients for a batch and a half wouldn't fit in my standing mixer. In fact, the liquid ingredients for ONE batch would not fit into my mixer. That was when I should have been afraid, but what I actually did was move it over into a giant mixing bowl and keep going.

The problem quickly became that, when the flour was added, it wouldn't fit inside the mixing bowl. But by then, I had already mixed the other batch and a half's liquid ingredients inside the standing mixer, so I was committed. All of this had to be mixed, or I'd be throwing food away.

I could hear my grandfather telling me not to throw good food away, and I was still thinking (since not all the flour had been added, that I would need all of this stuff to make my 100 cookies. Right?

Wrong.

Soon I had to beg Mum to help. She brought a giant stock pot--one we use for canning--and I put all of the cookie batter into it. By then, everything was sticky, everything was ginger. Molasses stained both my arms. I kept sticking to the floor. I put all of the stuff--all three batches of cookies--into the stock pot. It was half full.

I can use this stock pot to can like ten jars of tomato sauce or salsa or various other substances! This pot could fit half a human! You could lop off my upper torso and either half of me would neatly fit into this pot. This is a pot for people who want to boil ten cabbages at once. This is a pot that can heat up vegetable soup for dozens of hungry roofers. This is a pot that works for a living. The very idea that the still very sticky cookie dough could fill even half of the pot was frankly, terrifying. It meant that soon it would fill more of the pot, it meant that I would not just have 100 cookies or even 120. I would have enough cookies to cover the walls of my kitchen like doughy wallpaper.

I began using a giant wooden spoon like a paddle to combine the stuff, like a peasant laborer. I realized quickly that this was why so many aristocrats were beheaded or burned at stakes, because their serfs had to mix food like this EVERY DAY and didn't get to eat any of it because they had to instead feed the aristocracy while they sat wearing hats so big they caused permanent vertebral damage only repaired by the guillotine.

When it was finally combined, it was the size of my dog. My dog weighs 20 pounds. I had been mixing for three straight hours. My gingerbread weighed forty pounds.  I divided the gingerbread into four great hunks, approximately ten pounds each. I had long ago given up on the idea that I would only have 100 cookies.

I thought probably it would be between 300-400 cookies. I went to bed, and when I tried to get up, I stuck to my pillow because somehow I'd managed to get gingerbread on my head or neck during the mixing process.

I took the gingerbread to work. It looked like I had a body in my trunk, but really it was gingerbread.

Today we rolled it out, cut the cookies, and baked them. We worked for another three hours. So much gingerbread. So much rolling of dough. Six hours of my life were stolen by gingerbread. SIX HOURS. There is no escape.

April did not want me to take this picture. I took it anyway.

We did not have 300 cookies. We had more. We had more than 400 cookies. We actually had 404.

I actually do not have a line down the middle of my forehead, it is my bangs attacking me.

Four. Hundred. And. Four. Cookies. I could be buried in these cookies. You could live on these cookies for a week. Maybe longer.

Guess what? That is not all of the cookies. THIS is all of the cookies.

In fact, that isn't all of them, either. This is because we encouraged the rest of the library staff to come sample a cookie or TEN cookies.

But because there are 404 cookies, Red, my friend from Twitter, told me this: "404? Wait, that means there are no cookies! 404 not found error!" And that made him my favorite. And then Allison at work made me a sign to go with the cookies because she knew how happy it would make me.

404 ERROR, Nothing Found.

The Elusive Wire Baskets

I know what Hell smells like, and it isn't good.

It turns out that Hell smells more of must, mold, mildew (three things that all mean the same thing), cat urine, human filth, and rotting building. In other words, a specific antique store I visited on Thursday.

It was horrible.

Fortunately, after a terrible experience in a Canterbury train station, I have always carried with me a sachet or perfume sample like a Medieval physician warding off miasma or a Victorian lady with her smelling salts. So the second I left that building, I had my Aerie perfume under my nose, sniffing to clear the hideous scent from my nasal passages.

Mum said, "That was horrible."

I said, "That was the scent of evil, or Hell. Probably both."

Mum said, "They should take out those leaded glass windows and burn that building to the ground."

I said, "Smells like that make people turn to Jesus, just to stay away from breathing that in for all eternity."

It was bad.

And while we may have picked up typhoid, diphtheria, cholera, polio, or all of the above as we walked through that building, we definitely didn't find any wire baskets. And then I went to many other antique spots in my area, and still no wire baskets.

Because antique places were closed after work on Friday, I hunted at Target and T.J. Maxx, just out of curiosity. I did find clear boxes for my shoes on sale for super-duper cheap, but no wire baskets. Target had been filled with wire baskets two weeks before, but no. They sold them off the second I started looking, because I wanted them and that's how life works.

Mum and Dad went to a wedding on Saturday while we stayed home, so I didn't do any searching. Fruitless quests are more fun with a partner, just ask Frodo.

And Sunday I spent the afternoon turning my closet from an explosion of yarn and mismatched hangers into this:

 I am rather proud of it.

The good news: everything is organized inside the closet.

The bad news is twofold. 1. Too much yarn, not enough space. 2. Stuff that didn't fit nicely is...on the floor in my bedroom. With the craft supplies that didn't have a home before. And still don't.

But progress is being made.

And as I rooted through the closet, I found a single wire basket. It wasn't as vintage-y as I would have liked, but it was the right size. When Mum saw it,  she said, "I have another one of those!" And she did. Not only that, we had a slightly bigger one. So I now have three mismatched wire baskets that will work!

That is big time progress.

Tonight's goal is to sort through that craft stuff, weed through purses, and find out where I want the baskets to hang inside the closet. And when that's done, out comes the electric drill!

I'm not going to bother spray painting the baskets until I have a chance to pick the best color possible. I haven't even looked at spray paint colors yet. I was more worried with the baskets.

Do any of you have a favorite sort of spray paint? Any spray paint tips? Let me know in the comments! This will be my first spray paint attempt ever, and I could use all the help I can get.

Day Two: My Muscles Are Made of Fire.

I can't sit down. When I try, there is this explosion of pain, and my sitting becomes more of a controlled fall.

Meanwhile, I have committed to join Erin in a running program she found. Why? Because the first day involves walking for four minutes, running for a minute, and walking for another four minutes. But I now have this sinking feeling that maybe the first day is actually really easy and maybe it gets harder. Because eventually, you end up running a 5K.

What is this violin?

Meanwhile, I have discovered a complication to working out.

You still have to eat meals. So you are taking in calories. Calories that you just burned off. So you are undoing the work that you just did the second you eat your next meal.

This is terrible. No wonder so many people end up with eating disorders.

I am not a math genius, but I do know that if you take something away, then add something back, you end up right where you were before.

This is a problem.

It is also a problem that I love food. I love food more than I love most anything. Especially when I get to eat said food. Sometimes, when I am at work, I go on Pinterest and stare at pictures of food. Just because.

Yesterday, after my workout, my muscles felt like they were made of Jello Jigglers. Today, they are made of FIRE. It is like someone sculpted lava, shoved it under my skin, and said, "Go for a walk, Laura."

Then I went to work, and I discovered that I could not kneel. I needed a book on the bottom shelf, so I had to drag over a stool and use it to slowly lower myself to the ground. Then I had to use it to stand back up. It was degrading.

I insisted that it was Erin's fault, and she just kept saying, "It get's easier!" And I said, "Does the pain ever stop?" And she said, "I do it almost every day, and I'm not in pain."

I failed to ask her if she was using some kind of schedule-three narcotic for pain relief on a daily basis.

Before I knew it, she had talked me into repeating the workout from yesterday AND joining her in this running program which will begin soon, and I have decided that I maybe have a carbon monoxide leak at home or at work because that's the only thing I can think of that would make me suggestible enough to be persuaded to join in Erin's Psychotic Reign of Exercise Terror.

Meanwhile, Melynda says that when I get used to this DVD, I can move on to this other, harder DVD.

But...but...but...

HARDER?

I feel like harder would be akin to having my arms and legs removed without anesthetic. I feel like harder is what they do to people in Turkish prisons, or like those ceremonies where people puncture their skin with needles and attach weights.

HARDER???

Harder is what it would feel like if all the cells in your body spontaneously exploded. That is harder.

I really don't want to melt into a puddle of Laura-goo, especially because I'm pretty sure if I did that, the goo-me would also be on fire.

One pound weights never felt this heavy, and stairs have never been this impossible. I am not even going to tell you how hard it is for me to sit down on the toilet, because if I did, you'd be laughing so hard, you would never look at me the same way. Let's just say, all toilets should come with those hand rails they have in the handicapped stalls.

At the moment, I am somewhere between shock and weeping uncontrollably. I keep having to check to make sure my legs are still attached, because the only thing that would explain this level of pain is if my legs had been violently detached, possibly by an alligator or chainsaw. And this is after a dose of ibuprofen.

So how is your Friday going?

Shame and Semi-Nudity: Laura Goes Jean Shopping

None of my jeans fit me anymore, so I had to go jean shopping.

You see, when my gallbladder was coughing, sputtering, and dying, I was also losing weight, lots of it. During the fall, I had broken down and bought size 12 pants, because I wanted to conceal everything, and I was certain they would be too tight by winter. I was wrong.

When your gallbladder goes kaput, you stop being able to digest things like...food. So your body says, NO WAY, and what results is a kind of involuntary bulimia. That's the nice way to say, I threw up a LOT. It was unpleasant in the extreme. I cannot express that enough.

I lost weight fast, mostly because I stopped eating anything but bagels. Bagels were delicious and they didn't make me feel like death. They stayed (more or less) comfortably inside my stomach. They lacked variety, but who cared? They were food, and they took the edge off of my soul-shattering hunger.

Goodbye gallbladder.

I don't know exactly what all the symptoms are for Gallbladder Death, but they must be more than just stomach issues. I think my gallbladder made me gain weight. I don't know how, but it MUST have. Because even since FIXING the gallbladder by getting it the heck out of Dodge and returning to my normal diet (lots of cookies, lots of Italian food), I still kept dropping weight.

Remember how I said I'd been a size 12? Yeah. That didn't last. By the time I had my gallbladder removed, I had already snatched up size 10 pants. They still fit beautifully after my surgery, and for about a month afterward.

I went jean shopping today, and I am now a size 6 again, which was my college size. Hence, my Dying Gallbladder Made Me Gain Weight Theory.

I find that whole process so shocking, I just had to share it with you. Also, I've told my family like a thousand times, and they don't find it interesting anymore. But I do. So you get to hear it. Again.

Jean shopping.

I always hate it. Why? Because I know EXACTLY what I like in pants, and I want to buy only jeans that fit that criteria, despite the fact that fashion disagrees with me. Wide flares? Eww. Skinny jeans? Only with my tall Frye boots. The Epic, Steampunk Boots. The ones that now have a fixed zipper that is amazing.

I want a jean that is not distressed*. If my jeans have holes in them, I want to have put them there myself, by falling down a flight of stairs or catching them on a nail of some kind. If jeans are already worn out, I want a discount, because that means they will last me less time. Stores do not agree with me on this issue. They charge MORE. So I won't buy distressed jeans.

I want a jean that doesn't have a giant flare. I like a jean that doesn't conceal my awesome shoes. I also like a jean that fits me through the hip and thigh, not too tightly (I like having circulation in my toes) but not so loosely that I can grab tons of fabric or put both of my legs in one pant leg. So, no "relaxed" jeans for me.

In other words, it took me a long time to find pants at The Buckle today.

I went there this time, because I needed serious professional help. Losing all that weight meant I was back to buying pants for College Laura, and College Laura was long gone. Current Laura didn't remember what kind of pants College Laura bought**, and Current Laura also had no idea what size she was anymore. And I had noticed on The Buckle's website that they were having a giant jean sale, so that meant fancy jeans CHEAP. And I like that.

Are you bored yet? I hope so. Because that will make this next part even more entertaining for you.

The Buckle I went to has stupid dressing rooms. Firstly, they are in the corners of the room, so each door opens toward the other, meaning you can slam innocent people in the face with your door, or jump out of the dressing room at each other, both of which happened to me and a really nice lady who maybe used to work there.

Secondly, the rooms are right there in the middle of everything, not back in a little hallway all on their own. I think this is to help the salespeople help you find jeans that fit you. But really, it just means you walk out to see the mirror in full view of every other shopper, even if you look like a freak.

Thirdly, the doors are the kind that don't fill up the whole door frame. The door starts at about my knees, and ends level with the top of my head. Or my eyes, whatever. That's not important. What's important is that you'd better shave your pale, ghostly legs when you go to try on jeans, because if you don't, everyone will know.

My exacting jean preferences meant that there were tons of jeans draped over my door and more inside for me to try on. Everyone now knew my approximate size, so I had a giant pile I could try on without fear. The jeans, I was sure, would more or less fit me, and I could just examine them in the mirror outside, where I would determine how gross / good I looked in them. Meanwhile, my poor handknitted socks were droopy, and I was afraid to lean over and pull them up, because I didn't want to accidentally bend over too low, and show the whole store my posterior.

One pair of jeans felt not-stretch.

So I pulled them over my calves. I pulled them to my knees. That was when I could tell that these jeans were so not a six. They were more like a double-zero. I had to get them off before I split the seams and had to pay for them!

Did I mention this dressing room had no chair? No stool, no bar to hold on to? Nothing? I was along with a giant pile of jeans and only my balance to keep me on my feet as I struggled out of jeans and discarded them, but this time, my balance wasn't enough.

I don't really know what exactly happened. Maybe I tried to shimmy a little to free up one leg. I may have blacked out. Or maybe my legs, starved of blood flow, had just given out in protest. But as I tried to free my right leg, I fell.

Remember the door? Remember how it stopped at knee length?

Now I was on the ground, with my pants at my ankles. My underwear-clad bum was exposed for all the store to see, and my legs were trapped in pants that wouldn't allow me to leap back to my feet.

I was down, and my undies were on display, and I suddenly realized the wipe-out had given me rug burn on my arse right upper thigh that I was sure would be misinterpreted by anyone who happened upon semi-naked girl, writhing on the ground in too-small pants, trying to free herself so she could conceal her naked shame.

You know me, guys. I was raised in an endless succession of churches. Most of them very conservative. And I was taught that nakedness, especially female nakedness, was evil. And if you were naked in daylight in public, that was extra bad and gave you points on your Punch Card of Sin, and everybody knows the more points you get on that card, the closer you are to an eternity in Hell.

That means that for every second my mini peep show went on, I became more and more horrified and certain that I could never leave the dressing room again. I would have to die there, and I hadn't brought any extra yarn to knit with.

I think the whole thing happened in under 15 seconds. But it didn't matter. God had seen, and I was sure that inside my brain, the eight year-old me could hear Satan laughing and offering up candy and TV a little closer than she'd heard him before.

I stood, in my underwear, and I waited.

No laughter came. No gasps. No screams or shouts. No ominous clicks of cell phone cameras...nothing.

The sound and bustle of the store continued just as it had before I fell.

That made me wonder...had anyone actually seen? Hope swelled inside me. I grabbed the next pair of pants and slipped into them. Then I cracked the door open and peered outside. No one was in my corner!

Yes, when I had been given a dressing room, it was in the far corner of the store. As far from the men's side as could be, as far from the entrance as possible. Indeed, the corner had been empty when I fell, and it was empty still. Suddenly, I started giggling.

Nice Girl Next Door gave me a strange look as she emerged to look at the cute sweater she was trying on in the mirror outside (there was only one mirror). I ducked back into my room. The giggling was quickly approaching hysterical laughter. I grabbed my cell phone and told Twitter what happened.

Just wiped out in Buckle dressing room. Door stops at knee level. And #nopants. #shame #afraidtocomeout

Twitter is always the first to know when these things happen.

I could go on and tell you how exactly I came to recount the wipe-out story to every salesperson at The Buckle, including the sole male salesperson, who happened to be stopping by to help find straight legged jeans. Or I could just show you the picture my mom snapped of me as I recreated the fall.

This is why I hate jean shopping. I just can't be trusted in public.


*I do not care about various washes, although I prefer darker jeans. The jeans I hate are the ones that have been attacked by a pumice stone in spots, or the ones that already have giant holes in the legs or knees. No, thank you.


**That's probably because College Laura didn't have money to buy jeans, so she just used the same two pairs until they fell apart, and begged for another pair at Christmas.