Saturday, February 23, 2013

"I cook with wine. Sometimes I even add it to the food."*


   No man will ever want to marry me.

   There are, perhaps, many reasons for this, but the most important is my general ineptitude at all things house-keeping or craft related.

   Take for instance “The Curious Case of the Holes in All the T-Shirts.” I have a plethora of cotton t-shirts. Nearly every one has a mysterious hole in the same exact spot: lower, middle front.

   They all look something like this:


   What’s this about? How does it happen? Are my jeans attacking my shirts? Is it my seatbelt? Do I have a sharp bellybutton? I don’t understand, but it’s been going on for a good 4 years now, so I can’t blame it on any specific item of clothing. I’m truly stumped. And I’m really fucking annoyed.

   I was feeling crafty the other night and decided to re-hem one of my favorite t-shirts in order to cover up the telltale holes on the front. It’s a sweet t-shirt that my Aunt Kris brought back from Korea after she and her family spent two years on the Army base in Seoul. It’s not exactly replaceable, if you get my drift. And it’s super cool because it has dolphins and Korean letters on it that probably spell out something really neat. (I actually think it was a t-shirt from the school my cousins attended there and it was supposed to be for Penelope, but I stole it before I moved to LA. Sorry, P. But once you’ve seen how I “fixed” it, you won’t want it back.)

   Here are a couple of photos of the finished product.



   Good lord, it looks like the dolphins themselves hemmed this shirt. And they were blind dolphins. On strong doses of PCP.

   I have plans to get this problem resolved. This shirt is too special to look this bad. But I’m ashamed. Ashamed that I mention sewing so much and act like I know how to do it. I don’t. And I should never be allowed to touch a real garment again for the rest of my life. I’ll just keep trying out stitches on pieces of cardstock like I did before. Sigh out loud.

   Segue to today when I attempted to make gluten-free peanut butter cookies. The recipe is very simple: take some peanut butter and add sugar, an egg, some vanilla and baking soda and bake it.

   But I am much too clever to follow a recipe. I decided to make mine with chocolate almond butter and since it was already really sweet, I decided to leave out the sugar. Here is what I ended up with:
I thought it might be good anyway, once I let it cool. 
But here's what happened when I tried to cut it. Cookie scale soup, anyone?

   Never make up baking recipes as you go. Or “eyeball” your measurements. Okay, maybe it’s fine if you’re good at culinary stuff and know what you’re doing, but don’t start getting a big ego just because you once made a yellow cake out of box. This doesn’t mean you’re a baker. It just means you can read. I went back and did it right the second time and they turned out pretty good. (I think. I mean they look like cookies. And what's that famous saying, "Get it right the second time"?) Lesson learned. (Dang, I’m just learning lessons all over the place this year!)
Totally passable. Fingers crossed.

   I am comforted by the fact that men still sometimes marry women who can’t do anything useful in the home. Thank goodness it’s 2013 and not 1953. But what can I possibly bring to the table besides my incredible body and delightful personality? It seems unfair to enter into a marriage with only the abilities to sleep for twelve hours at a time and recite lines from movies. On the other hand, no one is actively trying to marry me right now, so I guess I shouldn’t worry about it. And I suppose I can always keep hoping for a rich dude with lots of servants that know how to cook and sew. And I’m not entirely sure I want to get married anytime soon anyway, so I can probably relax about the whole thing. Phew. Yet another crisis diverted. Like my buddy Rebecca always says, "Life is a game of Whack-a-Mole." True, so true.

   I will, however, say a few prayers for my friends. They’re the ones that are going to have to try to eat these cookies tomorrow.
*A quote from W.C. Fields. I swear to god, I made those cookies sober. Maybe I shouldn't brag about it, though.




1 comment:

  1. Identical outcome as the first time I tried to make cookies, we are soulmates. I love that dolphin shirt btw.

    ReplyDelete