This is my 398th post. No joke.

Where I've been:

• I've been doing this blogging thing, relatively blind, for 2.5 years. 
• I've used more layouts than I can count. I know more about HTML and CSS than any sane person NOT making money on this endeavor should. 
• I've talked a lot about what I eat and revealed a little too much about how often I think about sex. 
• Mostly I've been slightly amusing, a few times laugh-out-loud funny and once or twice really serious. 
  
• Readers have come and gone. 
• I found my voice. 

Where I'm going:

• In the immediate future, nowhere. Not because I don't have plans, but because I'm a big ol' wuss-bag.
• In the not-too-distant future: WordPress. Blogger was good for the naïve me, but (and you have to say this next part with crazy, spy-flick villain eyes) now I know too much!
• Diving into the crazy world of blogging with a purpose/topic! Or as close to one as I can get, considering the schizophrenic nature of my knowledge and interests. 

Why:

• I need structure. Much as I've enjoyed sharing the rambling, incoherent dialog of the multiple voices in my head, it's no longer an exercise in good writing or connecting with a larger community. 
• I've been struggling with myself to NOT write the things here that are better left private. Sometimes I forget that strangers actually DO read this blog along with family, and the subjects that are appropriate to both are narrowing. In all honesty, I'd love to pour my heart out; I think it'd be a kick-ass read. But I need to either do it completely anonymously, or for a paying publisher.
• I need more feedback. For whatever reason, this blog doesn't get it.
• I'm good at this. I could be better. I wanna compete with the big slightly larger fish.

Let me essplain... No, is too difficult. Let me sum up:

• I'm not terminating this blog. Rowen still has hers attached to it for starters, and I wrote some fun stuff here I'm not keen on sending out into the ether, never to be reread on a completely aimless Saturday afternoon again. (Why, hello there, narcissism! Nice to see me!)
• I will be phasing it out with less frequent posting while I build my new one. 
• I will tell you where the new one is! Of course I'd love it if y'all came with me! But this brand of mostly glib personal ramblings is not coming, too. Glib, yes. Personal, sometimes. Rambling, not.
• If you're worried, I promise to not disappear. When the transition is ready, I'll let you know with linkage, URL, and a desperate plea to bookmark, add to your reader, etc.
• If you're not worried/don't care; why are you here? 
• If you have any other thoughts or concerns I haven't mentioned, please let me know in the comments.
  

This is my 398th post. No joke.

Not baked goods, baked bads!

The return of coolish weather in the Schweinfurt area last week fortuitously coincided with a few baking projects that couldn't be put off. One for the (now infamous) FRG meeting where the wives were asked to contribute a Mexican-themed dish for the soldiers/spouses attending. Having been to a few of these and seen what kinds of dishes most of the gals like to contribute (heavy on the meat and cheese, in accordance with what will most likely appeal to the largest number of people), I decided to stick to my cookie M.O. I ran a google search and came up with a lot of those puffy little wedding cookies, but I was looking for something a little more unique. 


Then I spotted this recipe for Aztec Chocolate cookies and thought, Eureka! because what's more Mexican than chocolate, right? I wasn't sure what to do about the ground chipotle in the recipe, but luckily found a hot pepper spice blend at the comissary that does not contain garlic. (I purchased some cayenne, too, just as a backup.) 

The results were unique, all right. The first batch was just too much; too spicy, too shocking, too... holy cow, what is this thing?? So I redid, cutting the spices in half. These were pleasantly biting, with just a little bit of heat on a three second delay. I liked them okay, as did Randy, but they weren't universally appealing.

One for the scrap heap, I think.

Unfortunately, I had about the same luck with a mini-cherry-crumble recipe I blog-lifted in an attempt to use yet another kilo of cherries I couldn't keep my hands off of at the German grocery. I didn't molest this batch, thinking that there were about a dozen recipes I wanted to try, but I waited a little too long and they started to wither from neglect. Having everything I needed on hand, I whipped them up with high hopes.

A little higher than was warranted. The struesel-like mixture forms a tooth-breakingly hard crust, and the cherry flavor is overwhelmed by the surrounding cinnamon and brown sugar. They were okay fresh out of the oven and still moderately soft and crumbly, but impossible later that evening. All was not lost, however! I decided that if you smother these babies in a complementary ice cream, say... Ben&Jerry's Cherry Garcia, perhaps?... you get a rather pleasant dessert experience. It takes a LOT of ice cream, though. A lot.

Not baked goods, baked bads!

...where people are never more abroad than when they are at home.

I'm terribly homesick at the moment. I do love Germany and am still happy to be living here, but whenever things get moderately stressful I long for NorCal beaches and a healthy dose of foggy morning. 

Let me define "moderately" stressful because everybody will interpret that differently, especially everybodies who freak out at the barest mention of anything less than perfect harmony in her children's lives. *ahem*

Randy leaves for Bulgaria in 6 days. He'll be gone until some time in November, we're not sure of exact return dates. He's not deploying to a dangerous combat zone, he's not going to be gone for a whole year, and he's not going to be without regular internet communication. In short, it'll be like an extra long business trip and nothing to get my panties in a wad over. (Hmm, perhaps that was a poor turn of phrase, considering that from now until he leaves I'd very much like my panties to be in a wad. On the floor.) If I was back home, with lots of comfortable, familiar things to occupy my time, I doubt I'd even blink except in anticipation of sleeping sprawled diagonally on the bed without the sound of elephants working chainsaws waking me suddenly in the wee hours. 

But I'm not. I'm in a country where, despite my best efforts, I suck mightily at both understanding the locals and making myself understood. Comfortable and familiar in no way describe the educational undertaking that I signed up for, and which will commence in one month. For some reason known only to the mischief demon who planted the idea in my head in the first place, I've taken on a dog whose sense of normal is more in line with Odie than with Lassie. 

In addition, the Family Readiness Group in which I was so eager to try out my shiny new tact-and-people skills is being run by a 26 year old diva who seems focused mainly on trying to impress with her stunningly petulant attitude and breathtakingly incompetent administration skills. My shiny new tact-and-people skills are no match for her. I bowed out awkwardly and ingraciously when I stormed out in the middle of a meeting last night. Even the captain couldn't get out my way quickly enough. 

In the grand scheme of things... hell, in the relatively modest scheme of just my own life experience, these are not things to get truly stressed over. They're just uncomfortable and prickly, like a hair shirt wool sweater too close to the skin. And it's summer and I don't want to wear a wool sweater. I want to sit on the beach and let the sound of the Pacific ocean take over, or sit in a restaurant overlooking the marina in San Francisco, good friends at the table. Drive through the hills, vine-covered to pine-covered in a single afternoon.

Of course, failing that, I'd take a weekend in Dover.

...where people are never more abroad than when they are at home.

It's been a long day, baby.

OMG, I am so hormonal right now. 

Go here and watch these movies. They're the happiest things that will ever make you cry. 

It's been a long day, baby.

No. Just... no.

I hope BK's former PR people are happy with the blowup doll that inspired this ad, because I'm pretty sure no one else is being seen in their company.  

No. Just... no.

It's not the key to my heart, but I like cheese.

I just noticed that my last post is dated 4 July and it's full of complaints about life in general, which may lead you to believe that I had a crappy 4th of July, but I assure you that's not the case. Actually, we had a very pleasant mid-summer holiday with the only neighbors in this entire building we actually like. The husband works for Randy and the wife is is just about ready to have their 2nd child and they're so obnoxiously nice and normal it's hard to believe they can stand me but I think the table full of food helped. 

And, my god, THE FOOD. I didn't really "plan" beyond figuring we'd grill some chicken thighs I had in the freezer, so when the morning of the 4th rolled around I completely panicked and emptied my fridge to make stuff. For some reason, this always supplies the best results. I made a peach-balsamic marinade for the chicken and the only complaint was from Randy who said it was so tender it fell apart on the grill. It was, quite frankly, da bomb. I had some frozen cooked shrimp that I defrosted and set on top of fresh mozarella slices with slices of tomato and basil, drizzled the whole thing with olive oil and salt/pepper and was prepared to call "crudites" but actually no one asked. They just moaned. There were sliced strawberries and nectarines and this carrot-mango thing that has middle-eastern-inspired spices and no, it's not very traditional but I wasn't in the mood for potato salad. Then the neighbors brought ribs and pasta salad AND beer and there wasn't very much conversation because we were all in a carb coma. Then I brought out Lemon Stand Pie and we all died. The end. 

Just kidding. We did die, but the fireworks revived us. And since I know you're wondering, no, I did not get a single picture of any of this goodness because did you read the part where I said I panicked? Trying to saute carrots and artfully arrange basil leaves and slice strawberries at the same time is rather like trying to walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. If you're a fish.

Sunday was spent in withdrawls and recovery, but I made another pie and we managed to bypass the DTs. 

It's not the key to my heart, but I like cheese.

Don't count your weasels before they pop.

I'm sorry, Germany. My crush on your weather is SO OVER. I've seen you for what you really are: a cool-weather tease who yanks back her 68 degrees and cranks up the thermometer to 85 in a valley where no one believes in air conditioning and my apartment is like a mini-bake oven.

And let's not even talk about the rain storm of biblical proportions you just dumped on our ass. No wait, let's do talk about it because two inches of standing water in our storage room needs to at the very least be acknowledged.

Here is where I bow to the genius of my husband's engineering skills because while our 5'x5' storage closet is packed floor-to-ceiling, not only was there room for us to get in there and assess the damage, but said damage was remarkably little. Most of what was on the floor was not mine Randy's gear (washable), airable luggage, or plastic storage totes. The only thing beyond saving is my old computer, which was sitting in its manufacturer's box on the floor. An unfortunate loss, but not an expensive one since it wasn't really usuable anymore anyway. 

It's always interesting in the projects a housing community like this one to see which people show themselves and pitch in. In a building with 18 units? 7 people came downstairs to assess the damage and 5 stayed to help clean up. The two that left generously left their broom, which I shall return to them later by SHOVING IT UP THEIR ASSES. Because I'm conscientious like that. 

Not that it couldn't have been a lot worse. For starters, Randy is home as opposed to deployed and did all of the heavy lifting in our effort to push eleventy billion gallons of dubious-smelling water to the drain in the communal laundry room. This won't be the case in two weeks when he leaves for a temporary duty assignment (TDY) for five months in Bulgaria. An assignment which is infinitely better than being deployed to Iraq mainly by virtue of the fact that, presumably, no one will be shooting at him. But I have it on good authority that the scenery's not much better. I don't like to think what it would have been like to face that mess on my own, though I imagine it would have been very similar to my neighbor, whose husband is deployed, when she opened her storage room door, took one look around and asked when the recycle center opens in the morning. 

I jumped at Rowen's offer of assistance by asking her to stay in the house with the dog. This was less of cush job than you would think, given that the thunder storm which caused the flood also caused Heidi's brain to short circuit. At first it was just barking at the thunder, but when said thunder showed a complete disregard for her protest and continued to increase in loudness and frequency, Heidi decided that the safest place to ride out the storm was up my pantleg. The fact that I was attempting to go about my normal evening routine deterred her not at all, nor did the physiological impossibility of her body and my leg inhabiting my pants at the same time. 

Eventually, she calmed down and we foolishly took our eyes off of her for five minutes, during which she took the opportunity to poop on the floor. Randy began a litany of disgust, mainly comprised of separating Heidi's name into several syllables and giving each a distinct tonal quality (Hei-Ei-Di-I!!) but for the first time that evening Heidi was utterly unpreturbed. Like, "What? You didn't honestly think I was going to volunteer to go outside where the apocalypse is taking place, did you? Foolish man."

Don't count your weasels before they pop.

You are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity.

I have a post in the works about this evening's reinactment of Noah's flood but I'm kind of bushwacked from cleaning 2 inches of standing water out of our storeroom.

Speaking of bushwacked, and because I'm channelling my inner 8 year old boy, to tide you over I give you this:

Woody's World of Penis Euphemisms.

Because you never know when you'll have to tell some hapless fellow that his High pressure vein cane is showing.

You are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity.

The squirrel root of evil is EvilEvil.

Finally, finally, finally sweet delicious things are showing up in the grocery store here in Germany. Being from California has seriously skewed my perception of the growing season. What do you mean I can't get strawberries in February?? Of course, this has less to do with California's extra-long growing season and more to do with NAFTA and imports from Chile, but whatever. The point is, my local German grocery is too cheap to import from the southern hemisphere during winter, they'll only go as far as Greece. Which is where these cherries came from.

Remember when I was complaining about my local German grocery being cheap? Like, two seconds ago? I take it all back, because the fact that they're cheap means I picked up a kilo of these babies (about 2 lbs) for under 2 bucks! (Specifically, € 1.29, but under 2 bucks sounds better if you don't have reason to check the currency exchange rate every day.)

I had plans for these succulent morsels of goodness, nature's Sweet-Tarts™, juicy bombs of stainpower no amount of Oxy-Clean can over come. Grand, spectacular plans involving some kind of sweet dough or brandy sauce or maybe both. And then I made the mistake of putting one in my mouth and instantly developed an addiction that would make Robert Downey, Jr. tsk-tsk at me. Fruit, 1. Scarlet's plans, 0.

Fortunately, I brought back up.

The peaches were just a smidge on the not-yet side of ripe which led me to suspect that so were the plums. I'm a terrible judge of the ripeness of produce. California being the land of nuts and ALWAYS RIPE FRUIT, it's a skill I confess I never cultivated. So I left both on the counter overnight while I dreamt of fluffy cobblers and dense, moist breads. 

I woke to the nightmare of moldy peach mush. Fruit, 2. Scarlet's plans, still 0.

Holy ethylene production, Batman! What the hell?? The peaches looked like victims of nuclear fallout, but the plums I managed to rescue with the courageous and self-sacrificing act of moving them to the refrigerator. I should get a medal, I tell ya. 

The next day I did two things: bought more peaches and baked the plums into a fruit kuchen.

I'm amassing an impressive collection of bakeware in my quest to reach the world record of Most Flour and Butter Usage, EVER. Which is kind of a problem because bakeware isn't typically pocket-sized for storage convenience. 

Until today! Or, actually, until last Friday, when I discovered a collapsable jelly-roll pan! Which is only the coolest thing in the world in my kitchen! Something else cool? Kitchen rhymes with kuchen. I think. And finally, to round out the trifecta of cool, kuchens exist solely to be a vehicle for getting large amounts of powdered sugar to my mouth.

Ha HA, wily fruit resistence! I have baked you into submission! Fruit, 2. Scarlet's plans, 1. 

Feeling bolstered by my triumph, and wishing to carry the momentum to a crushing defeat tie, I immediately began torturing the peaches by slipping them into a boiling water bath, followed by an ice water bath which makes them easier to flay alive!! 

Ahem. Or, y'know, maybe not alive, since they're not connected to the tree anymore. So I'm less of a mad, evil general bent on fruit domination and more of a two-bit fruit corpse defiler. Mmm, doesn't that make the above pic of plum kuchen sound even more appetizing?  

The peaches, however, were tougher than I thought. Literally. They weren't giving up their skins without a fight. Which I won, in a knife fight. Oh yeah, I'm evil squared! Only to find that they still weren't ripe. Did you know that peaches turn a sickly green color if you torture them and then leave them out on the counter over night? Well, they do. 

Fruit, 3. Scarlet's plans, still 1. 

The squirrel root of evil is EvilEvil.

The outer solar system has more moons than a college frat party.

Random reasons for not blogging lately.

• The weather has been schizophrenic. Just when I think it's safe to leave the house, the wind blows in these angry black clouds that make everything cold and wet. It's depressing. Therefore, no blogging.
• Randy has been on leave, so instead of sitting around all day coming up with witty things to say, we send Rowen out to walk the dog and have scorching hot monkey sex. No, not really. But that's not a bad idea and now I'm kinda pissed at myself for not thinking of it sooner. 
• Rowen is on summer vacation. Having her home all day throws off my blogging groove. 
• I've been reading books. I know, shocking, isn't it?? "Dog On It" by Spencer Quinn was a fun bit of fluffy mystery, told from a dog's point of view. 
• Fresh fruit has come into season, presenting a host of baking opportunities for those cold and wet afternoons. Of course, I haven't actually baked anything yet, just trolling the internet for stalling inspiration. 
• My dog's butt needs a hazmat sticker. I'm not sure what that has to do with not blogging, just scraping the bottom of the barrel here, folks. 
• I'm getting fairly serious about this whole, going-back-to-school thing. Supposed to get a call in the next couple of days telling me if it's going to be paid for. Which makes me seize up with dread and not feel much like writing. 

So there you have it. Feel free to steal any excuse you think you can use for whatever it is that you're not doing. It's the least I can do, considering you can't use: "Have been enthralled with the fantastic blogging over at Where The HELL Are My Penguins?!!" as your excuse these days. 

The outer solar system has more moons than a college frat party.