Op JOY

(Marissa)

So, I think I've pretty much decided that I'll be posting about once a week. That sounds pretty good, right? Yes? I'm just going to assume that you agreed, because I can. So I'll post once a week and maybe Katie will, and then you'll get two blog posts a week. That's right, even after two months of ignoring the left side of my brain, I still have my basic math skills. One plus one equals two. Got it.

This is the last week of summer.

The sentence just above should have read a lot like this Youtube video plays: http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=WwlNPhn64TA&feature=related

Katie and I go back to school on August 3rd. I call this blasphemy. School shouldn't exist until September. In September I would deal with my return with grace and poise. In Spetember I would reflect on how school was really good for me. How summer, like all good things, does and should come to an end and how really, in my heart of hearts, I was ready and waiting to go back. In September I might actually believe it.

But it is not September. And in a week I will once again be in a classroom. In August. August is summer. August screams summer. It also screams ice cream, but so do you, me and all the other seasons, so that doesn't matter too much.

Now I really want ice cream.

Really.

Anyway, while I am finishing my Ap Government homework, which really whould have been done a month ago, and preparing for the psychological side effects of waking up before 8:30, I am also planning to enjoy what little of summer remains.

There are various aspects to this plan (which I am now officially titling Operation JOY), including learning how to ride a skateboard (something that I've been avoiding because I dislike scraped knees and I know I'm a klutz), learning how to juggle (because that would seriously up my level of cool--in my own mind), getting rid of the shadows under my eyes (there are impossible things you should never stop trying to do), and using as many parenthesis as I can before I go back to my grammatically sound English class (me and grammar... not so much).

There are two other aspects of Op JOY, one of which is a secret until Katie finishes her post on it. The other, I am discussing. And yes, it has to do with chocolate. How did you know? Good going, guys, now I want chocolate ice cream.

(Aztec Hot Chocolate Ice cream, muscipb)

I've been going on a baking spree. What do you expect when I have a cookbook that is titled How To Cook Everything? So far I've made a lot of bread and a lot of cookies. You didn't think I was making something productive, like a meal, right? You already know me better than that.

I have made oatmeal cookies, raisin bread, regular bread, chocolate chip cookies and butterscotch cookies, all since my last post. And cereal. But, you know... It's the chocolate chip cookies I want to talk about.

Once again, I did not take pictures. Fortunately I know this great site called flickr (--speaking of which, has anyone noticed our very summery flickr highlight? If summer was food it would be watermelon. If sunlight was food it would be mushrooms or lemonade. If I was food I would be chocolate ice cream. I'm off subject. I've got to stop doing this--), so I found you pictures that look like what I made.

(New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookie w/ Chunks, show and tell)

These are my chocolate chip cookies. They're really chocolate chunk cookies. AS far as I'm concerned, the best thing about htem is they come out of the oven melty and come out of the refrigerator chewy. Why is this? Butter, guys. Two sticks. Oh, yeah.

The other cookies were fairly disappointing. The butterscotch cookies were kind of, a little bit, well boring. My mom liked them because they weren't too sweet. To me, this defeats the purpose. The oatmeal cookies weren't bad, there just wasn't anything good about them. Except that I made them with Katie and Jessica and we watch Much Ado About Nothing.

Now that I've made both of us suitably hungry, I'm going to sign out. And find ice cream. And watch Ratatouille. And work on Op JOY.

Over.

Joy, Cream Puffs, and Other Synonyms

(Marissa)

I have several completely unrelated things to say, none of which are big enough to write an entire blog post on, so I'm going to combine them. Thing is, I don't really want to have to write transitions, starting with a rooster and then somehow getting to cream puffs. If I was a good writer, a good blogger I would do it. Or, at least, I would attempt.

But I'm tired.

And I just made bread.

And, yes, I realize that that really has nothing to do with it, but I'm too tired to care. I was up late last night talking to my mom and watching Asian dramas.

So there.

Yesterday morning my family was reading scriptures at the breakfast table. Our breakfast table in on a closed-in lanai that opens onto our backyard, which creates a rather nice environment.
Mei was just reaching Nephi's dilemma about whether or to kill Laban or not when a rooster streaked past, all tail, it's feathers trailing behind it.

Before I go on I should explain a bit. I live in a little village a bit off the North Shore. It isn't pretty. There are no beach houses, but a variety of run down plantation boxes and cinder block squares. I don't notice this, most of the time. Actually, I kind of like it, and anyway we have mountains in front of us and a beach behind to make up for the less-than-scenic surroundings. It's a nice little place with lots of kids, college students and chickens. The chickens are the skinny, feckless descendants of a plump, proud birds that were owned by a dairy shop that closed down. The shop started selling chickens as pets. Now they're everywhere.

People have varying feelings about them which range from acceptance, usually accompanied by the ability to ignore them, to sheer hatred. My parents once bought me a shirt from China Town that read "The Year of the Chicken" and when Sister Huff, who was waging war against her fowl inmates, saw it, she looked at me sternly and said, "The year the chicken dies."

Because there are chickens everywhere the rooster tripping over his own feathers to get gone was not the odd thing. No, the odd things was Brother Handcock, running after it, shovel mounted in such a way that was reminiscent of an ancient warrior, hunting with a spear thrust in front of him. My family looked up from our egg-encrusted plates and our scripture study to watch Brother Handcock chase the offending bird across our lawn. He headed back from the hunt, unsuccessful, and joined us in a short conversation in which he grimly explained, "He was after my mangoes."

This is the part where I go onto something else completely unrelated and forget about transitions. It's a good thing none of my english teachers read this.

When I was going through pictures trying to find a shot of my lanai I came across the photo rendition of our town's flood day and I wanted to show you something. The flood day is a long story, that I may or may not recount at some future time (I have an essay about it I could just post that because I'm lazy), but for right now all you really need to know is that one winter day a few weeks before Christmas the water came down and the floods came up.

And the students from our college town's college still went to class. Well, they didn't actually make it to class, which was, of course canceled due to the rising water levels and the fact that their professors homes were swimming in muck. But they tried.

Because they rock like that. I don't know this guy, but I think he is terrific. The picture makes me laugh. I think I'm going to put it on the front of my binder this year, for motivation and joy.

While we're on the subject of joy, Katie is back. My life is inherently less stressful with her around. This may or may not have to do with cream puffs. We were sitting, in the same lanai my family was on when Brother Handcock made his warrior appearance, with our feet up when it occurred to us that what our lives were really lacking was rounded pastries stuffed with sugar and heavy cream. So we got up and found Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything.

Fortunately, cream puffs are included in everything.

Mr. Bittman, I love you. You have grandson's, right? Or nephews? My age-ish? Right?

(Photo credit: Cream Puffs Out of Oven from Spoon and Chair on Flickr)

I was not forward looking enough to take pictures of the ones Katie and I made, but they turned out well, much like this, but without the shiny silver cooling wrack. We used one of my dented baking sheets and a lid pot we borrowed from Sister Handock.

These cream puffs were... heavenly. Glorious. Paradisaical. Delicious, Delightful and Divine, all with capital D's.

I have decided that cream puffs are the true way to enlightenment.

Next time there will be chocolate involved. This I swear.

Over.