Babies and birds in boxes, and the prophesies of friends

Last week, I had the honor of sitting with some lovely and talented ladies to make dolls late into the night. Of course, there was wine, good conversation and abundant laughter. The honor, however, was that Carrie had gathered us, our supplies and our talents together to make these dolls for Craft Hope. Being the clenchy, must.be.prepared. girl that I am, I arrived with prototypes.

The proud kiddos & their babies

The boys picked out their own fabric for the project and stuffed their own dolls to send to someplace that sounds marginally like Nicaragua when they say it. Bailey stuffed limbs, turned the dollies and stuffed hers. I had to leave the face drawing to Carrie - I might be able to pull off a face-looking face after several attempts, but just applying a face, willy-nilly, to a finished doll, as if there was no possibility of failure (and the probability of failure is, in fact, quite high in this situation, I think) is just not going to happen, especially with friends who sport mad skill in this area.

While we worked, Carrie was relating the story of a little girl, interrupted while throwing beached starfish back into the sea, by an adult who admonished her that there were too many, she was too small, and she would never make a difference. The little girl tossed another beached starfish into the surf, replying "well, I just made a difference to that one."

Eight more babies were made that night, around Carrie's kitchen table, and posted along on the first leg of their journey a few days ago. I hope they bring even a fraction of the joy and laughter of their making with them on their journey.

The next morning, with very little sleep and very little coffee on board, I noted a fluttering sound coming from the wood stove. I managed to convince myself that it was just a sound from the top of the chimney (and therefore relieve the rather pointed bout of cognitive dissonance one develops when one hears VERY LOUD fluttering coming from one's wood stove first thing in the morning - the kind that is screaming "THERE IS SOMETHING VERY WRONG HERE!!" inside your under-caffeinated mind...No, screaming voice, that is just the wind... settle down now. Thanks)

Then the peeping and pecking at the window in the stove door started.

When there is pecking, the only choice one has is to call The Husband on his morning commute and have a conversation that goes something like this:
Me: Honey, there's a bird in the wood stove.
The Husband: Really? You know, I heard a bunch of fluttering and a sound like something falling out of the stove pipe... I didn't think it fell all the way into the stove, though.
(silence, while I wonder what kind of person hears a damn bird fall down a three-story chimney and forgets to comment on it)
Me: I'm trying to figure out how to get a bird out of a wood stove. You know, without just opening the door and letting it fly around...
(eyeing the stove and wondering, in great detail, how I can disconnect the pipe and drag the stove to the front door with my hand over the opening... )
The Husband: Ok, well, just leave it in there. I'll get it in the morning. It'll be fine.
(Uh, no I don't believe "fine" is a state anyone would be in 24 or so hours after finding themselves suddenly in a wood stove. The best you could hope for "traumatized", I think. The worst? Dead. The karma that comes from knowingly letting a creature die in your wood stove... and the psychic trauma that comes with explaining to the children that, yes, there does appear to be a bird trying to get out of the stove, but we'll be leaving that for Daddy to deal with tomorrow? No. Thank you.)

So, after pondering how heavy I thought the stove might be - because, let's face it, the bird was already in a pretty perfect package, not withstanding being stuck and all - and then coming to my senses and admitting that uninstalling a wood stove and dragging it out on the porch to free the misplaced wildlife was probably not a good plan, I fetched the obvious solution: the collapsible butterfly habitat.

Bird must have been wondering what took me so long to get that idea because as soon as I slid the open top in front of the stove door, he hopped right in. And then he gave me the "idiot" look. Bird was gracious enough to wait for the children to come down and say good morning, and pose for some pictures. Then, he (she?) flew out of the butterfly habitat, across the street and into the tree where some friends (family?) were waiting.

meet Bird

So, to recap - Babies: on their way. Bird: happy, healthy and free (and possibly not scarred for life). Karma: intact. Making a difference, one baby (or bird) at a time: priceless.

Cable... the final frontier.

Well, to be completely honest, "lack of cable".

We only got cable about five years ago, mostly for the high-speed internet connection. For a couple of years, in fact, we kept our satellite as the main television connection, with a redundant cable connection just sitting there...

Fast forward to two years ago, when we decided to "bundle" our communications, thus "saving" money. Comcast had been advertising the $99 triple-play quite heavily, and we were paying them nearly that much for just tv and internet. Ok, so the advertised deal only applied to new customers... fair enough, we haven't really ever met a company that valued existing customers until it was too late to retain them. With some discussion and finagling, we had our package. $113 a month would leave our movie channels (that we don't watch, but somehow positively affected the price), DVR, internet with "power boost" (no idea what that is... I think it's code for "does not work in the rain"), and add the phone with the usual bells and whistles. Nifty.

Last year, at some point, I noticed our bill had gone up to $130-something. Uh... huh? So The Husband called and discussed this with them. Alas, there was nothing to be done. That's the new rate, yadda, yadda. Fine. Whatever.

Late last year, the bill went to $140 and some change. Ooookaaaay? This raised an eyebrow and we began discussing our options. We're a bit hemmed in by having email addresses tied to our internet provider, do we reallly want to dump them?

Last month, I opened our statement to discover I had inadvertently paid the wrong amount for April. I had (gasp) only paid $140 and change. Oh, no, though, the NEW IMPROVED rate for April was... $189!! WHAT?!?! Ok, now that we have had very positive feedback from friends who have switched over to the new digital over-the-air programming (read: free, and many more channels than one would think), we are perfectly happy to kick Comcast to the proverbial curb, man up about the email address change, and switch the phone back to Verizon to provide nothing more than a dialtone and free access for telemarketers to call us.

(Note to actual people who call us on our house phone: speak up when leaving your message. Yes, we probably ARE screening, what with the dearth of caller-ID. Or, you know, just call the mobile.)

This morning, The Husband comes home from work and, in a moment of what has to be temporary insanity, opens the newly delivered Comcast bill. WHICH IS FOR $216!!! After he recovered from that mini stroke, he called to cancel our service. Because, let's face it, our cable bill has now increased $103 over the course of a year and these people are clearly high, or having some delusions of grandeur, or completely insane, or, my first inclination, high. Right?

So, The Husband gets on the phone with The Woman at Comcast, and she apparently starts quizzing him on what we hope to gain in our television enjoyment by watching free... and he actually engages in this conversation. Finally, he stands firm and tells her we're canceling and, guess what? There's a FEE for that. Yes, that is correct. Evidently, we are now financially responsible for their crap on the pole (which is on the pole whether we exist or not, and was connected to our house ten years ago when we moved in).

Ok, Comcast, try and collect it.

Oh, and the greastest irony (because I enjoy irony probably more than the next guy) is the line item in our bundled services price (which does not include any of said services, but is simply $33 for the pleasure of having our communications all go through them): "Rate lock guarantee".

Come Wednesday, when the DSL is installed, we will have a new guaranteed Comcast rate locked in - it will be $0. Good luck paying for your collective crack habit, Comcast.

Let there be cake!

*~*~*~Poof~*~*~*

So, as it turns out, my children really, really do not care for... apricots. Not just any apricot can inspire the revulsion in my children. Oh, contraire, it must be zee canned apricot. And, frankly, I don't blame them. The things are slimy, squishy, essentially a sweet, orange snot product. Yum.

So, I'm looking for something to make to use of the apricots. Tip for the day: there are few recipes calling for canned apricots. Dried? Yes. Preserves? Absolutely. Fresh? You bet. Canned? Not so much. Then, I decided to give up the quest and just make a cake. The Darling Man has been away all weekend, teaching, and a nice supper with actual food and, perhaps, dessert seems like a nice thing to come home to. Oui? But what kind of cake was still bugging me. Carrot? Spice? What about the ever wonderful - and addictive - Beehive Cake? Nope, that one's out due to the cream filling and the moratorium on discretionary spending (along with the "cook from the pantry challenge") this month.

But, hark! What if I make some sort of creation with carrots, lots of spice, those damned apricots and a pecan praline topping? Yes? Yum!!

So, behold the Sticky Toffee Carrot-Apricot Spice Cake!



Preheat the oven to 350
Generously butter a 9" cake pan, and cover the bottom with a circle of parchment (you WILL need this to de-pan).
Cake:
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla (or, if you find yourself remarkably out of vanilla, amaretto)
1 can apricots, drained and pureed (if you exercised restraint and did not fill the case of apricots, congratulate yourself and use apple sauce)
2 large carrots, shredded
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp allspice
In your mixer bowl, beat the eggs until frothy, then add the sugar and beat until light and creamy. Add the vanilla, apricot puree, carrots, oil and spices and beat until combined. Add the flour, soda and baking bowder and mix until just combined.

Praline "Topping" (which is really the "bottoming" here)
In a saucepan combine 2 ounces each of the following:
butter
sugar
honey
chopped pecans
and cook it up until it's all melty and frothy.

Pour the praline mixture into the prepared pan and spread to cover the bottom. Pour the cake batter on top, and bake for 30-40 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. De-pan onto your serving dish while still God-awful hot and pick the parchment off (watch your fingers - the confectionary nepalm burns).

And there you have it. I am a "Very Superior" 1930s housewife. Imagine that. On the one hand, I have a lot of appliances that help my cause, don't have to do laundry outside or anything (lucky for me, since it's 28 degrees and I'm on the 4th load today). On the other, though, I can't help but wonder where I lost points - is it my wonky stocking seams? Uneven, showing slip? That I wear pajamas (and sometimes a sweater) rather than a nightgown?

This may haunt me for weeks.