Vision of Salted Toffee Pretzel Bark Dancing in Your Head

There was at least one request for this in the comments and a couple from Facebook. You're welcome in advance, everyone. I would like to take credit for making this recipe up, but all I did was think "man, chocolate bark would be great with pretzels in it - I'll bet someone is already on that" and google "chocolate pretzel bark".

*trumpet fanfare*...... The Recipe.

Oh, while I'm here, I totally did say fuck it and blow off all my remaining Christmas responsibilities to go to the Christmas market with Eve's BFF and her mom who is now my BFF. Mother-daughter double date (plus Piper in her Santa wrap) for the extreme win. It was cold and clear and magical and we sampled Vodkow and drank hot cider and bought a few Christmas presents and marveled at the beauty of a thousand tiny lights in the winter darkness. Davis wasn't there to sing the opening of All I Want for Christmas for the radio people this year, but she joined us afterwards at Marianna's house (you might think they're jumping for joy to see each other after months apart, but it's actually delirious excitement at Eve and Marianna having seen Francesca from Too Hot to Handle at the market- I know. I mean, I don't know.)

Pre-Christmas Round-Up

 I didn't feel like I had time to clean my bedroom this morning. I don't feel like I have time to blog right now. But both of those things make me feel happy and slightly accomplished, so here we are. 

I have written and sent 43 Christmas cards and have four more to deliver locally, and I believe it is time to call it done and clean the Christmas-card-carnage off the kitchen table. I did do a card and a five-page letter for Matt's aunt who I didn't get to last Christmas, and all year I told myself "just do it now" and somehow couldn't. She is Matt's Nana's younger sister and when I met her at Nana's funeral she knew everything about me being a librarian and the kids and she is smart and funny and I do really want to keep in touch with her, especially with my mother-in-law gone now (fuck cancer). I already got a reply from her, so that was lovely. 

Sarah's card is so perfect and wonderful it makes me feel like an absolute chump for only having two kids and not living in Wisconsin (I want us to meet IRL too Sarah BUT HOW I AM CANADIAN). Nicole's card was early and lovely as usual. I need to exchange more blog cards next year. My card stocking seemed to take a bit longer to fill but is nicely rounded out at this point. I keep a list of everyone I've sent cards to but I forget pretty quickly who the earliest ones went out to, so Matt had dinner with his old thesis adviser in Hamilton last night and said they said thanks for the Christmas card and I was like "I sent them one? Huh, go me." 

I haven't baked as much because of stupid work - toffee shortbread, Chai shortbread (Eve's favourites), a couple of pans of bark that I sent to work with Matt and brought to the Christmas party and fed to book club which I hosted on Monday, gingerbread cookies with lemon glaze and cream wafers (and yes, I made the same mistake I always do with the first batch and didn't roll the dough thin enough, so once the cookies are sandwiched with filling they are delicious but horrifyingly tall and hard to fit in your mouth). That's probably enough, to be honest, but somehow it feels inadequate not to bake to excess. 

The oven was briefly inoperational - flashing an error code and locked with no buttons functioning - on December 18th. Somewhat uncharacteristically, I didn't freak out, and managed to get a service visit booked the next day. Then Matt came home mid-book-club and fixed it by doing THE EXACT SAME THING I HAD. There was a fairly good joke about weighing the pleasure in the oven being fixed against the rage of a man fixing it solely by repeating my actions, but at this time of year? The good far outweighed the bad. Today I'm going to make another pan of bark and dough for lemon shortbread and maybe brown sugar cookies. 

Eve wrote her last exam this morning (Solstice Exam!) and is on her way home with Matt. She said her friends want to go to the Christmas market which we did a few years ago and it was magical, so I might just say fuck it and abandon everything I was going to do tonight and go with them. (Photo dump for Christmas market in 2019 before all the children left us for stupid growth and independence and personal fulfillment reasons)

The Christmas party was amazing as usual, but sort of unusually I was in the mood for a party even beforehand, and didn't hate everything about how I looked and was excited to go. If Cosmic Irony was being an especial dick that night, this would have meant that the party itself was a dud, but it was not. There were old people and young people and it feels kind of special to have the young people still be happy to hang out with the old people. There were enough people that the house felt full and loud and happy and fun but not so many that it felt claustrophobic (I have a memory of Collette and I standing on the back deck having a heartwarming conversation and looking in at our kids and marveling at how life is so strange and magical, but I don't know why we were outside. I mean, I assume I was too hot, but she wouldn't have been. I asked her and she doesn't remember either). 

The Epic Annual Steal-a-Gift Game was, as is traditional, Epic. We used to have the kids do a gift exchange and then send them downstairs or upstairs to watch tv or whatever while we did the steal-a-gift game, but at this point they're all old enough to participate in the ungovernable hilarious debauchery, spite and vindictiveness. Generally the booze and weed is the most hotly fought-over (no sex toys this year - yes, we are terrible), but this year it was, perplexingly (or maybe not), a hooded fuzzy blanket - it didn't quite reach the fever pitch of '22 when everyone was conspiring to deny Collette the spatula she wanted, but it was close. When it was my turn someone told me to steal the blanket and I said I didn't want it and they said no, it's strategy, everyone else wants it and it positions you to get something better. I did it, but I didn't even like touching it - so hot. The game took from 7:07 until 9:11 (I took screenshots of the time when someone said at the beginning "this is going to take three hours". It was hugely entertaining and we were all friends again afterwards. (Photo dump for Christmas party and steal-a-gift game - I take all the pictures and forget to be in any, so I took a picture of my sparkly gold dress in which the sparkle doesn't really come across but trust me - sparkly).

"Everybody throw things at Michael!"

And look who got home and showed up at the party just in time!

I keep thinking it's the 22nd and we only have one day to decorate the tree, do the Christmas photo shoot, wrap presents and get ready for Christmas Eve which we host here - I just do appetizers and it's only my parents because my sister's family is coming for New Year's this year instead, if the good lord is willing and the creek etc. etc. But it's the 21st so I....still probably don't have enough time, but I always tell other people "Do what you can and let the rest go" and even thought I am VERY BAD AT FOLLOWING MY OWN ADVICE I'm going to try. 

Well, this took a lot of the day between baking and cleaning up and wrapping (a little. A very little). 

Bark!

I wish everyone all the family wonderfulness and terrible blanket-stealing friends and flour-dusted paper-strewn mess and lights in the darkness and anything else you wish for. 

Non-Surly Thursday (with a tiny pocket of Surly in the middle)

 If I DO get Covid I guess it will be slightly ironic, because I felt really good this week after my week-end away. 

It was sunny and cold this morning. I was wearing a knit dress with a vest, my Docs and socks instead of tights because I am always so hot and uncomfortable in this library. I put a light cardigan over top mostly so people wouldn't comment on my wearing no kind of jacket at all.

I walked down the hall and was about to enter the library when a teacher leading a group of students said "are those postage stamps on your back?", which confused the hell out of me because as far as I know there was nothing on my back but black cardigan. I said "no?" and she said, "oh, it looks like it from a distance". I went into the library, plunked down all my stuff and took off my cardigan to look at the back. Since my Docs have started carving up my heels I wear blister patches a lot of the time, and they have an annoying habit of falling off and ending up everywhere, so I was worried there were blister patches stuck to my sweater. But there was nothing.

Then my eyes fell on my bags and I suddenly realized she was saying "on your BAG", not "on your BACK". At the beginning of the year I didn't have a tote bag big enough to carry my lumbar support cushion and a fan and my water bottle and lunch bag. I was trying to figure out where to look for one, and then I remembered Redbubble. So then Matt came home and I was on the computer and I told him that unfortunately I was about to buy four hundred dollars worth of tote bags because when you put almost anything you can think of on a tote bag it can be hard to narrow down the options.

For obvious reasons, I usually default to putting stuff about books or authors on my bags and t-shirts and phone cases and journals and socks and everything else. Then sometimes I feel like I want to branch out a little. I loved my old phone case, but it didn't fit my new phone. 

My new phone case is called Vintage Books, but is mainly a cute little robot. 

So after pages and pages of possible tote bag designs, I ended up with Virginia Woolf book covers

But also something called The Cuckoo and The Donkey. 

I dunno, shut up, it spoke to me.

So anyway I had to go out in the hallway and find the teacher and explain the misunderstanding because I felt like I must have appeared brainless. She was gracious.

My first two classes were really  nice as always, which lulled me into a false sense of serenity for the third class to come in and be absolutely heinous. They frequently are, but today was especially bad -  maybe because of the approaching holidays, maybe Mercury was in retrograde, but as my friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) said, there is just a particularly toxic mix of personalities and it makes for a really unpleasant half hour. I tried being reasonable. I tried being angry. I tried being very angry (actually by this point I just was, in fact, very angry). Then we had a secure schools notification so they had to stay even longer. Just when I thought we might have to resort to some of fight-club method of deciding who got to stay in the school and who had to hit the road, they were allowed to leave. I was in fight-or-flight for a good twenty minutes afterwards. The other librarian said we'll discuss it next week and if they don't improve she'll switch them to one of her days, but I don't want to inflict them on someone else. I just want to get better at dealing with them. When I used to waitress, I was terrible at not internalizing every negative interaction. Every now and then I think that if I tried that job now I'd be better at not taking everything so personally. Days like this show that I am most emphatically incorrect about that. 

My last class wasn't able to come because of the lockdown which was a little sad because I love them and there's no circulation next week but I did some shelving to calm down. Sometimes I sort the books into their categories to avoid a bunch of extra steps and get shelving done faster. Sometimes I just take an armful and sort of amble around from section to section according to what the next book is, and I feel very calm and librarian-ish doing it.

In the evening I went to Costco and Indigo with Jody (HI JODY) and did an epic singalong to All I Want for Christmas in the car and that was fabulous. 

Oh, and to round out the whole good things/bad things part of the day, on the way TO school there was a parked car making one street difficult to traverse. I pulled over to let one car go by, and then another car came around the corner quite quickly, so I expected her to go too, but she pulled right over to the curb so I could go next, in a lovely "aren't we all so courteous and civilized" moment. Then on the way home one car swerved suddenly and bashed into a car in the next lane two cars in front of me, resulting in a dramatic strewing of wheels and car parts all over the road, but miraculously no one was hurt and the collision was confined to those two cars. 

I started this post on Thursday and then got really tired, so it is now Sunday but I didn't get Covid! Even though Zarah and I totally sucked on the same weed pen Saturday night! I got to go to the Christmas party! 

Better Living Through Plastic Explosives

 This is the title of a really good book I was sent to review soon after I started my blog (I think it was soon after, who the hell knows, time's lost all meaning), and also how I was feeling this morning while trying to do a "The Future Is Now!" zoom medical call with my dad and his nephrologist (he has idiopathic kidney disease which has been stable for quite a while but needs regular monitoring). I've taken him to the hospital for appointments a few times, and then last time was our first Zoom appointment, made possible presumably because of Covid. Last time went okay, which was a pleasant surprise. This time did not, which was less pleasant, still not that much of a surprise.

My dad came over (their wifi is crap on the main floor so we do it here in the kitchen). They told him to log on a half hour early, for no damned reason I could see, although the nurse did come on at around the correct appointment time. She asked some questions then said the doctor should come on soon. We waited. And waited. And waited. And then we got a message saying 'this meeting has been ended and a new meeting started on this account.' We rejoined, and nothing happened. I tried to call the hospital and the doctor's clinic, and of course there was only the option to leave a message. No one called us. 

Looking back, I was disproportionately angry. My dad's bloodwork was about the same, so it was unlikely the news was going to be bad or surprising. We still hadn't had to drive to the hospital. I was cutting out pictures for my Christmas cards and my dad was looking at them, and that was nice. But it was medical, so I had anxiety, AND it was technology, so I had anxiety, and I felt like I should have been able to fix it, so I was upset with myself (and a little bit with my husband for being in freaking Baltimore, unreasonably). 

My dad finally left. I tried the doctor's clinic one more time and someone answered. I was angrier than I have ever been with a front-facing person, which is to say still not very, but definitely not my usual sweet and self-effacing....self. At first she thought I was mad because of the wait time and said "well sometimes the previous appointment takes longer than expected..." and I was like no Queen, we would have waited all day, but shit didn't work and when it was obvious shit wouldn't work why wouldn't someone call us? And she agreed that was weird, and said she'd try to get the doctor to call my dad. 

So I called my dad and told him that and then went to take a shower to try to shake the yuck. I got in the shower and the phone rang and I got out of the shower and got water all over my bedroom to answer the phone. My dad said the doctor called and everything was fine, and it was the doctor's fault the zoom didn't work and he apologized. So I downgraded from enraged to faintly annoyed.

So I finished showering and then called the clinic back and left a message apologizing for being bitchy. And the receptionist called back a while later while I was baking Chai shortbread (without the sugar, as it turned out, oops) and said oh lord, that was nothing, you have no idea. And after that even the annoyance was gone, and I didn't even swear when I realized my cookies were suitable for diabetics (can't decide if I should offer them on Facebook to someone with a low-sugar diet or just be aggressive with icing).

For the rest of the day I alternated baking batches of shortbread with writing my last Christmas cards (the first of my last Christmas cards, if I'm being scrupulously honest, but these are mostly for people who live closer). 

I did a whirlwind trip to southern Ontario to deliver an exam care package to Eve, who has two weeks of stupid exams before she can come home, and then visit my friend Zarah for Christmas shopping and hanging out and puzzling while slightly high. The drive down started in winter wonderland and ended in extremely sloppy not-great-visibility conditions. When I got out of the Rav and Eve came out and saw it we both burst out laughing, and did again every time we came out of a place and saw it again - after a pause, because it was basically unrecognizable.

I got a couple of pictures of Eve, one of the Rav, a couple of Zarah and about two dozen of the cat.

Yesterday Zarah tested positive for Covid so it will suck if I go down but it was worth it, and I had a great work day and felt really good yesterday. The best interaction was probably with one grade two student who said she couldn't remember my name, and when I told it to her she sighed and said "okay. But you look more like a Valerie."

That's How it Blows

 For some reason the "Find My" Apple feature has been turned on for my iPad, so every time I leave home I get notifications on my phone that my increasingly forlorn iPad is getting further and further away. I turn Bluey on for Lucy when I leave her alone - do I have to start setting my iPad up to watch it too? (That or Criminal Minds, don't judge me).

There was a winter storm warning Sunday night into Monday that didn't end up being that bad, but it was heavy, wet snow, and it stuck to the trees with a vengeance and it is still there and the trees all look flocked. They look like display trees in a Christmas window. It is a Winter Freakin' Wonderland. I cannot overstate how fake and beautiful it looks. I was driving to the dealership to get my winter tires on, in a white snowscape listening to Loreena McKennitt sing The Wexford Carol and I felt like there should be a silent gun battle going on in the field, it was so cinematic. 

Speaking of Lucy

She is and always has been a bit of a jerk to the lovely lady who cleans our house twice a month. I don't know why for sure, but I think it's because she comes in and then does stuff in our house without us being with her, so Lucy assumes we are naive idiots who need to be protected. We've tried a number of things - locking her in the bedroom with one of us, speaking firmly when she barks, ignoring her when she barks, giving J. a treat to give her. Nothing works, or not for long. I've been mulling having a trainer to come in and give me some things to try, but we don't really have the budget for that right now. 

Finally, Sonia started taking her to one of her other homes on cleaning day, and the fact that I could just sit and read or iron or whatever was blissful. Then we had to move cleaning day to Tuesday this week.

I had to bring the car to the dealership for winter tires in the morning, then walked Lucy and then the cleaner showed up and I thought (hoped) 'it'll be fine'.

Reader, it was not fine.

I think it was kind of a "I thought we had decided not to DO this incredibly dangerous thing anymore!" deal. It was horrible. The cleaner never seems too bothered about it, and once I forgot she was coming and she let herself in and Lucy just hung out with her while she cleaned. But this was next-level - so. loud. I kept her in the bedroom with me, but then I got the call that the car was ready and I really wanted to pick it up before dark, but I didn't want to leave Lucy with the cleaner.

I texted my neighbour, who was at work, but said her daughter was home and just to let Lucy out to go through the door in the fence and Victoria would call her in. So I did. But of course she wouldn't go -- even though usually she dashes over there immediately and demands to be let in -- just stood there scream-barking at the back door because clearly I was going to be murdered. So I took her out the front and brought her in that way, and she was happy to see Victoria and Paul and the other dogs, but then when I went to leave she darted between my legs and didn't want to come back in. We were all wheezing with laughter at my asshole dog at this point. We finally coaxed her back in and I made my escape. My neighbour's husband also came over with his snow-blower to take care of my plow row on Monday, so I now owe my neighbours some baked goods or a kidney.

Here is the furry little monster, smushed up against me, exhausted by her ordeal. 

It wasn't quite as trying as this day, but it was close. 

Five(ish) For Friday

 Posting on December first is part of the NaBloPoMo tradition for me. Can I stretch it to December 2 this year? We shall see.

1. I am taking an actual rest day today. Lately I've been pushing myself to still go for a good walk and do yoga and some weights and stuff even on rest days, because I usually feel better if I get outside or do something. But Tuesday I did this and Wednesday my back was absolute misery all day at work. I need to get to physio or get new orthotics or something, and I don't know quite what, but for today I'm just resting. Reading and writing and petting Lucy.

2. Eve has had an absolutely insane November even by November In Third Year standards. She was a bit mopey at the beginning of the year and I suggested that maybe now that she was settled into her program she should consider dropping a course and doing some extracurriculars. Her housemate was auditioning for the Arts and Science musical and she said she was jealous but it would be way too much work on top of her courseload. But she texted me back that she had decided not to drop any courses but to audition for the musical anyway. She told them she only wanted a background role so it wouldn't be as demanding. They said "are you sure?" after her audition and she said, okay, give me whatever. And she got one of the three lead roles. It's not a big university-wide musical, it's one that the students write every year that pokes fun at their program and has parody songs, but it was really good last year and it's been an amazing experience for her. I told her that when she has her inevitable breakdown this year at least she can do it in song. I also told her that she's gotten really great marks for two years, so like, been there done that, try something else. She's still getting pretty good marks, but she's learned to let go a little, and I think that's a great thing to learn.

Video audition

3. Angus presented his thesis proposal a couple of weeks ago and it was received well. He sent us the form he had to fill out for 'using human subjects' and we said it sounded dystopian. He retorted that he ONLY HURTS THEIR MUSCLES. He is studying lower limb power in relation to throwing velocity, so when I asked him if he needed me to send the lab coat he left at home in the summer he said "to protect me from flying sweat?" He also has a workout blog. So, you know, like me, except not remotely.

4. My mom and dad made fun of me (gently) for still buying the kids (adults) advent calendars, so I have ordered a crossword one for my dad and a mocktail one for my mom. Because I am both kind AND petty.

5. Look, actual footage of Engie: 

6. Special thanks to Nicole and Steph, my ever-faithful commenters. I comment on all their blog posts too, just sometimes with a delay because I read blogs on my lunch break but my work computer thinks both their blogs are porn, which they hardly ever are. I loved Steph's comment about my kids' names, especially because sometimes I don't KNOW people are using pseudonyms for their kids and, even though I completely understand why, when I find out I feel a tiny bit like a chump. (This is when people just use straight-up fake names, not, like, Captain Jelly Belly and Miss Bananapants, I generally figure those out on my own). 

7. I got a new CPAP because my old one was apparently under a recall which I didn't find out about for a long time. The new one is smaller and shinier and works fine, but I couldn't rent the same battery pack from my supplier for camping that I had before. I talked about the one we ended up buying in one of my camping posts, but to get recommendations for the best one, I joined a group for women who use CPAP machine on Facebook (I don't know why it would be different for women, but I saw it and thought what the heck). It made me exceedingly grateful that I don't have to jump through all the insurance hoops that people in the U.S. do. I got a diagnosis, I went to a supplier, the provincial government paid for half, and that was that. I'm not sure that is still the case, but I got the new machine for free so it's not really a consideration for me for another ten years or so. So for insurance purposes, the machine keeps track of your usage and stats, and look at this, what in the creepy dystopian fuck: