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I only have one guaranteed four-day-off-in-a-row holiday per year and that's Thanksgiving. I am, I suppose, thankful that it exists but not as thankful as I might be.



The traffic is horrible. I hate the traffic and I don't choose to drive on the actual day of Thanksgiving or the day before it. I go to my friend Laur's house for Thanksgiving and my participation there is that I peel all the potatoes (for mashed and for sweet) and also make the gravy.

This year, I had Trys's boy Mordecai to help peel the (white) potatoes. He's nine. Had no idea how to use or hold a paring knife, so there was some learning going on there. He did pretty well through a ten pound bag of potatoes (I did about three to his one, which is par for kiddos learning to do things. Like, he's a n00b, of course he's going to suck. The important thing is sticking to the task and trying.) Gravy went well, but it always does.

I made a concerted effort to not-overeat and that went OK. Picked up the carcass from my aunt Jackie's house (she does not render her carcass for stock but she does save it for me so that it's not wasted) and took it home to render into stock. Did that, also made noodle soup for me and Laur with a portion of same, then froze the rest, as per usual Thanksgiving protocol.

Friday I had breakfast at Laur's (potato cakes, yay!) and then I made gingersnaps with Mordecai, as an educational experience. Making gingersnaps is very educational, not just for reading a recipe and identifying the ingredients and finding the correct measuring devices but also STEPS and ORDER OF OPERATIONS and process. AND things like measuring correctly, scooping flour, using wooden spoon to stir/blend ingredients, how to operate oven, use hot pads, load and unload cookie trays from oven, use a flipper-turner to move cookies from tray to cooling rack, etc. Lots of executive functioning, planning ahead, that kind of thing. Also how to use oven, how to set timer, how to use cookie scoop (like an ice cream scoop only smaller) to put dough on trays. The recipe makes seven trays of cookies (each cooks for 12 minutes) so this is a pretty extensive operation. He did quite well for all but the last tray of cookies, by which time he was clearly done in and didn't want to play anymore.

Saturday I drove out to my mom's because she was whining that she would miss seeing me over the holiday or whatever. I got there about 9:30. She hung out for about twenty minutes and then left me (literally, she left the building, got in her car, and drove off to parts unknown) with her husband to "play candies" (artificially-flavored fondant covered with chocolate. This process involved things like tempering the chocolate, making the fondant, cutting the fondant into squares, enrobing the squares in the chocolate and then setting them aside to firm up) because that is Rod's New Shiny Thing. It is not, however, my new shiny thing. It was my new shiny thing in 2011. *sigh*

But he is very excited and he wants to tell me all about tempering chocolate and how hard it is and how water makes chocolate seize up and so forth. (I do not understand AT ALL why men need an audience to enjoy their hobbies. Can't they just fucking do their things? Why do I have to come watch? What are you, five?) I listen carefully and attentively to the explanation of how to temper chocolate and do not let on that I already know this shit. So we temper the chocolate, with Rod warning me that 'none of the methods work' and that 'results vary for many reasons that are difficult to determine' and yadda yadda yadda.

While I am doing that, as per his narrated instructions, he is making the fondant. I do not like fondant and I prefer dipped chocolates filled with other things. He is overcooking the fondant. It will be too hard and crumbly as it has gone past soft ball. I let him overcook the fondant. He has a thermometer. There are instructions. He is having fun. The fondant, however, is still overcooked.

Setting the chocolate aside for a moment, we whip the fondant. It is overcooked. He explains to me how I should not scrape the pan to remove the syrup that sticks to the sides. Mmm. And we are whipping the fondant. The instructions that he gives me do not put enough air into the fondant. It is going to be hard and dense and not-fun-to-eat. (I do not like fondant chocolates to start with but if I have to eat them, I like a slightly softer, giving fondant that yields to a bite. If I have to bite hard and it crumble/shatters, that is not a fondant I approve of. We pat the fondant into the pan. I can tell by the way it is setting up that it is going to be hard and crumbly. Ugh.

We get the chocolate tempered (eventually) and he has a little chocolate-warmer pan. I would not have chopped up a pound and a half of chocolate for this project, but he did. He puts the entire amount into the chocolate-warmer pan all in one go. Maybe it's for thermal mass? Dunno. I don't like to get bits (and there will be bits from this distressing fondant) in the enrobing chocolate, but whatever. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

We are, for what it's worth, making coconut chocolates. I like coconut A LOT. However, we are using fake-coconut-flavor in the overcooked fondant with nary a shred of real coconut (the which there are TWO BAGS OF sitting on the counter) in the filling. Apparently, the plan is to dip the hard and crumbly unsuitable fondant into the (very nice) dark chocolate and then SET THESE PIECES IN A BED OF COCONUT SHREDS and sprinkle more shreds on top of the pieces so that they... look kinda lint-covered and untidy? Fuck me.

Okay, look. While I do not generally favor dipped chocolates of any sort and feel that they're not my go-to sweet, I do feel that the glossy, smooth surfaces and neat, tidy shapes are sort of the POINT of dipped chocolates. Making ones that look untidy is failure. Not my circus. Not my circus. I play along and do my very best to disguise my distress at this whole disappointing process.

Along about the time we're done ruining perfectly good dark chocolate and coconut shreds, mom returns with her friend Adrian and her neighbor Shanan. They are bringing lunch from the Senior Center. They have brought two lunches but intended to bring three.

Even with three lunches, that's mom, Adrian, and Shanan. Not me. It's okay, though, the lunches are fried fish sandwiches. (I do not eat fish. This is not a recent development. I have consistently not-eaten-fish since I was a toddler.) Rod is also making breaded, fried liver. (I do not eat liver. Haven't ever eaten liver.) Mom did bring me a coffee from Dunkin, so that is what I have for lunch. The coffee is the correct size and prepared correctly. It's the biggest win of the day.

After lunch, we proceed to the formal dining room to do puzzle. This is what mom does with Adrian and Shanan. And it's fine. I like to do puzzle and I'm pretty good at it. Except mom spends the entire time of puzzle telling Adrian and Shanan stories about what a trial I was as a child. It is kind of unfun to be displayed as Exhibit A while my mom tells stories about how I cut my own bangs when I was five and how the santa's lap pictures of me for that year were hideously unattractive. I mean, more than usual. I was not a darling feminine little girl and I generally looked uncomfortable and/or annoyed when dressed up for pictures, even with bangs.

By 2:30 I'm about done (haven't had any food besides the coffee, blood sugar is dropping like a rock, it's gonna get ugly up in here shortly) and puzzle time is over, so I gather up my things and say bye to everyone and depart. I take with me white meat turkey leftovers from the holiday and the aforementioned disastrous dipped chocolates.

Now, I did not FORCE my mom to have me over on Saturday. She ASKED to see me. She said Saturday would be fine. (Saturday is the lowest-traffic day of the Thanksgiving weekend. The drive out and back was fine and trouble-free.) She KNEW I WAS COMING and she ... did this.

Mom's comment on Facebook (I do not post much but my friend Laur does) was "She and Rod had a glorious time of making candy..both in their element." *sigh* I like seeing my life through mom's Facebook Lens, it's so much nicer than reality.

For what it's worth, on Sunday morning, having spent the night in my car, every single one of the disastrous dipped chocolates had a fine, glossy, smooth finish. The tempering went fine because of course it did. I know how the fuck to temper chocolate.

Also I didn't ignore the chocolate in the chocolate-warmer pan and regularly stirred it to keep temperature constant. Because thermostat for chocolate-warmer pan was shitty, I also played with switch during process to help maintain proper temperature. I think Rod's problem with having his chocolates bloom is that he focuses laser-like on the dipping part and forgets to manage the enrobing chocolate in the chocolate-warmer. Not gonna tell him that, though. Not circus. Not monkeys. People do not want my help, most of the time.

I did not spend three hours in a car (there and back, an hour and a half each way) on a holiday weekend so that I could make candies that I DO NOT LIKE and that are EXECUTED POORLY while my mom DITCHES ME, returns with completely unsuitable food that I cannot/will not eat, and then proceeds to make fun of me the rest of the afternoon for the amusement of her friends while I stand there doing puzzle like a fucking prop. Except apparently that is my relationship with my mother these days.

I am now contemplating making Spite Chocolates as a hearty fuck-you to my mother. Rod will not see these as Spite Chocolates but my mom will. (Don't worry, they will taste delightful. They will be super yummy, wholesome, completely hand-made, and very competently executed. That's the WHOLE POINT of Spite Chocolates. Look on my works, ye mighty! Also I do this better than you.) The trick to Spite Chocolates (or Spite Anything, really) is to not let on that they're for spite. Plausible Deniability is very important for Success With Spite Offerings. Anyway, watch this space. :)

Sunday I got new wipers on the plow truck, filled it with gas, and went to put the plow on it. I couldn't get the tractor started (it's parked in front of the plow) so I had to spend like forever fucking around getting the tractor to start. It may need a new battery.

Putting the plow on was fairly easy and went well except that once I did that, the plow controller WOULD NOT LIFT THE PLOW. Oops. It doesn't even act like it's TRYING to lift the plow. So I backed the truck out of the garage bay, gently dragging the plow, re-parked the tractor, and started to investigate the plow controller issue. It has a plug (fairly standard) and there's a 10 amp fuse between the controller itself and where the controller's power lead connects to the main electrical in the fuse area. It acts like I am not getting power to the controller and a whole new controller is like $250 while a new 10 amp fuse is like $1 so we're gonna try a new fuse first. I have a few weeks to sort this out before the bad weather arrives so... hopefully I can get this done before it snows.

I do not know what happened to the plow controller, it worked last year when I parked the truck after I took the plow off.
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