Go For Crackers

Remember that time the world shut down and we were all stuck at home? Target started selling clothes that looked like we were all heading back in time, to start our own homesteads. The memories of that random time you and your buddies decided to toilet paper someone’s house brought you an actual anxiety attack at the thought of the wastefulness of that precious toilet paper? Facebook was a platform for all of your friends and acquaintances that had quickly acquired a medical degree. And suddenly everyone was a home chef and baker? Yah I’m trying to forget too.

One day while I was scrolling Facebook, trying to forget my bought of rage over my potty training toddler using a half a roll of toilet paper, clogging my toilet and putting our extremely limited supply in the critical category, I came across a nice neighbor that I had never met saying she had lots of sourdough starter to give away. This was a hard moment for me. One, ew. I don’t know who this is, where she’s been, if she had been exposed. Two, I’ve never made bread in my life. Three, I messaged her anyway.

It felt like a drug deal. Not that I have ever engaged in such depravity. So I guess I really don’t know what I’m talking about. I showed up to her home, my engine still running. I’m standing back from her door in a mask and hoodie and pajama pants because it’s cold and I haven’t been in public in ages. She gently sets the glass pickle jar down filled with the precious starter and some instructions taped to the side. She gives me a nod and shuts the door. Long story short I named my starter Amy Farrah Flour… wait for it… I know right?! And we’ve made lots of magic over the past couple years.

Which takes us to the present. One of the drawbacks of keeping this starter alive is you have to feed it like all the time. It’s like another person moved in. At least she doesn’t complain about my cooking and doesn’t require any extra laundry. And it feels so wasteful because I have to discard a bunch of it before I feed her. So I’ve been on the hunt for good recipes to use for the discard. Which leads us to today and this hysterical encounter with my daughter. This morning I found a great recipe to make crackers. My five year old daughter M is my little buddy in the kitchen. She loves to cook and especially likes to bake.

“Hey M, wanna make some crackers with me today?”, I ask.

“What?! That sounds like so much fun Mama! Are these going to be like graham crackers?”, she asks excitedly.

“Well no..”, I interject.

“We can make a house like we did at Christmas!”, she shouts excitedly.

“Baby, these are going to be sourdough crackers. So not sweet, more savory.”, I say with a grin.

She contemplates this for a moment. “Mommy we can still make a house out of the crackers! A cracker house! But we can call it a crack house for short!! This is gonna be the best crack house ever!”, she says with a crazy big smile.

Holding back fits of laughter, I agree with her. “It will be the best crack house in Texas babe!”

Ice Cream and Deadbolts

Ya’ll this afternoon was hot. Like you better inhale that Bomb Pop now before your face looks like a scary ass clown kind of hot. Luckily O was at camp this afternoon, so I just had M and C to cart around. It’s amazing how being one kid down feels like a mini vaca! Target was kind of a breeze. I could’ve spent an entire day and salary just looking around, but I could tell I was on a very limited time frame with the girls and we still had to go pick up the dog at the groomers. I love it when Georgia, our dog, gets groomed. One she smells way better and two she looks like a very cute shaved Ewok. When we got home from all our errands, the girls were begging to go outside and play in their ridiculously awesome playhouse. Thanks again mom and dad. By this time of day it’s in the shade so I said go ahead. I needed to get some things ready for dinner anyway and it would be nice to do so without toddlers ridding on my legs like a couple of koalas. Although my calf muscle are looking tight lately.

After a few minutes I realized that things were too quite. You know what I mean? Kind of like when all the birds stop chirping when a big storm is near. So naturally I dropped everything and sprinted outside to see what they were doing. Well M decided that the house needed a little face lift or she thought she was the next Van Goh. She colored the entire side of our brown house, including the door, with bright blue chalk. I have to admit for the time she had unsupervised she covered a lot of ground.

“Why did you color the house?” I asked.

“What?” she looked at me with giant innocent eyes and a bright blue hand.

“Chalk stays on the ground only!” I said raising my voice and trying to keep my cool.

I told her to go into the house, which she was not pleased about at all. She started to melt down and asked for her binky, for like the billionth time and of course I said no, yet again. Side note, this is day 2 of no binky. (Prayers and gin are welcomed.) She glared at me with those mischievous beautiful brown eyes and slammed the door. I drug the water hose out and sprayed the blue Smurf massacre off the house. C found all this quite amusing and cheered for me. When I was done I picked her up and smelled a very ripe diaper. Great it’s all over my arm. I go to walk into the house and run into the door, smack! It’s locked….

I knock on the door and loudly call for M, “Unlock the door please!”

So our back door is in a small hallway between our bedroom and the living room. I can see most of each room. She comes strolling casually around the corner of the living room, smiles almost as if she’s surprised to see me and shakes her head no.

“Open. The. Door. Now.” I repeat sternly.

She considers my request and tries to unlock it. After a few failed attempts she successfully unlocks the bottom lock, but to my surprise she had somehow managed to lock the dead bolt above as well. Well Crap. I finally gave up trying to point out and describe the dead bolt to her. Well mostly because she got tired and walked away from me.

So I ran over to the next door neighbors house hoping they still had a key to our house. Not home. Ran across the street to our other neighbors’ house. Not home. Shit. No literally, C had gone again. I was reaching desperation. It was 102 degrees out, I’m barefoot and this diaper can’t hold much more. Third times a charm right? Luckily it was. Our other neighbor was thankfully home and let us in to use her phone. Thank goodness I knew my husband’s phone number. Ah voicemail. Well I expected that I guess. I don’t pick up when I don’t know the number either. Now I was just praying that he listens to the voicemail and doesn’t decided to go run errands after he picks up O.

I thanked my neighbor and ran back over to the house. Out of all my kids I knew M would be the least panicked about being alone. And I was totally right.

I got back into the backyard with C and went up to the door. I looked in and didn’t see or hear M anywhere. So I knocked… and knocked again. Then I see her. She is sitting on the floor with a fist full of ice cream, in front of the door. A half-gallon bucket of mint chocolate chip ice cream is sitting securely between her legs.

“M!” I yelled. “Put that away now!” I like how I thought I had any control in this situation what so ever. I’m cute like that.

“No.” she retorted calmly. Then she got up calmly with the ice cream and walked into my bedroom. Then back into my bathroom, turns and faces me with a chocolaty smile and oh so sticky hands and slams the French doors to the bathroom shut.

I stand there for a moment full of rage and then I start laughing. Well at least I know she is eating the ice cream on the tile now. I embrace the moment. I know M is safe, I mean there is at least half of that container left. That will take her awhile. I strip down C to nothing and wash her off with the hose. She thinks this is all hilarious and wonderful. My kind neighbor stops by with a cold bottle of water and encouragement.

“This is a hard time in motherhood! You’re fine!” she said kindly.

Damn. She is right! So I sit myself down, crack open a nice cold water (in my head it was beer) and sat there spraying my naked baby with a hose until my husband came home.

Black Diamonds & Asthma Attacks

I have to admit I completely related to Bella Swan when she said that she doesn’t like anything cold and wet. Oh come on, don’t act like you don’t know who Bella is. We all lived through the Twilight era 11 years ago. I’m sure you still passionately remember whose team you’re on. (Coughs into hand EDWARD). Okay let’s get back to the cold thing. I hate the cold, that’s one of the major reasons I live in the south now. My freshman year of college however, I chose to go to school in northern Iowa. Why you ask? I have no idea, but I’m thankful I did. I met some of my dearest friends there. Freshmen year was one of the most fun years of my life. The majority of us left after that year, but we stayed in touch. About 6 years later we all got together for a little mini reunion in Colorado at a ski resort. A few hours of that trip will forever be etched in my mind.

I don’t know whose bright idea it was to go skiing, but that’s what we decided to do. I have to admit, I wish I was the girl who looked good in cute fitting ski gear and big sunglasses. I would have sailed down the mountain effortlessly with my hair in place and slightly flushed cheeks. Saying things like “Wow Brad that was a really good run. That fresh powder is the best! Let’s go have a cocktail and talk about something relatively interesting.” However being a bigger girl, I pulled off more of the homeless man look from the 80’s. I had the frumpy bright multicolored jacket with parachute looking pants, clunky ski goggles and my hair was reminiscent of sideshow Bob. And I was saying things more like (insert screaming) “I’m gonna die!!” and “Shit!! My ski! My ski! Someone grab it before it ends up in lobby having drinks with Brad!”

When we got to the lodge we decided to break up into different groups to ski in. E and I being the least experienced out of the group, decided we would venture out on our own. Plus I wanted to talk shit about my ex and have some quality alone time with her. You know, fun girlfriend things. We put on our 40 layers of ski equipment and headed out the door. As we were approaching the ski lift area we saw that there were two lines. One line was for people who didn’t wish to pursue death (the green and some blue runs) and the other for people who laughed in the face of it (black runs). That being said, it was green all the way for us. We saw some younger kids waiting in line so we made our way over by them. The closer we got to the lift the more nervous I got. I mean ski lifts are kind of terrifying. There is really nothing but a tiny bar holding you into a rocking metal swing set 20 feet up in the air.

The kids in front of us were next to get on the lift. Suddenly I heard our friends hollering at us from the other line. I turned to them, smiled and waved, but I was a bit confused by their concerned expressions and animated body language. Unfortunately I didn’t understand what was happening until E and I were seated on the rocking swing set from hell being hoisted 80 feet up into the air towards our awaiting doom. That’s right we had got on the wrong lift and were headed to the Black Diamond runs. I then realized two things. 1. I was going to die. 2. We followed tiny demons to our deaths.

I thought to myself, “well at least my last view of the mountain will be beautiful”. After what felt like an eternity we made it to the top. I can feel my palms start sweating as the tiny demons jump off the lift in front of us and zoom out of site. Then I realized, I didn’t remember how to get off this damn thing! It had been about seven years since I’d last done this. E and I stared at each other in horror and screamed as the lift paused for a moment and dumped us out. We slid down the ramp and found our way to a stop. At least I still remembered how to wedge.

“What the hell are we going to do?” I said shakily.

“Will they let us just ride it down again?” E asked.

Unfortunately there was nobody attending the top of the lift. And the thought of trying to jump on while people were jumping off wasn’t the brightest idea. “Let’s just get the hell off this mountain and go have drinks.” I said. “I’m in.” said E. So off we went on our little adventure. We get to the top of the run and look down. “Well, here we go!” I said. And with my awesome skiing moves I began to do the slow wedge from side to side of the slope, trying not to run into anyone. The best way to picture this is to visualize someone trying to drive a motorized cart in Target on Black Friday. Trying to go from one side of the store to the next, with a speed of approximately 2 miles an hour while making a high pitched EEEEEEEEeeeee sound. After about 20 minutes of this E and I find ourselves trying not to cry sitting in a snow bank on the side of the run. We look off to the side and see a group of four Hispanic guys looking as out of place and frantic as we felt. We make our way over to them and ask if they know a way off this death trap. “Naw man, we are lost too! We took the wrong lift and ended up here!” “Ya we know the feeling buddy.” I said solemnly.

Then I see it. A tiny little ray of hope that is! There was a flat trail for cross country skiers off to the side a little ways down. Yessss!! I felt like Dorothy when she found the yellow brick road. I can walk my ass off this mountain, you betcha! So E and I and our new friends clicked off our skis and walked for at least a mile on the crunchy flat surface. I was really enjoying our little walk until we reached the end and saw a new sign bragging this slope was a blue/black. Well at least it’s getting a little better. We parted ways with our new friends, clicked back on our skis and I began to do my signature Black Friday move when I see E wipe out and just lay sprawled out on the side of the slope. “I’m coming E!” I yell.

EEEEEEEEeeeeee…… EEEEEEEeeeeee……… EEee….. I slowly made my way over to her and threw myself down by her side. We both lay there with dazed looks and are breathing heavily. Geeze nobody really warns you about how physically intense skiing is. Well maybe someone did, but it was probably on a Taco Tuesday.

“I can’t do this, I have to get down.” E said with a wild look. “We got to hold it together, because we can’t both freak out!” I say. Next thing I know she clicks her ski’s off, places them tightly in her arms, balls up and starts sliding down the slope on her ass. What did I do next you ask? I joined my BFF of course. I held on for dear life to my ski’s, balled up and slid down after her. I really don’t know how long we did this because time really didn’t matter to me at that moment. My butt was so cold, I was afraid that it had fallen off somewhere. We made it to the bottom of the run and again just laid there. We sat up and looked at each other. “This is ridiculous.” I said. Then out of the corner of my eye I see someone sitting in what looked like a little outhouse. It was a tiny lift for one of the runs. Just then I came up with the most brilliant plan ever. This plan was going to get us off this damn mountain. “Hey you’re an asthmatic right?” I asked E. “Yeeessss.” E said cautiously. “How are you feeling?” I asked. “Fine.” E said with a look of what are you up to. “I think you are about to have a bad asthma attack and that guy is going to help us get off the mountain.” I said with a semi crazed grin. Imagine when the Grinch who stole Christmas just thought of how he was going to ruin everything for the Whos who live in Whoville. That’s what I looked like.

E was on board so we hashed out our plan right then and there. E was going to start “having an asthma attack” and I was going to go get him to call the ski patrol so they could come get us and take us down to get her inhaler. Flawless plan right? Not so much.

E started rocking back and forth making wheezing noises. I clicked my skis off and ran over to the lift operator. “Hey I need your help! My friend is having an asthma attack and we need to get down to her locker to get her inhaler!” Well there was no turning back now. Next thing I know he grabs his radio alerts the ski patrol 911 and runs out of his little outhouse over to E. Not seconds later we are surrounded by 5 ski patrol guys. Where the hell did they all come from so quickly??

“You’re going to be okay.” said an attractive ski man #1 as he crouched down beside her and placed his hand on her shoulder. E nodded and a kept wheezing. I have to admit, I was damn impressed with her performance. “Can you tell me your name?” asked #1. E’s eyes got big and I jumped in and answered his questions. Just then another snowmobile pulled up with what looked like a stretcher/surfboard attached behind. Attractive ski men #2 & #3 lifted her up and placed her on the surfboard. E looked at me with a look of shit what’s happening and relief. They then began securing her down so she wouldn’t fly off.

I’m starting to panic. I then realized there really isn’t anywhere for me to sit. “Excuse me?” I say, “Yes, where am I to sit?” The ski patrol guys start to laugh until they realized I’m serious. “Sorry we don’t have any more room, but we will take good care of your friend. I promise.” said attractive ski man #1. “Don’t worry, I’ll ski with you down the rest of the way!” said an overly excited not quite as attractive ski man #5. He kind of reminded me of Steve Urkel from Family Matters with cool ski gear. “Are you kidding me?!” I shrieked. E looked up at me and smiled as they drove off. Bitch! I say that with the most love by the way. I was just jealous. She was amazing.

“All right, get me off this mountain.” I said. He chuckled and said “Don’t worry I’ll get you down!” Well I think he was either extremely impressed or completely confused as I started doing yet again my Black Friday move down the Blue/Black slope, I really couldn’t tell. Bless his heart, he was very encouraging and kind. After what felt like hours of face plants, snow down my pants and snot dripping into my mouth, we made it to the last run. By this time I was done. I wanted off the stupid mountain. My last run was yet again, another damn Blue. Something just snapped inside of me as I looked down and I just went for it. No more wedging side to side. I crouched down, skis facing forward and I took off. It was exhilarating and terrifying. More so terrifying, because a moment after I had taken off, the clasp on my ski boot popped off and my right foot was wobbly with absolutely no control of my ski. So many many naughty words came spilling out of my mouth you would’ve thought I was from the cast of Entourage. As I was flying down I noticed there was a slight incline with a small drop coming up. Frozen with fear I just screamed as it came closer… closer… closer and then I was airborne. Not in the cool way you see Olympians, but more like Goofy. “I’m gonna dieeeeeee!” I whaled, as I flew through the beautiful blue sky. But I didn’t. My ski’s hit the ground. I remained upright and I was almost to the bottom of the hill. I could see the lodge and the crazy lift lines. I was almost there! Then I realized, no really I’m almost there, I need to stop. Like now! I don’t know how I did it, but I turned just right and skidded into a perfect stop. Spraying a beautiful rainbow of powder up into the air. I just stood there in shock. My hands were gripping my poles so tight I had no blood flow in my fingers. My legs were shaking something fierce and my mouth was completely dry from all my deranged screaming. Moments later Urkel came to an equally fancy stop next to me.

“Wow!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know you had it in ya!”

“I really didn’t either.” I said, still in a state of shock. We took off our ski’s and headed into the lodge. He took me down a bright, oh so warm hallway to a cheerful room where I found my warm, dry and happy friend E holding a nice warm cup of Coco. “Hi.” she said with a smile trying to repress a giggle. Which I don’t blame her. I looked like I was just drug a few miles behind a snow plow. “Feeling better? I’m so so glad you are okay!” I said with a smile and a shot of sarcasm. Again all love here. We had made it safely off the mountain. With an awesome story to boot. I haven’t been skiing since, but I think I’m okay with that.