Life

Snowpocalypse

Posted on by Erin

A couple of years ago we had a bit of weather I like to remember as “the Snowpocalypse.”  The news has been referring to it as “Snowmaggedon.”  For reals.  (And I’m gonna take that as confirmation that I’m awesome.)  It snowed for days around here.  My car had varied strata of snow deposits on top.  You could excavate the lower layers and make little snow caves while an icy sheet would support a roof bearing more snow. You could carve little penguin and yeti houses inside.  (Hey, you know what? We were stuck in our apartment for days.  DAYS.  I needed something to do.)  

But anyway, it snowed today.  I think it’s still snowing, actually. I am not hoping for a Snowpocalypse II, but I am hoping and praying with all my might for a snow day tomorrow.  That would make for THE most excellent Thanksgiving week ever.  One and a half days of school (or less, if it decides to keep snowing through Monday)…I’m just sayin’, is all.  We prayed for it at Bible study today.

Snow days to most teachers (except those silly ones that don’t like to have to make up days later, weirdos) are like little unexpected gifts from God to let you know He loves you and cares about your mental health.  They are little rays of hope–cold, icy hope. 

FYI, as I’m typing this, my roommate says, “I don’t even want to think about how broken-hearted I’ll be if we don’t have a snow day tomorrow.”  She’s trying to figure out how we could gather up all the snow in our yard and dump it in the superintendent’s driveway. Aside from those drastic measures (which could possibly be construed as some sort of harassment), we’ve got a few more “practical” things we do here. Because they go so far in helping me keep on keepin’ on, I take several steps that I hope will push the likelihood of a snow day from “possible” to “probable.”  I’m sharing with you these secrets in the hopes that you’ll support my campaign for a snow day tomorrow.  They are complex.  If you miss a step, you risk ruining the whole thing.  I’m not playing around here, people.

Step 1: Sleep with a spoon under your pillow. (Easy enough.)

Step 2: Place a marker on your windowsill pointing east. (Slightly more complicated…find a window, figure out which way is east, point your marker tip thattaway.)

Step 3: Sleep with your jammies on inside out and backwards. 

Did you get that? Inside out AND backwards. You should be able to look straight down and see all your tags waving up at you. 

That last step is the one that’s always the most complicated for me.  I have to actually hunt around for different jammies.  Usually I wear a hooded sweatshirt to bed and one of those guys inside out and backwards easily becomes a near-death experience.  I’m willing to risk a spoon possibly digging into the side of my head, but I’m not risking my life for a snow day.

Wait, did you not believe I actually did this?  I totally do.  And my teacher roommate does, too.  This will make year three, and let me just tell you that this method brings results.  (Well, except for that one time that our other roommate, a non-teacher, put her marker in the windowsill facing west.  It was a dark day. Actually, I think it ended up being a sunny day, and therein lies the problem.)

And not only do we put the snow day plan into action in our own home, but I try to spread the scheme around to anyone who seems willing to engage in the silliness with me.  I tell all my kids at school. 

“But what if I can’t do that part? What if my mom won’t let me wear my jammies backwards?”  Well, child, then you need to decide how important this snow day is to you. Do or do not, there is no try.

So, now you’re in on the plan.  Some words of caution: use the technique wisely.  You’ve got to wait for snow to be forecasted. If you start to abuse it by whipping it out in May or whatever, you can expect it to lose its power and you’ll have ruined it for all of us.  I’ll personally make sure you don’t sleep easy. Um–I mean–you’ll  have to live with the guilt that comes with depriving children of the joy that comes with an unexpected day off to play in the snow.  And you’ll have deprived me of free day off in the dark days of winter, right when I need it most.  Think about your choices, is all I’m sayin’.   Think about your choices, and then go grab a spoon, marker, and non-hooded set of jammies right now.  Think of the children.

I’m going to go hose down the streets around the bus barn now, see if I can’t push “probable” into “certain” without getting arrested.

Desperation Dinner

Posted on by Erin

This post is brought to you by hunger, desperation, a terrible Monday, and Rachael Ray.

Okay, so it isn’t actually brought to you by Rachael Ray. She doesn’t know me from Adam. Well, probably if Adam and I were side by side she could figure it out.  The point is, this post is in no way the fault of Ms. Ray.  Desperation and Monday, however…well, they know what they did.

My dreams aren’t huge, they’ve just been unattainable lately.  My plan was to hit up the grocery store and Costco Monday night after school.  That didn’t happen.  Not because I was working late, I left school a little after 4 PM.   I had to try to get home before dark beacause earlier in the day I’d cried the contact lense out of my right eye.  All the way home I had to make a constant choice between clarity and depth perception, looking like Popeye and not looking like Popeye.

Sigh.  No groceries means no dinner.  Here’s what I do when I’m hungry and there are no obvious solutions: I scan the pantry, fridge, and freezer and google what I find.  Today I found frozen sausages, pumpkin puree, and black beans.

Clearly and obviously the makings of a gourmet meal.  I googled “savory pumpkin meals.”  The Food Network popped up with a recipe for Pumpkin Blackbean Soup.  I know, right? Kismet.

Still, I was missing several ingredients.  No vegetable stock.  No onions.  No canned diced tomatoes. No curry powder.  Here’s what I did have:

But that didn’t go in the soup.  I ate them to keep my blood-sugar up while I made the weirdest dinner ever.

But these looked useful:

I grabbed these guys and a bottle of dark beer from the back porch and got to work.  Oh, the beer was to replace the vegetable stock I didn’t have.  Totally obvious solution, right? Totally.

I sliced up the sausages and browned them in a pot.

Then I added about half a bottle of beer.  Trust me when I say this substitution isn’t totally crazy.  There’s a chilli recipe I make that has half a bottle of beer in it and it’s delicious.  Since this little food adventure had black beans and the chilli had black beans and if I were eating a savory pumpkin dish I think I’d like to also be drinking a dark beer, it seemed like an ok match. 

After I dumped in the beer I dumped in the black beans.

And I dropped the top of the can into the pot.  It’s what the pros on the Food Network told me to do.  Adds a certain metalicism to the dish.

Then I dumped in the pumpkin because why on earth would you want to leave a perfectly respectable black bean and sausage mixture as-is?  It could have gone on a tortilla or something and what fun is that? No, it’s fall and I bought about four cans of pumpkin in the middle of October because I had big pumpkin-baking dreams and now they are the only edible things I have left.  Plus, Rachael Ray honestly did tell me that Pumpkin and Black Bean soup is something you can really make. Dump it in.

That looks gross. 

So, from here I added the cumin, garlic powder, and cayenne.  I didn’t measure, I just shook the bottles over the pot.  If I were in a lessened state of desperation I would have dumped a little in my palm first so I had some idea about how much spice was in my food. Then I swiped a couple glugs of milk from a roomie.  I stirred, tasted, added some cinnamon, teeny bit of ginger, and a little squeeze of agave nectar.

Then I danced for joy because that bowl was edible.  I ate it.  Morale instantly improved.  It tasted like a squash soup with a spicy edge and a Henry Weinhardt’s aftertaste.  This soup totally did the trick.  I was full and my blood sugar (and therefor my mood) were rising.

Is it kind of strange? Yes.  Did it provide an economical solution to my problem? Absolutely.  Am I taking the leftovers to school tomorrow for lunch? Probably not, it started to smell like a wet dog.