On Friday evening a celebration was held at TK Maguires (the Prospector) in recognition of Laura Beason's 51st birthday. Laura had experienced a tough day at the salt mines; but a half-dozen or so cocktails seemed to perk her up nicely. Doug, Alison, Shelly, and I officiated; with guest appearances by Shelly's husband, John, and daughter, Genoa, who were working the Friday night cocktail circuit selling raffle tickets for various JDHS athletic events. Said ticket sales will finance, among other things, Genoa's trip to Phoenix later this spring for what I think I recall is a serious volleyball event.
Genoa will be turning sweet sixteen next week. She already has her appointment at motor vehicles for her driving test. John has been busy putting a new engine in his gillnetter - which is a good thing since increased revenues will be critical for supporting what I expect will soon be a demand on Genoa's part for a car of her own.
Every family deals with these things in their own fashion, of course. When Leah and Amanda turned sixteen, for example, we SOLD our boat in order to accomodate a third set of wheels...
Alison hosted another mooch-fest on Saturday - inviting Eric and myself for supper. Braised short-ribs. Mmmmmmmm. I made creme brulee for dessert; but it didn't turn out well. The recipe called for 3/4 cup of light brown sugar to be sifted on top and then carmelized. It was way too much sugar and did not carmelize well, so the top was not the sweet crunchy consistency that is the hallmark of the dish. I bet it's a publishing error. One of my other favourite recipes in the cookbook - for zucchini bread - says the recipe makes one loaf. In fact, it makes TWO loaves as I discovered the first time I used the recipe and half of the batter ended up on the bottom of the oven - having filled the bread pan right to the brim. Zucchini bread batter, like most things, tends to expand when heated which leads me to the real subject of today's entry.
Yesterday I took Aunt Emilie a half-a-loaf of (you guessed it) zucchini bread. Upon entering her kitchen I was shocked to note what appeared to be a sizable amount of a congealed hamburger-like substance splattered on the ceiling above the stove. Truly disgusting.
Upon questioning, it turns out that auntie had decided that her kitty cat, Baby, should have her canned cat food warmed prior to serving. And what better way to warm kitty cat food than to place an unopened tin on a burner on top of the stove?
Unopened tin of cat food
Unopened tin of cat food when placed on a hot burner
The resulting explosion damn near took poor auntie's nose off.
Sadly the cat food on the ceiling is only symptomatic of auntie's housekeeping troubles. The place is a disaster. She would not let me clean yesterday; but she promised that I could come scrape the cat food off the ceiling prior to my departure on vacation. She appeared genuinely concerned that cat food on the ceiling, discovered by her daughter, Sandra, on Sandra's upcoming whistle-stop trip to Juneau could well lead to relocation to a nursing home. So I expect I will be allowed to do a little cleaning despite her general reluctance to allow me to assist in housekeeping duties.
Sigh...
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