Problem? No, Learning Opportunity!! Or, How Not to Make Christmas Cookies

Years ago at work, right after I nearly had to call security, a colleague advised me that she didn’t see such things as problems – rather as learning opportunities.

Oh, well, thanks! Yes, I guess being in fear of your physical safety can be regarded as an opportunity to learn…hmm, let’s see..to get the fuck out of that job as fast as you can?

I had a day full of both learning and opportunities yesterday.

To wit: annual Cookie Press Conflagration.

You’d think after decades of Christmas cookie making I would remember:

• how to assemble press (nope, three tries)
• that dough would be way too dense and stiff (even if you follow the recipe, chill, warm up again, etc. – what’s the point of that?)
• and that lemon juice or almond extract gives much better flavor than plain old vanilla. (Not. Zoned.)

Three ejected tubes of dough and a quarter cup of heavy cream later, a much softer, more pliable dough is loaded into cookie press. Viola! Fat, relatively flavorless but at least decorative cookie lumps vaguely resembling stars, trees, and ornaments.

Bleh. Regard this an as opportunity to try again Friday, wised-up.

While dough is uselessly chilling, mix up a different batch of dough for peppermint thumbprint cookies that were so delicious last year.

Follow recipe. Dough is really crumbly. I’m supposed to be able to form it into balls, roll in egg white and sugar, dent the middle and put a peppermint kiss in the dent.

Crumbly dough rolled in egg white just sticks to hands. Mess. Manage to roll in sugar and form vaguely round blobs with dent in the middle for peppermint kiss.

Recipe says ungreased cookie sheets, which usually turns into a burned-sugar mess. I know! Parchment paper!

Recipe says cook 10 minutes, tops, don’t overcook.

25 minutes later, they still don’t look done, the peppermint kisses in the thumbprint are browned but not melted (supposed to be the other way around) and several cookies have little puddles of cooked egg white around them. Pull them off the parchment paper and put them directly onto the cookie sheet. Cook five more minutes,

Success! Kisses melt, cookies cook.

Sort of.

Too chewy, underdone, too much flour, not sugary enough.

Dump the whole batch.

An opportunity to do better when I try again on Friday.

At least the new carpet I splurged on has arrived and is being installed! But wait, what’s that? It looks like tread marks, right across the middle of the room, as if someone drove a miniature bulldozer across it.

Oh, that must just be from that loud old vacuum the installers use, right?

Except the tread marks don’t go away when you brush over them with your foot or hand, like they would if they were just marks from the vacuum.

Do you mean to tell me that this carpet, carpet I waited over two months to receive, carpet I splurged on because I thought remaking the bedroom would help me in my grief,  is damaged? Flawed?

I know what this is. I had to wait two months for it so the manufacturer could get enough orders for it to make it worth a run, and they gave me, probably the smallest order, the mangled-remnant-tail-end-of-the-run.

Breathe.

View as an opportunity to get a boatload of my money back, dammit!

And, bonus! The installers, who move the furniture, caused my headboard to fall apart.

Oh, Yay! An opportunity to spend an evening I was going to spend regarding the tree and listening to Christmas music with my daughter rummaging around in the garage to find that little wrench tool that came with the headboard (three tries to find, but at least I had saved it) which is the only tool that will undo the nuts that hold the bolts that hold the headboard to the bed frame, so I can remove it and rebuild it and reattach it, having tightened the cam locks around the screws…oh wait, they LOST one of the cam locks! And one of the wooden pegs that I had the opportunity to add wood glue to, to tighten the damn thing up, also lost.

I had been meaning to tighten everything up. I just thought I’d do it when I had all the parts.

Which I don’t, now. Found the lost wood peg in the wastebasket in my daughter’s room. Cam lock still missing.

Oh Yay! I have the opportunity to go the the hardware store (they are always happy to see me at the hardware store) and try to find a cam lock of the same type and size.

Needle, meet haystack.

Feh.

I thought I’d do the headboard repair on a day when my side wasn’t killing me, because while I was trying, in order to restretch them, to pull on the shrunken leather Ugg boots that my precious daughter innocently put in the washing machine because they had road salt stains on them, shrinking the boots and turning all her other clothes in the load a blueish green (toss) I sat down in a chair, bent over to pull the boot on, and

FOING!

What the hell was that? Something inside on the left went “bloop” and sort of slipped up over my rib! OW! Sit up slowly. Remember this is an old injury from a previous warehouse job. Not as bad as then, I can handle it.

An opportunity to go find that elastic corset-like thing that provides support to the ribs, and BONUS, acts like a waist nipper.

So I might be groaning in pain when I move, but damn, look at those curves, girl!

Lemons, meet lemonade.

Carpet guy who was supposed to call before he came didn’t call, but did show up.

Looked at the carpet.

Agreed with me.

Wait, what?

Where’s the learning opportunity in that?

I learned that sometimes, customer service actually serves. Wow.

We’ll see what happens when the store guy calls to offer solutions. I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime,

Wishing you a day of learning actually sought and opportunities happily fulfilled,

I remain,

Your loyal, devoted, actually-looking-forward-to-baking again on Friday,

Ridiculouswoman