My little youth choir sang the special music in church yesterday, and they did a great job. They did not lift their robes over their heads or fail to come in on time, which were my main concerns. We had a clutch of visiting preachers there for discussions of polity, and they came up and asked about our youth music program so that they could take the information back to their own churches.

As you know, our youth music program consists of me and Janalisa having met with the kids this summer and learned a few songs, with me waving my arms around in a pretense of conducting, so there is an element of humor there. It was gratifying anyway. I am sending out "Congratulations!" cards to the kids for their hard work and so forth.

I also had a call from my first catalog show hostess with her orders, and got to tell her that she had $60 in free stuff and two half price items coming, plus a special gift for being one of my charter hosts. She is an experienced host, and had already figured it up for herself, but I found it gratifying. It might have been more gratifying if I could have done it smoothly rather than having to spend 20 minutes figuring out the software and calling her back with the totals, but still.

The Pampered Chef business starts you off with some goals to reach, in terms of the number of shows booked in your first month with them and the quantity of sales you make and so forth. Having read Influencer shortly before beginning this, I have mostly just zeroed in on the "eight shows a month" item, since it appears that that is the key to doing the rest of the stuff. There are outre things like Pan-o-Rama and cruises which I may work up to, but right now I am just trying to get my eight shows a month bit lined up. I have two cooking shows this week, and another catalog show out there from last week, and yesterday's experience has me closer to being convinced that this will work out. Or at least that I will in fact receive the stainless sauce pan for reaching my September sales goal, and be allowed to have a website in October.

I showed my husband the calendar with dollar signs on the days when they deposit paychecks to your account. This is because there is a gap, as in so many jobs, between beginning and actually getting paid. I don't want him to lose hope and think that I should have gone and worked at a car dealership, something he frequently suggests to me. He should know, from how testy I get when he makes me go look at car engines with him, that I am not suited to that work, but he keeps suggesting it.

#1 daughter kindly suggested that I keep practicing with the mandoline. She says that right now I make it look too hard and no one will ever want it if they see me trying to slice things with it. I will not be having to show it in public till Thursday, and so I have a few more days to learn to slice with it convincingly. I have a Plan B, in case I am not able to master it by then: I will use The Food Chopper, with which I have become adept, and merely point to the mandoline and tell the story about the kickstand and impaling fruit on the spikes. As the guests laugh, I will move on to the microplane grater and the knives and they will never even realize that I didn't actually use the mandoline. 

#1 daughter begins her job at 9:00 this morning. She is going to be a front office girl at a weight loss clinic. She brought home their literature, and it looks like a sensible plan much like what my doctor told me to do, so I don't think she has to be embarrassed about working there, and I am hoping that she will have fun with it. She is worrying that she will have to spend all day listening to people make comments about her weight. I'm thinking that a weight-loss clinic is probably the one place where people will not tell her that she is too thin. We'll see.

I am going to be struggling today with the section of the store publishing project where the little children are learning about what the governor does. We have had some mighty colorful governors in our state, but probably my knowledge of government scandal for the past 200 years will not be useful in doing the citizenship section of the first grade book, so I will try to put that out of my mind.

Yesterday was the last day of Question Week for the HGP. It was also the last day of Clean the Living Room Week, and I finished dusting and sorting and so forth. We were supposed to put a meal in the freezer, which I did not do, but I did put a container of Danish Almond Sheet cookies into said freezer.

But we were also supposed to decide on the holiday gifts we intended to make, and this week we are to buy the materials to make said gifts, and/or package them up in ziplock bags so that we can easily grab the gift for Grandpa and work on it.

I still haven't made up my mind.

Since I don't intend to buy anything but food and toilet paper till #1 son graduates, I will plan to make things from the materials I already have on hand. Fortunately, I have quite a bit on hand in the way of materials, so that is not an unrealistic or even a mingy plan. Unfortunately, I still haven't come up with anything thrilling to make.

Over the years, I have made charms, hats, table runners, hot water bottles with wooly sweaters, soaps and spa products, Christmas tree ornaments, cookies, candies, soup kits, movie baskets, scarves, slippers, bath sets,  quilts, toys, firestarters, moccasins, clothes, and tote bags. I have made things with sewing, quilting, embroidery, polymer clay, beading, decoupage, and woodwork. Probably more, too, that have escaped my mind for the moment. I have made most of my Christmas gifts for the past twenty or thirty years.

And yet I cannot seem to come up with an interesting idea this year.

So I am hoping that my fellow craftspeople will come to my aid.

Even if you don't follow the HGP and aren't ready to think about holiday gifts, do you have thoughts on the subject? Are there things that you have made in the past that people loved? Do you have opinions? Do you scorn to give handmade gifts to non-crafters, on the theory that they don't appreciate these splendid things, or do you see it as part of your mission to spread the love of handknitted socks far and wide?

Here, I'll start.

I prefer to give handmade gifts, except for children. Your kids actually need and want things and do not have the income to buy them, and will not feel humiliated if you buy the things for them. For everyone else, it actually is the thought that counts. So I will try either to buy them something they would not have thought of for themselves and yet would love, or to make them something, since that shows, whether they want it or not, that I thought of them and made an effort for them.

I have never given anyone a pair of handknitted socks. I don't think that people who do not knit will feel that they are a gift, even if they are wonderful. If I had a sudden desire to give someone handknitted socks, I would change the plan to slippers, because slippers are recognized as a gift, while socks are only mentioned as gifts in jokes.

I also don't give people baking mixes, like those pretty cookie mixes layered in jars, because I figure they would rather not have to bake the stuff themselves. Otherwise, you know, they would.

And I don't give people coupons for future services or whatever,

because I think that people never really feel comfortable redeeming them. "You know how you gave me a coupon for babysitting? Well, Friday would be good," they don't say. If they were going to be comfortable asking you, they wouldn't wait around for a coupon, any more than people who want to bake would wait around for a decorative jar of cookie mix.

I have heard that there are people who think that handmade gifts are "cheap" and Scrooge-like. These people a) have not been shopping and seen how cheaply ready-made goods can be had nowadays, b) don't deserve handmade gifts anyway, and c) haven't actually read Dickens's A Christmas Carol.

I have a plan for what to buy my two remaining minor children, in case my new business brings me such wealth that I am able to buy things in spite of tuition and car repairs, but otherwise I plan to make things for all my gift-ees.

So please share your thoughts and experiences.

Yesterday, after the fire, I did some housework and some errands and some tasks for my new business.

 I also spent some time enjoying the rain, hanging out with my family, reading and working on the quilted table runner I began way back in the spring.

I have that, a bed-size quilt, Ivy (poor thing -- not sure what I'll do about her), Erin (ditto), the Doctor's Bag, and my fall/winter SWAP in the WIPs pile.

It is conceivable that this is hampering me in my quest for good Christmas gifts to make this year. Maybe my subconscious looks at the pretty stuff in my craft books and says to my conscious mind, "Don't let her start anything else, for heaven's sake."

Whereupon my conscious mind produces thoughts like, "Oh, she wouldn't want that... He probably already has one of those... Mine wouldn't look that good..."

I told #2 daughter that this might be the year that everyone gets scarves, and she was actually pretty enthusiastic.

What do you think? Seen any good crafty present ideas lately?

Well!

I had put some oil on the stove to heat, in order to make a nice little fritatta for breakfast, and I was writing about hymns in preparation for a class I'm teaching on the subject, beginning on Wednesday. I was engrossed in my research, working up some points on African American spirituals compared with the heaven songs of the Great Depression, when I suddenly noticed that the pan had caught on fire.

I was engrossed, as I say. Still, you'd think that I would have noticed something before the flames began shooting up three feet out of the pan. If you have ever wondered whether turning off the burner and covering the pan actually works, I can now tell you confidently that it does. And I am wide awake now, too.

That wasn't what I was planning on talking with you about today, though.

A while back I remarked scornfully that Southern Living had shown a house with its books all on the shelves with their spines toward the wall. The following month (that is, this month) they actually recommended doing this -- I mean, as a decorating tip. Have the pages of the books out, they said, and have just a few spines showing here and there as a color accent.

This was too much. I emailed them and took them to task for it, saying that people who read their books wouldn't be able to find the ones they needed, and people who didn't read their books should give said books to someone who would. They should put bibelots on their shelves, I said.

I don't do this sort of thing. Really I don't. I recognize that, when people write things for publication, they will already have thought of just about any point I am likely to make and made up their own minds and they do not need me to tell them they are wrong.

I also don't generally believe in wasting my time on pointless communication, but only convey these things to people if I have some actual goal. In this case, I do not anticipate that Southern Living will post a retraction, saying, "Merciful heavens! We hadn't thought about how y'all wouldn't be able to find your books! Don't do what we said you should do. We must have been out of our minds, and we are really sorry!"

This is what's wrong with email. If I had had to go to the trouble of actually finding an envelope and a stamp, no way would I have sent them that letter.

Anyway, they have now responded to me several times, assuring me that they have received my query and that they are forwarding it hither and yon throughout their organization, seeking the right person to deal with it, and they truly appreciate my having brought it up, and they will attend to my query as soon as possible. These are long, long computer-generated emails they are sending me. 

It is possible that they are making fun of me.

#1 daughter got the job at the weight-loss clinic. #2 daughter is still waiting to hear. My car is still not working, and my husband had to work today, so I cannot do my usual round of Saturday errands until someone wakes up and drives me. This coming week I have something every night but Friday, plus of course my usual commute and a Saturday cooking show, and now all the drivers in the house have school or work all day, all with different schedules and in different areas, so I am not sure what I will be doing about that.

Perhaps there is a hymn on the subject.

My consultant kit for my new business arrived a couple of days ago. So yesterday, when #2 son got home from school, he looked around in theatrical consternation and said, "I would have thought that you would have been practicing using your new tools. Where's the cake and cookies?"

I admitted that I had been working on the store's publishing project instead.

"You know," he continued, "Right about when I get home would be a good time to practice those cakes and cookies."

He was right. I went ahead and made a panful of Danish Almond Sheet. This recipe comes from an old, out of print cookbook. You melt 2 sticks of butter, stir in 3/4 cup of sugar, 1/2 lb of finely chopped almonds, 1 egg,  and 2 cups of flour, spread the batter in the pan, and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.

This allowed me to practice using the wonderful chopper tool and the way cool mixing bowl, but I still needed to practice the remaining cutting tools.

The knife is no problem. The grater required a little bit of thought to assemble it correctly, but otherwise was quite easy. We ended up with a nicely grated lemon peel.

The mandoline, which you see on the right, nearly defeated us.

"You put up the kickstand," said #2 son, "and then you impale the lemon on the spikes."

This is not how the instructions put it, but he was right. However, we had some issues with the safety features. Namely, unless you actually put the thing together correctly, it will not cut anything.

If you put it together correctly, it will cut the lemon but not your fingers. My husband doesn't look at directions. He approached the machine with complete confidence. He is good at this sort of thing. He couldn't do it. We kept peeking behind the mandoline to see whether it was producing slices yet, and it kept not doing so. He went out for a smoke.

At this point, I read the instructions, saw where we had made our error, put the blades in correctly, and was indeed able to slice that lemon we had impaled on the spikes.

I foresee that we will be eating lots of sliced things between now and when I use this machine in public. I am debating whether to use the words "kickstand" and "impaled" in public presentations of the thing.

As you see, dinner did take place. 

Afterwards, I went walking with Partygirl. Her daughter's wedding is just over the horizon, so we had a lot of discussion about wedding music. #1 son needed some help with his first college essay. And #2 daughter needed help with a piece she is having to write as part of her job application for the job that she first applied for back in May.

They have been winnowing out applicants at a very leisurely pace. I think that by now they would have winnowed out anyone who actually needed the job to live on.

#1 daughter also applied for a job which seems to involve some winnowing, but she just applied yesterday. She goes back for a second interview today. It is a front office job at a weight-loss clinic. Her daddy laughed uproariously at that, and cautioned her not to give in to the temptation to follow the diet. We both gave her plenty of advice for her second interview.

I had many opportunities to feel helpful over the course of the day.

A comment has inspired me to write about my planner. As I explained to the commenter, it is her fault that I have this boring entry this morning.

My mother gave me a Daytimer for Christmas when I was about 12. At various times in my life I used their page a day or page a week or their 24-hour planner (small children and a husband on the night shift, so I did a lot of my freelance work in the wee hours of the morning in those days), and a few years ago I switched to Franklin Covey. Basically, though, I have used this system all my life.

I have a schedule.I realize that many of my readers would loathe having a schedule. For me, though, having a schedule is much less stressful. I have blocks for the days I am at the store and the times I work at home. I have 40 hours for my full-time job and blocks for my Pampered Chef business and squares for rehearsals and classes and so forth. I have gym time and meals and housework in there, and free time and family time, and commuting time. This means that I can see for sure that everything will actually fit into my day, and I never have to feel like I ought to be doing something other than what I am doing, because I know that there is a time for everything. I update it in the fall and the spring, when I typically have a change in my schedule -- different music commitments, for example, or a different work schedule.

Next to the schedule is my running list. That's where I write down everything that needs doing, as I think of it. If I want to make a dress or check out a new SEO site or clean the pantry, I can put it there and not have it running through my mind like a hamster (well, usually). The running list also means that I don't have an unreasonable to-do list -- just what I can realistically accomplish in a day.

My appointments are by the to-do list, and I normally put them in as soon as I make them. Then I have a page for notes, which normally fills up during the day. I have an index page for each month so that, at least in theory, I can find my notes again. The notes range from research data to grocery lists to meeting notes to a list of new sewing patterns I want next time they're selling at 99 cents. This way I never have to keep track of bits of paper or try to remember where I put some information. That's a serious timesaver.

Now, having answered the commenter's question, I must tell you a story.

Once, when I had four little children -- my youngest was about 4 months old, so the others would have been 2, 7, and 8 -- I got them all packed into the car after church and realized that the baby was missing. After following the trail of who had last been seen carrying him and who they had gotten him from, we found the baby, fast asleep in the church nursery. The church was locked up tight, so it was fortunate that someone had a key.

One of the women said to me, "I always wondered how you managed to keep track of everything. Now I see -- you don't."

I got up yesterday, did a couple hours' worth of computer work, went to the gym, put dinner in the crockpot, went to the store, worked hard, and drove home.

On the way, I listened to a CD my mother gave me. She gives me sample CDs from lecture series sometimes. I was driving my husband's car, which has a CD player, and it is a long commute, so I had the chance to listen to quite an interesting lecture on William Shakespeare. Specifically, the lecturer was talking about the idea that the plays of Shakespeare were written by someone else.

Chances are, you know that this is often bandied about -- that the Earl of Oxford or Francis Bacon or someone wrote them. There are plenty of arguments on the subject, but this lecturer brought up one which I had never heard before, namely: everyone would have known.

He's right. I live in a town where all the musicians know one another (or at least within our genres; I don't think I know Rampaige's husband, for example, though I might). No way could a secret the size of Francis Bacon writing Will Shakespeare's plays survive for fifty years in this context.

The lecturer claimed that the same was true for the New York theater scene. "Everybody knows everybody!" he said, and of course the theater world was smaller in Shakespeare's time and place. With a grand total of 200 Englishmen making their livings in the theater, an attempt to keep such a secret would be hopeless. I find this completely conclusive.

When I got home, I learned that my car had died. It went mad, began claiming that it was driving 120 miles an hour and that its ABS was going out, and then simply wouldn't go. It could start with jumper cables, but wouldn't hold the charge for more than a few minutes, and would just die again.

I was not jolly about this. It is fortunate that I can work from home several days a week, but I also have two days when I have to got o work 12 miles away, I have promised to go cook in all these people's homes this month, I have only just gotten back to the gym and don't want to give it up, and I have rehearsals, classes, places to go, people to see.

My car was fine last time I drove it.

Here, of course, is the advantage of having plenty of spondulicks. In such a case, the car owner says, "Oh, bother, I have to call the mechanic," and in a few days has her car back. I know that money doesn't buy happiness, but it definitely buys car repair.

The other bad news around here is that Ivy, when I went to sew the front to the back, looks like this:

I do not know whether it is the front that is all wrong and must be frogged, or the back. Both looked fine on their own. They do not, however, match.

The cat is not bothered by anything.

We made an effort to take it easy yesterday. At one point I began dusting, and #2 son insisted that I quit.

I did make lunch, and here it is, complete with leftovers from previous days (yeah, that cake was really not a hit), but I made no effort to talk while cooking.

The boys went out to get Nerf guns and spent most of the day engaged in combat, with me shrieking at them about the windows, the pottery, their eyes, the antique china,  etc. The soundtrack for this was pretty simple: powpowpow pow pow powpowpowpow, "Boys!" maniacal laughter powpowpowpow pow thunk "Ow!" maniacal laughter...

I wondered aloud when they would outgrow such rough-housing, and was assured that it would be around age 40.

Inspired perhaps by the derring-do around the house, my husband showed #2 daughter how to use her newly-purchased rice pot.

This is the dangerous rice pot, which you may recall has been forbidden to the girls even though they were grownups.

The rice-cooking lesson encompassed not only the dangers of the steam and the boiling water, but also the dangers of the "hair" on the basket. My husband sanded the basket down so there would be fewer "hairs" around to give #2 daughter splinters.

There were also long disquisitions on how to ensure that the rice would be ready to cook when she got home from work, and how to store it, and things like that.

Here is the rice. We sent both sticky rice and sweet rice back with her, but I think that Elephant God rice was the best brand name. Why don't we have names like this on American goods? I like having Happy Tiger and Healthy Boy and Elephant God brands in my house.

 Why should we have to have things like Morton salt or Planar monitors or Best Choice flour, when we could have Virtuous Umbrella, Laughing Monkey, and Careful Muskrat?

We also took pictures for the Christmas cards, and I contemplated what gifts I might make for Christmas this year, because that is what we are told to do for this week of the HGP.

Usually by this time of year, I have seen some way cool idea somewhere, but this year I haven't. If you have ideas for holiday gifts to make, I'd love to hear about it.

I did have another go at the Truffle Cups, since I had ganache left over, and they turned out prettier this time than they did yesterday. Maybe I will make elegant boxes of cookies and candies for people.

The other things to do this week are to thoroughly clean the living room, buy extra sugar and flour, and put a meal in the freezer. You are also to contemplate what is important to your family about Christmas, but this hasn't changed significantly for me since last year, so I can skip that.

"There were two killings -- but let me explain," said our lunch guest.

That was not the beginning of the day.

We started the day with Warm Apple Almond Pastry.

To make this, you make a frangipane of almonds, sugar, eggs, and flour. You spread this on puff paste, cover it with some sliced apples, and brush it with warm apricot jam.

A topping of strips of puff paste, 30 minutes in the oven, and you have a lovely pastry.

We had this for breakfast, along with eggs and bacon.

You may be thinking that this probably contains some saturated fat and simple carbohydrates, and you are right. I am cooking oats for today's breakfast to make up for it.

We went to church after that, and sang "Every Time I Feel the Spirit." #2 daughter was the guest conductor, and it was nice to see her waving her arms around. She does it with elegance and conviction, and several choir members actually watched her, whereas it sometimes seems to be a point of honor with them not to watch the director.

"Who does he think he is?" they seem to be saying. "I've been in this choir for 25 years, and I don't intend to look at some jumped-up fellow waving his arms at me."

Our duet got applause, and a little bit of crying, so we felt that we had done a good job.

Home, then, and we served Three Cheese Garden Pizza to our guest.

I didn't make anyone listen to me talk while cooking, but our guest did sign up for a show, so I may be all right on the night, as they say.

Anyway, we were eating pizza and salad, and our guest was telling us  about the boarder at her family's home, or "The Felon," as they fondly call him.

He had murdered two people.

The family seemed to feel that it was the sort of thing that could happen to anyone.

After our guest had explained to us about the murders, #2 daughter told us about the recliner with the gun.

It did not contain a gun when they sold it, at the furniture store where she has her day job, but it was returned.

They put it on the sales floor, and a small child played around with it until he found a revolver tucked down the side of it.

His parents brought this to the attention of the salesperson, who called #2 daughter.

 I didn't really grasp why they called her. She is an executive assistant to the daughter of the owner or something like that. However, she was called in on The Mystery of the Missing Ottoman, and she was called in to deal with The Gun in the Recliner.

Nancy Drew springs to mind.

Ah, yes, the picture at the left is Truffle Cups, a confection composed entirely of chocolate, butter, sugar, and cream. #1 daughter explained to us her theory of why this sort of food is good for one.

They are on a white plate, and not floating in the air surrounded by an angelic radiance. That effect is the result of my poor photography.

Anyway, #2 daughter began with, "I understand that you've had a little trouble here." I doubt that I could have done better.

Having read of Scriveling's adventures in the public library and heard about our lunch guest's adventures with The Felon, whom her father met at work, and #2 daughter's firearms adventures, I am thinking that there is something odd about my job.

I have never had to deal with any violent crimes at all, or any weapons beyond children's misuse of puppets. There is the issue of the people buying science equipment for their meth labs, but that is more a moral dilemma than an actual adventure.

Oh, well.

We saw our guest off. The Doctor was expected, for a wine-related undertaking, but she did not arrive.

We lazed around a while, waiting for her, and then we had dinner. I made this Thai Chicken Stir-Fry, which is a sort of chicken salad with a surprising dressing. It was quite good. I added hot peppers, of course.

We had it with sticky rice and pineapple and something called Tiramisu Cake, which we found unconvincing.

It is made with a cake mix and a sort of cream, and it tastes very like a mix cake with some cream on it.

It was, #2 daughter said, the first of the experimental dishes that she didn't care for.

I got through my whole list of things I intended to make, except for the Avocado Salsa Cups, which I was planning to serve to The Doctor when she arrived.

She foiled this plan by not coming at all.

The rest of us had eaten so much, and such lavish stuff, that we were completely off the idea of eating, and I was pretty fed up with cooking. The Avocado Salsa Cups will have to wait.

We watched Casanova and  I knitted. Ivy's right front is within a few inches of being finished.

Did I learn to talk while cooking? Maybe. #2 daughter assured me that I did better at it today than I did yesterday.

The long weekend, devoted to practicing talking while I cook, began in the grocery store, where #1 daughter and I skulked around looking for unfamiliar stuff (where do they keep ramen noodles anyway?) and I spent half again as much as usual. We have half again as many people to feed as usual, of course, but I think the puff pastry and five different kinds of cheese had something to do with it.

There was a game on yesterday, so the grocery store was playing the fight song and featuring great pyramids of snack foods.

We ran into several old friends, so #1 daughter had her first opportunities to cope with "How's married life" and "Are you visiting?" and she handled it well. There was also the old man in the produce area who told me I should feed her because she was too thin.

What makes people think this is appropriate? Would he have felt that it was okay for him to tell me that I shouldn't eat the things in my cart because I was too fat? There is really no difference.We tried to steer a course between horror and politeness. I am sure he meant no harm.

Now, do you watch the cooking shows? I used to watch "The Galloping Gourmet" as a child, but do not have clear memories of it. I have occasionally seen snippets of things as I pass through the room when #2 son is watching the Food Channel, and I have sometimes thought that the hosts sound a bit dim.

I take it back.

Talking while you cook is much harder than it looks.  The natural inclination is  to quit working while you talk, and to quit talking while you work.

My first attempt was with Brunch Squares, and all I said was how the cream cheese kept getting stuck in the whisk. I said this a lot of times, with varying intonations and increasing degrees of querulousness, but I don't think it really counts.

#2 daughter arrived from her Midwestern fastness just in time to eat these, and then we headed up to the store to visit The Empress, That Man, and The Poster Queen, and to get #2 daughter's new classroom kitted out.

 I introduced some old customers to my lovely daughters and did some checking out when the lines got long, and then we headed home to try some more talking while cooking.

My second attempt was a lunch of Jerk Chicken Nachos and Chocolate Mint Silk Torte.

I started them both at once. I normally do this, so I can dovetail the tasks. However, it can be difficult to segue between chopping bell peppers and pushing ganache into the decorating device. Not to mention trying to whip more blasted cream cheese into said ganache and having it get stuck in the blasted whisk again.

#2 son also helped out by popping up two inches from my face and asking whether I was really using a Pampered Chef pan (no; I was using an old pan I had, since I do not yet have a Pampered Chef torte pan, and since I was just practicing couldn't he pretend?) and whether that knife would break easily (no, it's not going to break, you prat, and get out of the way before you get cut).

"You need to be prepared for these questions," he informed me.

There was a bit of a stage wait while I hunted down the chicken, and let us be frank here and admit that the kids laughed at my decorating technique. I normally do rosettes back and forth across the top of a cake so that they will end up even. You know, one at 12 o'clock and then one at 6 o'clock and then 3 o'clock and then 9 o'clock and so on.

 Apparently this is not how they do it on the food channel.Not only was my technique unconvincing, but they made me laugh so hard that the rosettes ended up entirely uneven and fell off the edges of the torte.

It was still quite delicious.

I must say that I don't see any benefit to making ganache by melting chocolate with Cool Whip. Do they know what's in that stuff? In future, I'll just use cream. However, I can report that there was no point at which anyone said, "This ganache tastes weird. Did you make it with Cool Whip?"

We ate it while watching Eddie Izzard.

I finished cleaning the porch, that being the task for the HGP for the week that ended yesterday, and #2 daughter and I noodled around at the piano and decided what duet we would sing for today's church service, and amazingly soon it was time to cook again.

I made Pork and Noodle Skillet, and  it was okay, but would have been better with Kung Fu noodles (or Wai Wai or MaMa --we are not picky) rather than Maruchan. I added broccoli and garlic and hot pepper, which improved it over the sample I had at the show Janalisa took me to last week, but it still was ordinary. Possibly some people do not eat Asian foods as often as we do, though, and would be more dazzled by it.

I don't believe that I talked while I made it, especially since the kids were tired of the game by that time and were getting all their evening phone calls.

After dinner, the girls went out with Arkenboy. They looked so pretty.

Arkenboy has taken up a pointed ginger beard, a sufficiently striking accessory that I didn't notice anything else about him. However, I want to report with pride that I did not brag to him about my google results or ask him any questions about the pursuit of the RLT.

I am going to go make a Warm Apple Almond Pastry for breakfast. All the kids are asleep, but I will try to talk to the cat as I cook..

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal was bemoaning the way that the rich are portrayed on TV. For one thing, it would seem that the portrayals of the wealthy are unkind. Spoiled kids and neurotic power-hungry adults are just all over the place in TV portrayals of rich people, apparently. They were not talking about Paris Hilton and Donald Trump, but about fictional characters. Last I looked, portrayals of the poor also included spoiled kids and neurotic adults, but we already know that I am not up on TV.

Another objection the Journal had was that new shows about rich people don't reflect the recent changes in wealth. The rich are a lot geekier than they used to be, and the TV shows keep showing powerful old men with leonine manes (gray, but still...) looking down on the nouveau riche. Oh, and also the rich are really much more interesting than the TV shows would have you think.

Got all that? They didn't announce the color of the ribbon for Rich People's Anti-defamation Awareness Week, but at least we understand the issues.

I am suffering from insomnia again, or possibly still. This gives me leisure to be snarky about the troubles of the rich. I could be cleaning my house or working on my List Week tasks for the HGP, but I still hope to be able to go back to sleep. Why I hope this, I do not know. It is 3:49 a.m., I have been awake for an hour, I have to get up anyway at 5:30 to see my husband off to work, so I probably am not going to get any more sleep.

Waking up with a long to-do list on my mind is bad enough. Actually doing any of those things seems like giving in.

I have all these errands to run, and will not have a car to run them in. #1 daughter said she will help me out. And I have a bunch of domestic stuff to do. I invariably fall way behind on domestic stuff during Back to School, and it takes a while to get back to a state of decency and order. I promised to send The Empress my recipe for marmalade, and I need to check my court date for that traffic ticket I got last month, and I have hardly gotten anywhere on my SWAP, and there are bills to pay, and there is one more page I need to do for the first book, and the third section didn't make it to That Man's computer, and some friends are coming over tomorrow afternoon so I really need to dust, and --

See, that's why I can't go back to sleep. I'll spend some time with my calendar and have a nap this afternoon.

I started my first PC catalog show yesterday and will be doing the host coaching for the second one today. Then there are the cooking shows. I did the host coaching for one yesterday. Over the weekend, I plan to practice talking while I cook, an essential skill for this. My kids have agreed to watch the cooking and eat the results. # 2 son got into the spirit of it last night, dropping his voice a fifth and bellowing, "Make me some cake, woman!"

He finds this hilarious. Some day perhaps he will meet a girl who agrees that it is hilarious. Or else he will give it up.

I do intend to make cake, though. Also nachos and pizza and Pan-Asian Meatballs, whatever that may be, and a supposedly Asian noodle dish, and a stir-fry. Lots of vegetables to offset the cake.

Hmm. My husband's alarm just went off. It is 4:00 a.m. Apparently it is good that I woke up as early as I did. Now I won't have to be cross with him for having to wake up so early to make his coffee.

No doubt you have some frolicsome plans for the long weekend, but be sure to spare a moment to think of the plight of the rich, cruelly misrepresented on the fall TV line-up.