Saturday, October 23, 2010

BETRAYED BY GOOGLE!

Tap. Tap. Tapity tap. Taptaptaptaptap.

Oh no. The dread sound of…rain! On Saturday morning! It wasn’t raining an hour earlier when I got up. And Google weather PROMISED me on my very own Google homepage that it would be no more than cloudy this morning.

Betrayed by Google!

But I am brave, I am philosophical. I pine not for the yard sales that are my weekly birthright. I know how to console myself when such a calamity befalls.

I’m baking cinnamon rolls. Real ones, not something from a can that you smash on the edge of your countertop. Yeast dough with mashed potato in it. I found the perfect sweet roll dough in my favorite baking book—The Fanny Farmer Baking Book by Marion Cunningham. If I could have only one baking book in my house, this would be the one. She is a terrific food writer, and everything I’ve made from this book has been fantastic. I notice there are a couple of very inexpensive copies on Half.com if you’re in the market.

(Digression: I once saw Marion Cunningham at a restaurant where I was lunching with friends, when I lived in San Mateo. I got all excited and said OMG look who just walked through to the kitchen, it’s Marion Cunningham! And of course they all looked at me blankly. All my celebrity sightings are like this. Okay, all two of them. The other was the time my husband and I were walking down a street in San Francisco, and I met the eyes of a man going the other way. It was the author Armistead Maupin. We smiled at each other as we passed, and I coolly waited about half a block before I grabbed Steven’s arm and said OMG did you see that guy, Armistead Maupin just smiled at me! He looked at me blankly too, not because he didn’t recognize the name, but because he hadn’t noticed anyone else on the sidewalk. We return now to sweet rolls.)

My dough is rising under this appropriate tea towel.IMG_9551 My mother sent me this set a while back; either she embroidered them or found them at a yard sale. The fabric is not absorbent enough to dry dishes well, but they’re perfect to cover bread as it rises.

Wish it would rise faster!

I may get the new cushions covered today that we bought for our Hans Olsen chairs.IMG_9561 It was very hard for the Queen of Fifty Cents to pay several times what the chairs cost for a couple of slabs of foam. But I remind myself that a) they are high quality slabs of foam and b) the chairs are worth more than a hundred times what I paid for them. They are still a bargain. And I just happen to have some fabric on hand that we will probably use. I actually bought it for slipcovers for our rattan set.

IMG_9553But now I think we’ll use it on the Olsen twins. The dilemma is, which side to use. The hubs likes this  IMG_9555 so of course I’m leaning toward the other side.IMG_9557 But I can live with either one. And there may be enough yardage to do it both ways. I toyed with perhaps making new covers for Lizzie’s favorite chairIMG_9559 but she and I are both awfully fond of the fabric that’s on there.

My sewing machine is out and ready to go. A few days ago I used the already-felted angora sweater that I found last summerIMG_8299to make bed socks (cannot sleep if feet are cold!).IMG_9564  The short sleeves were left over, so they became mitts.IMG_9567 My preparations for winter seem to be complete.

Let me leave you with something from my sister, Midcentury Marilyn, that cracked me up. This is from the email she sent me this morning: “Here's the craigslist winner of the week:   HUGE MULIT-FAMILY SALE  I'm trying to figure out of it's a multi family sale or a family with mullet haircuts, this IS Oklahoma, so it could be either!”

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6 comments:

  1. Love cinnamon rolls so I would be at your house in a minute!! Yum. Hard when it rains, glad you are finding other things to do.

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  2. Love the bed socks. I can smell the rolls from here. It is good to have a rainy day now and then.
    cathy

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  3. Angora bedsocks sound like just the thing....afraid of my pups nabbing them like they do my slippers. cool idea though!
    Wasn't Marion Cunningham the mom on Happy Days??? Seems that she was always baking, now that I think about it.
    My other half and I are going to Cerritos to see Memoirs of Abraham Lincoln tonight. supposed to be a humerous, thoughtful, etc one man program starring Abe. Will let you know how it goes...

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  4. Love the socks and mitts. :) You can never go wrong with lovely warm items. :D I'm not a big fan of Google either. Google maps once directed me to a community of town homes instead of Precision Tune Auto Care. I was 40 minutes late to my appointment (and it turned out they were located just 1.5 miles away from my apartment!), but thankfully the mechanic was understanding. He said, "it happens all the time. We've requested Google to change the directions, but they haven't."

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  5. Living in the midwest, a little rain doesn't stop me from "saling". If it did, I wouldn't be able to go out half the summer. As garage sales end about mid-October, I need to get my fix in anytime I can. My husband, however, would definately vote for the baking option. LOVE the towel over the dough.

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I really love your comments. Thanks for coming along on my thrifty adventures!

 
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