Coming to Grips with Obituaries

Here it is.  Jake, Mom, Libby, you will not have to worry about writing my obituary anymore.  Phew, check that off your list.

Polly Oveson Scott keeled over last Monday from/by/with (choose the appropriate preposition) _____________ (see some options below – but please write the gory version of how I really died)
1. being brutally flung under a bus which smashed her bones to bits.
2. an unflattering bout of nausea that did not let up until she was rendered unconscious, and later dead, of course.
3. skin cancer.

She is survived by a lot of people.  You, for instance.  You survived. 

Throughout her life, she did the same old stuff most people do.  Her talents: a tolerance for copious amounts of chocolate and ability to nap for hours, even after a nine hour night’s sleep.  She was known to say, “I’m Polly.  I’m Mormon.”

We will miss her, mostly.

She donated her body to the University of Utah cadaver lab, so besides the funeral, which will be short and sweet, we’ll hold the graveside service in
2 _ _ _? when they’re done with her.

Coming to Grips with The Pedophile

Please, don’t get me wrong. Child abuse is not funny. Child sex abuse is not funny. Apparently, it is also not funny to go to Trader Joe’s in a diaper. I’ll tell you what’s funny: Congress worrying about baseball players on steroids. Now that’s funny.

After a particularly long doctor appointment, I stopped by Trader Joes on the way home. What is it with Sippy cups? The thing has never leaked in church leaving me with the perfect excuse to leave early – but as I pulled up to the organic Mecca that is Trader Joe’s, my son was sitting in five inches of standing water. Resolute, I pulled my son out of his soggy car seat, removed his soaked onesie and shorts, changed his diaper, and in we went.

Note to new parents: taking a baby into a Trader Joe’s sporting only a diaper is tantamount to "crossing the streams" in Ghostbusters. I have never witnessed so much hate. And then . . . while staring back at the people eyeing me as if I wore a SS uniform and thinking, “Really, are you really that upset about this?”, I turned back to find my son chomping on an apple. What sort of mother would let their child steal an apple while only wearing a diaper? Try to imagine a mother who would allow all life as you know it stop instantaneously and explode every molecule in your body at the speed of light. That type of mother.

So, with my head hung low, I pushed my cart to the checkout isle. Hoping the checkout man wouldn’t say, “If it were a single degree cooler, I’d call Child Protective Services.” To which I had already prepared a sarcastic response, “Oh, yeah, he’s gonna get frostbite at 77 degrees. I’d better get this kid a warm blanket.”

But, no the check out man greeted us with a big smile. “Thanks for not smirking at me,” I said. “People aren’t taking to kindly to my ill dressed baby.”

He said, “You know, it’s not a sexual thing. Babies should be allowed the liberty of being naked to express themselves. It’s not like people have to be sexual about it.”

Now I was the one giving the crusties (this is Utah vernacular for a “harsh looks”. I’m surprised you didn’t know that).

Ahem . . . Congress, this is the sort of thing you should be having eight hour hearings about. Instead of calling my senator right then, I wrapped my poor little guy in a paper bag and got him home. This world is a scary place. I tell you what. From now on, mark my words, we are never going anywhere without an extra paper bag.

Coming to Grips with Recipes

I can cook.  I just can’t read recipes.  Why, I ask, are recipes based on the archaic concept of “read the entire recipe before you start”?  Even if I read the entire recipe, I can’t remember the instructions two seconds later when I start throwing the ingredients together without sifting or blanching or beating one in particular.

There is one recipe that results in the most delicious chocolate chip cookies in the universe.  And I invented it.  It came to fruition when I kept forgetting to buy flour (for months on end) and thus, kept grinding food storage wheat because it was easier than putting on clothes and leaving the house. 

It has never been written down until this moment.  I know. I’m fabulous.  And a request for all you cookbook writers, all you food bloggers, all you recipe club aficionados – please, from now on, use the Polly Recipe Method.  Thank you in advance.

Polly’s Sort-of-Healthy, but Really Yummy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

(Written in the ultra functional Polly Recipe Method)

Microwave 2 sticks of salted butter until they're soft – not melted.  Don’t even think about margarine.

In a mixing bowl with a mixer, put this stuff in:

The 2 sticks butter you just melted

1/2 Cup of Baking Splenda

1 Cup of High Quality Brown Sugar

Cream together for 3 minutes on high

2 Eggs - Add to Mixture, can be on medium or low or high.  Doesn't matter.

Grind enough wheat to make 2 cups – grind it as fine as you can get it.  If you don’t have a wheat grinder, come on over! 

Preheat the oven to 350.

Get out another bowl:(.  We’ll call it Bowl 2.

Mix the following stuff together in Bowl 2. 

2 Cups of that just ground Wheat Flour

a tiny bit more than 1/2 t salt

1 t baking powder

1/2 t baking soda

Dump Bowl 2 into the other mixing bowl.  Mix together completely.

Then Add straight into the mixing bowl:

a tiny bit more than 1 t High Quality Vanilla
2 Cups Old Fashioned Oats (not quick oats)

As many chocolate chips as you can handle, then add another cup.  More.  Seriously.

And the Secret Most Amazing Part!!

Chop ¾ cup of almonds and ¾ cup of walnuts into a fine dusty powder.  More.  Even finer.  Okay.  Put those nuts into the mixing bowl and mix like it's 1999.  

Taste the dough and make sure it tastes good. I really hope this works because if it doesn't, I'll feel really stupid.  Just remember, I'm a writer, not an amateur gourmet cook. Or an amateur regular cook for that matter.

Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.  Don't overbake - ka ka.  Maybe set the timer for 9 minutes and check.  It may take a few tries to figure out the best time for your oven, but underdone is better.

Please let me know if 1) the Polly Recipe Method would work better for you too, and 2) if these cookies turn out terrible.  If they're a hit, I’ll run for office.  I’ll run on the platform of going metric and The Polly Recipe Method, among other things.  2012, here I come!

Coming to Grips with Forgetting

The other morning, my son wandered around our apartment courtyard eating dirt. A neighbor swept off her patio quietly.

I walked toward her. “I haven’t met you,” I said.

“Yes, you have, Polly,” she said. “In fact, I’ve met you twice since you moved in.”

I blinked. I smiled.

“My name is Mary,” she said.

She is very nice. After the awkward moment, we talked and she cooed over my delicious son - even though he tried to eat her potted hydrangea.

The very next day – no kidding, I walked in our building, and a woman I didn’t recognize walked in also. She had glasses and a ponytail.

“Hi, are you new here?” I said. I felt a tinge of pride about my friendly and outgoing approach.

“Really?” she said. It was Mary. She said it slowly with that colloquial tonality we all use now to say “really?” As a side note, I just moved all the way across the country, and this “really?” thing is everywhere. You just can’t get away from cool one-word phrases these days.

What can you say? What do you say? When you are a total idiot, there really isn’t much you can do. I told her I’d make her cookies, but like that’s gonna happen. I have come to grips with my mediocrity, and since pregnancy, boat-loads of brain cells have gone missing. The best I can do is admit that I’m a candidate for experimental Alzheimer drugs and follow my son around yanking the rocks out of his mouth. It’s a grim existence in some aspects, but in others, it’s refreshing. Everyday is something new, even if I never even leave my apartment complex.

Coming to Grips with Mr. Miguel’s Frozen Mini Tacos

A friend recently told me, “If I am what I eat, then I am cheap and easy.”

And I am a giant frozen Mini Taco.

This week makes the fourth straight week that I have eaten Don Miguel’s frozen Mini Tacos for lunch. Six. I eat six for lunch with about ¾ cup of sour cream.

Is there any way that my love for these little tacos can be transformed into something more useful than just filling my pants? Wow, that came out wrong.

I love this part in Julie & Julia:

Paul: What is it you REALLY like to do?
Julia: Eat!
Paul: And you’re so good at it!

But, see, even Julia Child fell into the trap. Julia Child had to write a cookbook, instead of simply eating – her true talent. If you love yoga so much that you want to make a living doing yoga, you’re sunk – you must teach yoga. No one gets paid to do yoga. And no one gets paid just to eat.

See, I don’t want to do a commercial for Don Miguel, culinary genius. I don’t want to write about mini tacos – d’oh! I just want to eat his frozen Mini delights and be compensated for my hard work and fierce loyalty. Don, if by chance you are reading this, please help me out and send me some coupons. Really large coupons, shaped like boxes, full of frozen mini tacos.