Twinkle: Cookie Passive Aggression

Woo Hoo! Julep and Dibbs are back in the house!

So, Mr. Twinks is taking the Florida bar exam, which translates to less family time and more study time. To distract Twinklette from distracting him, I thought it would be a good idea for us to make some cookies. I returned to MIL's delicious chocolate chip/white chocolate chip cookie recipe--the one that never quite seems to work out.

They're delish when she makes them. When I attempt them, not so much...but I'm always up for another opportunity to tweak the recipe because I know one of these times I'll get it right (no thanks to her).

Today was that day, my friends. That evil b*tch told me to use 1 egg instead of 2. Can you believe that? That is not the kind of mistake that an accomplished baker like MIL makes by accident. I mean--there is a big difference in baking between 1 egg and 2. Everyone who's ever baked anything knows that the measurements have to be exact and you can't just add or omit an egg and get the same results. How pathologically b*tchy is that?

Of course, Mr. Twinkle thinks the mistake is legit, so our progress takes a step back. He has obviously never baked.

I just had to share.

Julep: I Return

Thanks for holding up the blogging for the past month or two, Twinks and Dibbs. I haven't spent a full week in the office since mid-August ... and actually won't this week either, I have to head to my usual Mountain City destination on Friday. But for the first few days of this week, I will be back here at the desk and I am determined to make some blogworthy contributions.

So let's start off by returning to my best-used theme: my MIL and her shopping habits. First off, there is a kitschy ... something (a box? a faux bag?) made of lacquered cardboard decorated with Halloween motifs by Thai children for 10 cents a day currently sitting on my kitchen island. I would put it someplace more appropriate but I don't know what it is, so I don't know where it should go. And I am afraid to ask Mr-Mama because I don't want to encourage her, or to have her ask if I like it. I suggested to Mr J that the most appropriate place for it was the St Vincent de Paul collection truck at the church last weekend, but he thought not. Unclear whether he thought the good churchfolk would think the decorations were Satanic or just too ugly for resale.

Meanwhile, I made the mistake of telling Mr-Mama that I need some new clothes. I have a few targeted areas that need boosting (perhaps LoLa would like to go shopping with me sometime soon). She took this as a blanket invitation to go spend lord knows how much money at the Macy's. Seriously, I think she bought everything in my size on the clearance racks ... which was incredibly kind and generous of her, BUT.

Y'all so graciously gave up your time last year to help me with the Closet Purge, and you know one main theme was to remove all the articles of clothing I have accumulated over the years from other people, as gifts or hand-me-downs, that simply do not fit or flatter me. Well, Mr-Mama has a tendency to buy me things that she would be drawn to for herself. It's not that her taste is bad - it isn't - it's that she has an exactly opposite figure of my own. She is tall and pear-shaped. I am short and top-heavy.

I need jackets that stop at the hip and have some waist definition, skirts that graze the knee, and square, sweetheart, or wrap necklines. Instead I now have a new suit with a long straight jacket and mid-calf skirt - and a new casual blouse with all sort of metallic adornment around the round neckline. Because if there's one thing I need, it's added weight and bulk in the bosom area.

I don't want to tell this woman I just don't like what she picks out, but I have got to find better ways of saying "no" to her about the wardrobe. She's totally shutting down my usual tactful go-to's of fit and price, because she will alter everything and she won't let me pay her. I know, I know - what a problem, right?

Dibbs: Nuts

I can add to the conversation about nuts. I was in a meeting last week. The teacher had to leave early because her little boy had a pain in his side.

I saw the little boy the next day.

Me: Do you feel better?

Him: Yeah. I found out it only hurts when I do this (grabs in the nut region and pulls up.)

Me: Well, um, maybe don't do that.

So, I guess hitting little boys in the nuts hurts, too. Also, little boys have no idea what not to talk about.

Twinkle: Progress?

Alright...it looks like the All-Twinkle blog show will continue. Where is everyone? I'm glad the Daddy Rabbit Twitter feed back in business!

So, we had our road trip this weekend, and as Mr. Twinkle and I were driving home, the conversation (as it so often does) turned to nuts. Specifically, I had overheard a 4-year-old boy exclaim after a run-in with his older brother, "He got me in the nuts!" I was relating the story to Mr. Twinks, and naturally I had lots of questions. My biggest one was this: does it actually hurt a little boy to get hit in the nuts?

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Mr. Twinkle: "I don't remember anybody ever hitting me in the nuts as a child."

Me: "Well, there was your mom, but that was more in the figurative sense."

Mr. Twinkle: "It was an emotional castration."

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He admits it! I think it's progress, people!

Twinkle: Dinner Chez Moi

So Mr. Twinks' entire family came for dinner tonight, and it was fun and all that. MIL is always on her best behavior at these events, and is appropriately complimentary--although she did bring a ginormous plate of assorted cookies and desserts, the circumference of which was larger than any surface area in my home. I know she wishes we lived in a super-sized McMansion in Sutherland chosen by her, but let's be realistic: this is the Highlands, biatch, and things here are scaled more tastefully. And I swear I don't mean that b*tchy.

I had a moment of calm just before the guests arrived, when I felt like I was actually going to pull it all off successfully and have everything hot but not burnt. A moment later I saw Mr. Twinkle's cousin bouncing her happy *ss up to my front door. She got there 45 minutes early to "help," and started by reaching her hands into the ice bucket to fill the glasses, completely ignoring the scoop whose sole purpose in life is to keep everyone's ice clean and free of fingerprints and germs. Call me an uppity b*tch, but in the Twinkle household, we use an ice scoop.

When I started putting food out and said, "Go ahead and help yourself," it was a suggestion for her to take a taste of the Dolls cheese torte, maybe sample a little Barefoot Contessa smoked salmon spread while I finished putting out the hot dishes. She took this as an invitation to put her hand into the quiche that was cooling on the countertop, and extract a bite of tomato, egg, and cheese. Yes, she reached right into the quiche, the very one whose crust and filling I slaved over. Not what I meant by my invitation to "help yourself."

Speaking of helping yourself, after dinner and cleanup (which involved several dishwasher runs, hand-washing a dozen or so each highball, champagne, and julep glasses, and an exhaustive search for a lost spoon during which calamity and panic ensued), when I was about to pass out from exhaustion and still had more to do, Mr. Twinkle thought it would be a good time to come up to me, pull up my dress, and dry hump me from behind. Y'all know I'm not one to turn down a good roll in the hay with Mr. Twinks, but that was neither the time, the place, nor the most appropriate means of seduction. I mean, the way I was feeling right then (and now), he would probably have had a more interactive time with a decorative pillow. My advice to him: try me again in the morning, and start with a backrub.

Sorry if that's appalling, dears...that's what a stealth blog is for. Y'all need to come back and start posting again! It's supposed to be our blog...not the All-Twinkle show!

Twinkle: Unable to Delegate

No matter how many times I offer, my MIL will never let me bring a dish to anything. It's because she doesn't want to share credit. If she's coming to my house, however, and I tell her not to bring anything but just her smiling face, she will show up with exactly two assorted dessert trays, ensuring that, no matter how hard I worked on the Barefoot Contessa's brownie pudding recipe (which is between a brownie and a souffle), my dessert and I are forced to share the spotlight.

In my family, it's not about spotlights. People chip in because it's the nice thing to do, and one person's cookies are in no way diminished by someone else's brownies. I wish it were not about spotlights with MIL, but that is the way it is, probably because she runs a cafeteria for 50+ observant and wayward Jews every time a holiday rolls around, and no one else contributes anything, and that's how she wants it. She's used to doing things by herself, and can't stand the idea of a new lunch lady in town--especially when that lunch lady has a touch of the Martha flair that her cafeteria line will never possess. Just sayin'.

So, this time, miraculously, she asked me to help her with her flower arrangements. She asked me Monday night, at one of my SIL's many birthday dinners, and I consented (the flowers were for tonight, Wednesday). She e-mailed me, too, and I responded with an enthusiastic yes. I love doing flowers, and I was proud of her for actually delegating something that she doesn't enjoy. No purple carnations and babies' breath this time, thought I. Boy was I wrong.

Today I called her. She had certain vases she wanted me to use, so I was going to go pick them up, then head to Whole Foods to do a whole fall fruit-and-flower medley like I saw in Southern Living. When I finally reached her--when I was almost at her house--she informed me that she just went ahead and did the flowers herself.

Now, y'all were there with me when I joined the Junyaleague, right? Because, like you, I have spent my entire adult life following through with tasks that Dooner or Lezlie Renee Pipes or some other higher up asked me to do. When a certain someone in YWC says, "Hey, I need 900 postcards for the fashion show, and by the way, I'd like to suggest several changes to your original design. And P.S., would you mind working on a flyer for my Greg Fischer event in your spare time?" I say sure. And then I actually follow through.

So when someone asks me to do some d*mn flower arrangements, and I say I'll do them, she can trust me that those flower arrangements will get done, on time, and look like something out of a magazine. It's just how I roll, OK? It's a good thing I didn't buy the flowers before I talked to her--which I easily, easily could have done. I just can't believe she asked me to do the flowers on Monday, and then did them herself anyway without telling me--like I was going to forget about them or flake out--or, worst of all--actually make something so pretty and full of flair that everyone at the party would have known she couldn't possibly have done them. She cannot delegate, and so she is a long-suffering martyr who complains her way through life--but at least she has that spotlight all to herself.

Reneging on a request for flower arrangements is not without precedent, but at least that other time MIL actually told me she'd changed her mind before I spent my morning tracking her down looking for vases. Someone has issues; this is just more proof.

Twinkle: Food Police

Tonight Mr. Twinkle's entire fam went out to that gorgeous new place in Anchorage, the Village Anchor Pub. It was just lovely--I recommend taking Classic Cocktail on the road one of these months, because the setting was beautiful and the menu delicious. There's a Daisy Buchanan champagne cocktail with honeysuckle bitters. I had the Capriole goat cheese trio that was served with honey that had lavender buds sprinkled on top--Lola would have been in paradise. It was just divine. I need to make a return visit so I can have their version of the hot brown, which is made with pulled chicken and candied bacon.

So, we were all ordering and my MIL ordered the fried chicken (which also looked wonderful), and FIL yelled out in front of the waiter and entire table of extended family, "The fried chicken is soaked in buttermilk!" I'm pretty sure my MIL wouldn't have even cared about the kosher ramifications of chicken soaked in buttermilk--she's more of a "what I don't know doesn't hurt me" type of a gal. Well, it totally put her on the spot and she had to change her order right then and there. It was so annoying. I don't know what gives him the right to be the food police.

Grandma-in-law got the fried chicken and it looked absolutely wonderful (I guess even FIL has qualms about bossing around his mother-in-law). My brother-in-law wanted the hot brown, too...we decided that we'd go back one of these days, without the food police.