It was truly a good holiday. Christmas Eve Mass was wonderful, there were great times and conversations with kids and friends, everyone gave thoughtful and welcome gifts, and which were joyfully received. However, it offered a new opportunity to me to Learn Something the Hard Way.


I like to cook, but I haven't done much in the way of baking since my bread-baking days gave way to "got a lot of toddlers" days. But this year brought me a brand new kitchen and renewed ambition to bake Christmas cookies and other goodies. The final installment was a batch of Baklava, a wonderfully rich middle-eastern pastry that my aunt taught me to make. As my daughter and I were tenderly placing and buttering fragile layers of phyllo dough, I explained to her that I preferred cooking to baking because I'm a "throw together whatever tastes good" cook, a technique that doesn't work in baking because everything has to be precise. I should have listened to myself more closely.

After dough layers are assembled over and under a delicious filling of ground walnuts and flavorings, you make a sugar syrup with lemon to pour over everything after baking. I had listened attentively to dear Aunt Jenny who had emphasized that it had to become a thick syrup, not at all watery. "Yes, Aunt Jenny," I said to myself as I boiled and boiled; I hadn't, however,  paid enough attention to that important guideline: Be Precise. Somehow along the way, I had missed the instruction that the lemon juice should be added to the syrup after boiling, not before. Did it matter? Yes.

Those of you who listened in Chemistry class may be able to explain the whys and wherefores, but, as I later discovered, the abortive syrup finally 'thickened'' well after it had reached the "let's make it rock hard" stage of candy-making. Though I was mildly surprised to observe that I was pouring deep-caramel-colored syrup over those perfectly-browned diamond shapes of Baklava, it was indeed startling to have the whole pan of stuff harden within minutes to approximately the consistency of granite. 

I chiseled it apart and served with trepidation. My family was courteous. As they dug unchewable nuggets from their teeth, they praised the flavor and the flakiness of the (lower levels of) pastry, but they were just being kind.

So today, I am performing surgery. I am incising and discarding the awful bits, gathering the goodies that lie below, and gathering the remnants. Perhaps they'll be good in a bowl with milk? They're certainly tasty when grabbed surreptitiously on the run.

Caveat: these are not original with me. The original post is here.

1. Clean off the floor, picking up anything that weighs less than 50 lbs and moving it to the floor of the nearest closet. Artfully cover the pile in the closet with fabric. Vacuum only the visible areas.
   
2. Grab a few empty boxes from the laundry room where you keep them for just such an occasion, and sweep all flat surface clutter into them. No need to sort, simply pile it all in the boxes. Seal these boxes with tape, label them “Old Underwear To Donate”, and place them in the attic where you can easily find them when you realize your checkbook is in one of them. I’ve taken to writing the date on these boxes, since I sometimes never get back to them again til tax time.
   
3. Don’t empty the dishwasher, that’s a waste of time. Instead, remove only the biggest items and then cram whatever dishes are in the sink in with the clean dishes, and run it again. The overcrowding won’t matter because half those dishes are clean.
   
4. Hide the ginormous pile of clean laundry that you’ve neglected to deal with for several weeks in your daughter’s closet, only keeping out and putting away your kid’s sports uniforms and your spouse’s favorite clothes that they’ll look for in the next day or two. Bribe daughter with Starbucks if she’ll keep that door closed for the day. Threaten her with death if she doesn’t.
5. Pour a lemon smelling cleaner in all sink drains and toilets- but don’t flush. Out of lemon cleaner? Try Sprite, works just as well.
   
6. Dampen a towel for each person who’s in cahoots with you, and add a drop of lemon oil to each one. Run around the main living areas, wiping flat surfaces- but only those that show. Use this opportunity to also tuck random items into the couch cushions- like the Sharpie markers that perpetually live on the side table, the turkey baster one of the kids was using to make fart noises, and the stapler that you’ve been looking for forever.
   
7. Throw all wayward shoes, cleats and slippers out on the back porch, in the corner where you can’t see them from inside.
   
8. And lastbutnotleast, all of your activity and running and flailing will have created a wind that has blown all the dog hair under the dining room table and into the corners of the kitchen. Instead of sweeping, take an old wet dishtowel and wipe up the hairs that have conveniently collected there. Throw this towel away, because by the time you get around to washing it, you’ll have forgotten how it became covered in hair and dirt, and you won’t want to touch it, so you’ll throw it away.

Of course, if you feel this is all too much work, you can just smear your guests' glasses with Vaseline when they come in so they can't really see anything.

1. Before you put the cat out, check to see whether you've got the one whose front claws are intact.


2. Don't wait until your carpets and upholstery are irretrievably soiled before getting them cleaned.
   


3. Roll your windows up, no matter how hot it is.


4. Those shoes you're sure are broken in -- aren't.


5. If you set the timer for something in the oven, stay within earshot of the timer.


6. Time passes far more slowly for the elderly than it does for the young or middle-aged. If you say you'll call, they'll start anticipating it later that evening.


7. Traffic signals are engineered to detect drivers who are late for work and teach them a gentle lesson.


8. It is never worth going to the store on the Friday after Thanksgiving. 


9. It is never worth putting off Christmas shopping until December 23.


10. When you're deciding what to do in an urgent situation, don't forget to ask yourself the question: "What's the worst thing that can happen if I do nothing right now?"
    
    

Yes, it certainly is easier to strike up a conversation with someone in virtual space, especially if you've got yourself a hot-shot avatar.

However, in the real world, chances are you may need to equip yourself with more than wit and like-a-flash typing speed to successfully begin to get to know that interesting person.



From the imaginative Indexed you keep hearing about from me.

Here are some things worth knowing when you have your own place:

1. If you have an old fashioned refrigerator that needs to be defrosted, allow a good deal more than an hour for the job, and do not do it on a 95-degree day or you'll lose your food in the process. Pans of boiling water in the freezer make the crud thaw faster. Of course, you'll clean the fridge while you're at it. Then, when you're done with the whole thankless, difficult job, peel the Sears appliance ad from the floor where you put it to sop up the pools of water and run right out to buy a new refrigerator.
   
   
2. If you cut your family members' hair, do it in the garage, or else you'll be finding little hair snippets on the bottoms of your feet for weeks.
   
   
3. You can plant shrubs and perennials in the fall as well as in the spring, and they'll be cheaper. Bulbs have to be planted in the fall. If you don't get around to planting them before the ground freezes, you can try refrigerating the bulbs to fool them into thinking they've spent the winter in the ground, and then sneak them in the first time the ground softens -- maybe during the January thaw, if you get lucky that year. (In Duluth, just throw the bulbs out and try again next year. The pain of fruitless waiting for a January thaw may cause you to whimper uncontrollably.)
   
   If you live south of the Mason-Dixon line, you can buy special bulbs that don't have to be overwintered, but they're wimpy. Enjoy your azaleas and don't whine.
   
   
4. It's a good idea to develop a collection of recipes that are easy but look like they were hard. Cream puffs are a good example. And they freeze beautifully.
   
   Oh, and don't bother to cook the lasagna noodles before you assemble the ingredients. Use a little extra sauce on each layer and when you're done, drizzle 1/2 - 1 cup of water around the edges. Cover tightly with foil before you bake, and the noodles will steam perfectly.
   
   
5. If you are unlucky enough to encounter a fruit-fly infestation, here's how to get rid of them.
   
   Take the end of the bottle of wine that you would just throw out anyway and pour it into a bowl. Mix a little sugar in for good measure. Then mix in several drops of diswashing liquid and leave it on your counter or in whatever room they're swarming. The sweetness of the wine will attract them and they'll try to land on the surface. Thanks to the soap, the surface tension will break and they'll sink to the bottom where the alcohol will kill them or they'll drown. I don't know which. What do you care? It works.
   
   Then throw out the apple core behind the sofa or the bananas you forgot about on top of the fridge that caused the problem in the first place.

See? Mama comes in handy from time to time. Don't forget to wear your sweater.

Over the years, I've learned some things. Some, I've learned the hard way. Some, fortunately, I've picked up because someone showed me, told me how to do it, or gave me good advice.

I now have grown children, children-in-law and the beginnings of a clan of grandchildren. Any of you in a similar position know the risk of being too pushy with advice and counsel. I definitely do not want conversations with me to be the occasion of eye-rolling on the other end of the phone line.

In what I anticipate may be a series of "let me 'splain it to you" posts, I will get out of my system some of the things I've learned that I hope will be of some assistance to someone out there somewhere. I suppose I've picked up some of these tidbits independently, but most of the useful things I know have been learned from somebody else. So let me pay that favor forward.

* * * * *

I'll start you off gently.

Imagine that you have a friend or colleague who keeps asking you random questions, expecting you to magically know the answers. What do you do?

For the answer, click here.