TheBanyanTree: Go Ahead and Laugh - I Would If It Were YOU!!

[Sheri Baity]

I am sooooo laughing hysterically WITH you Pammie!!!  Sounds about my day yesterday morning trying to hunt! lol

Sheri L Baity
Crows Nest Calls
www.crowsnestcalls.com

American Predator Federation
"Where Predator Hunters Are Forming A Pack"
http://www.huntapf.org

A woman is like a tea bag, you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water~~Eleanor Roosevelt

--- On Fri, 9/30/11, Pam Lawley <pamj.lawley at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Pam Lawley <pamj.lawley at gmail.com>
Subject: TheBanyanTree: Go Ahead and Laugh - I Would If It Were YOU!!
To: "A comfortable place to meet other people and exchange your own *original* writings." <thebanyantree at lists.remsset.com>
Date: Friday, September 30, 2011, 10:30 PM


Several weeks ago I stumbled on a new recipe, somewhere on the internet
while I was surfing blogs and looking for recipes!  This one was a chocolate
pudding served in 'chocolate bowls'!  The woman raved about how easy they
were, and that they were something kids could get into doing as well!!
There were photos to accompany the recipe - and yep!, there were children
holding small water balloons, blown up, and then dipped in chocolate and set
out to harden.  *I* could do that!!!!!!

But alas, all this time has passed and I haven't gotten around to it yet!
(Not that I haven't spent hours and hours in the kitchen making things -
just not those!)  But I'm having some chicks over this weekend for a silly
jewelry party, and I thought it would be the perfect time.  I'm also making
a couple of different flavors of cupcakes so that I have somewhere to put
the couple of different flavors of Swiss meringue buttercream frostings that
I want to try!!  (The irony here with all these desserts is that the party
is probably going to bomb!!!  I didn't realize until this week that the 2nd
of October was THIS WEEKEND, and the consultant hadn't brought me any
invites to give out that might have reminded so, I dunno how many will show
up..)

Anyway, because I'm going to have to spend Sunday morning sprucing up the
house, and my husband and I are going with friends to the local 'Seafood
Festival' tomorrow, I knew I wasn't going to have a lot of time to get
things made.  So I made the first batch of cupcakes last night and froze
them, and then came home from work today and made the second and tossed them
into the freezer as well.  I'll pull them all out first thing Sunday morning
so they can thaw.  And then I'll make the frostings.  Each kind will take
about 25 minutes in the mixer, but most importantly I want them to be
'fresh' since there are a dozen ways to screw it up!

Also, months ago I'd been in a store and seen water balloons so I'd
purchased them then to have 'em when I was ready.  And tonight I was ready.
Unfortunately, blowing them up proved to be a challenge I wasn't ready for.
Ever tried blowing up those tiny balloons?!  They're a PITA in the best of
circumstances, but if one's mouth doesn't close correctly because one is
dealing with their second round of Bell's Palsy in four months, then it
makes blowing them up impossible.  I tried squeezing my lips together with
my other hand but the squeeze also kept my lips shut too tightly to do any
blowing and all I manged was to spray spit all over the balloon!  So I
waited for my husband and asked him to do it.  He couldn't tie them - but I
could!, so we made quite a team!!

When I had about a dozen blown up (they were small) and stashed in a giant
Tupperware bowl with a couch pillow over them so they wouldn't float away, I
stopped him and told that was probably enough for the chocolate I had.  And
I already had a plastic container of leftover chocolate from the last cake
pops I'd made.  So far, so good.

I wiped the balloons off (lest there be any lingering talc or anything on
them [I remember something about that from the blog I read]), and then I
dipped the first balloon.  I was twirling it when the balloon popped.  It
liked to have scared the crap out of me, but worse - ever seen the mess a
balloon coated in chocolate and then popped can make?!?!?!??!

I spooned out the chocolate blob of balloon mess from the bowl, and then I
proceeded to wipe down the walls.  Damn!  Must have been a faulty balloon!
Or maybe it was blown up too big and stretched too tight!  I tried another.

And then stopped to wipe down the counter and my arms.

Double-damn!!!!!!!

Okay.  Was the chocolate too hot?!  No, I tested it and it was, at worst,
luke warm.  So I had my husband blow up a couple of more, only smaller.

Triple-damn!!!!!  Chocolate under the cabinets, on the coffee machine
machine, my plants by the window, and splats all over the kitchen floor.
And my arms.

I hope you're laughing out loud as you read this and really, really enjoying
yourself!!  Please!!  Let the entertainment value of the story have made all
the frustration worth it!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally I yelled, 'screw it!!!', and went to find my shoes to go to the
store and find another brand of balloons!!!!!!!  I'd taken a break and
checked the internet... I couldn't find the original blog, but I *did* watch
two videos on YouTube - one was a 'grandma' who really needed to have
straightened up the kitchen behind her, and another was a really hot chick's
really professional looking video!  NEITHER one though mentioned any issues
with balloons popping!!!  Bee-otches!!!

So my husband went with me and we drove to the closest store to us - a
Dollar General just down the street.  And they had water balloons!!  I got a
bag, and then got another bag of 'assorted' sizes from the party section,
just to make sure I had options!!!  (And then, because we were there, we
wandered around and found a few other things we HAD to have - including a
pair of gardening gloves on the '50% off' rack, and a bag of fire ant killer
- this *is* eastern NC!!)

Miraculously, the new balloons worked as advertised!!  Out of the eleven I
dipped and set out, only ONE MORE popped!!!  (I'm sure the chick who comes
to clean Tuesday is going to find chocolate in some pretty strange places
that I'm sure I missed wiping down!!!)  I carried the pans to the fridge in
the garage and set them inside to set for ten minutes or so.  Then I
*CAREFULLY* popped the balloons and watched in amazement as they shriveled
right up and pulled away from the 'dish'!!  TOO COOL!!

And then, because it was only nine o'clock, I decided to go ahead and get
the pudding made.  I had to whisk the mixture in a pan for
several minutes waiting for it to thicken, and several minutes is long
enough for my little brain to wander and think about everything but pudding.
Like...... huh, wonder why there's that circle of crud on the flat-top
stove of 'stuff'... I washed it down good last night and this must not have
come up!  Huh.  Wonder if I could scrape it off?!  Huh.... maybe I should
try!?  Just stick up my pointy little finger and rub it on the stove's
surface and see if I can clean it up while I'm stirring the HOT mixture on
the same stove top BECAUSE I AM A DITZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So now I have a blister on my fingertip.  And this is the SECOND blister
I've gotten from rubbing my finger on top of the HOT stove!!!!!!!!

Are you laughing?!/!?!  You should be!  Heaven knows that I would be
laughing at you!!!!!!!!!!