Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Sunshine on a Spotted Mind

Today I had to remain at home all day. First the handyman was traipsing from room to room, talking to himself and installing ceiling fans and lights, then the appliance guy came to install a new icemaker in the fridge. I puttered around, getting those things done that I've been putting off for more time than I care to tell you about. Oliver kept an eye on the crazed human activity from his bed in the living room.

After the handymand and before the applicance guy arrived, I got a powerful craving for something sweet. Definitely something with chocolate. I couldn't leave, because I might miss the applicance guy and then have to go through the whole rescheduling process, which could take long enough that ice would fall from the sky as the result of hell freezing over (Hell is just definitely only about two cities farther down the valley in the summer.) I inventoried the shelves and the fridge. All I could come up with was a bag of dark Dove Bliss individually wrapped candies and a bag of marshmallows. No gourmet recipes came to mind, but S'mores definitely did. Except that I didn't have graham crackers and I'm allergic to wheat, anyway. Oh, and no firepit or barbeque to toast the marshmallows.

Sugar fanatics will understand the slavering monofocus of a true chocoholic who gets a crazed idea like this. A crazed idea like using rice cakes instead of graham crackers and pretending it tastes as good as the real thing. It seemed reasonable at the time to expect chocolate to melt on a rice cracker and marshmallows to toast on it at the same rate in a toaster oven. (Rational thought does not occur when the cacao-crazed lizard brain takes over.) Unfortunately, the chocolate just barely softened, and the marshmallow burned on top. I pulled the mess out of the toaster oven before the smoke detectors went off (I never forget that my ceilings are nine feet tall and I don't have a ladder to get up there and stop the noise--not that I would climb it if I did.) There was only one thing to do with this disaster: eat the evidence. Which I did.

Thank goodness the workers have done their respective jobs and I am free. Free to run to the grocery store and get whatever chocolate treat I want. But now I'm sated. Slightly ashamed at my lack of any kind of class at all, but sated. Either way, chocolate wins!