All my appliances beep. Fridge, freezer, coffee machine, microwave, dishwasher, oven, washer/dryer. Why is this and how is this helpful to me? When the dishwasher takes something like 72 minutes, why do I need to know the exact second it's done? I'm not going to jump up and dash to unload it. No lives will be lost if I wait a day. Or two. Or until the dishes stack up and out of the sink. How many of us cook at a level that makes precise oven temperature neccesary? Does a fishfinger not reheat equally as well on 350 as 365, making a 375 beep a bit silly?
I want useful things to beep. Like the door, when Cam opens it and heads for the elavator. Like the toilet lid, before Cam takes a cup from the tub and starts dipping and drinking. Like the kitchen cabinet safety lock, that Cam figured out months ago, that locks away the garbage and the beer bottles in recycling he loves so much.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
OogaNooga Cookie Factory
The history I'm about to give of the OogaNooga Cookie Factory is going to be very vague, as I think the place shut down in the early '80s, when I was about six. What I do know is that is was indeed a cookie shop on the Oregon coast, near Agate Beach. I think. And that about sums it up, end of history lesson.
To be honest, I don't know if I ever even physically set foot in the place, but it was somehow meaningful to my family. Perhaps they had great cookies, maybe only because of the funny name, but somehow the OogaNooga Cookie Factory created my nicknames for life. Where, one might ask, was the relation between a factory and me? I wasn't that portly a child, despite my first nickname being One-Ton Rock, my second being Two-Ton Rock. (Shocking how I wound up with neither an eating disorder nor a self-esteem problem. Thanks, mom and dad. But mostly mom.) I don't have an answer for that, other than we're a nickname kind of family and we're all a little crazy.
If memory serves, and it often doesn't, the start of the cookie factory nicknames was OogaNooga. The following are what, well, followed:
Cookie
Cookie Toots
Toots
Tootsie
Tootsie Cakes
Tootsie Kuchen (German, for cake, began circa 2002 when I was living in Germany and ma came for a visit)
Kuchen
Every email, card, or written correspondence since has involved one of those. I'm saved in my mom's phone as Tootsie. In public - and at business functions no less - mom has let any number of these fly.
The OogaNooga Cookie Factory hasn't been in operation for more than two decades, and mom has years since moved on from the original nickname, but when it came time to think of a name for blogs and ebay, this was it. No one else in their right mind would think of it, other than the cookie shop owner, and something tells me we'd get on a-OK.
To be honest, I don't know if I ever even physically set foot in the place, but it was somehow meaningful to my family. Perhaps they had great cookies, maybe only because of the funny name, but somehow the OogaNooga Cookie Factory created my nicknames for life. Where, one might ask, was the relation between a factory and me? I wasn't that portly a child, despite my first nickname being One-Ton Rock, my second being Two-Ton Rock. (Shocking how I wound up with neither an eating disorder nor a self-esteem problem. Thanks, mom and dad. But mostly mom.) I don't have an answer for that, other than we're a nickname kind of family and we're all a little crazy.
If memory serves, and it often doesn't, the start of the cookie factory nicknames was OogaNooga. The following are what, well, followed:
Cookie
Cookie Toots
Toots
Tootsie
Tootsie Cakes
Tootsie Kuchen (German, for cake, began circa 2002 when I was living in Germany and ma came for a visit)
Kuchen
Every email, card, or written correspondence since has involved one of those. I'm saved in my mom's phone as Tootsie. In public - and at business functions no less - mom has let any number of these fly.
The OogaNooga Cookie Factory hasn't been in operation for more than two decades, and mom has years since moved on from the original nickname, but when it came time to think of a name for blogs and ebay, this was it. No one else in their right mind would think of it, other than the cookie shop owner, and something tells me we'd get on a-OK.
Momicide
Murder is largely classed as unacceptable behavior, but who hasn't felt like they could just kill someone? It's not a real threat of actual intent to cease life (usually), it's just a giant indicator that one has reached a certain level of frustration with a situation that must stop at almost any cost. That's what momicide is: a verbal or emotional outpouring of complete exasperation - often aimed at husband, child, relative - whereby were we not to live in a civilized society, GBH (that would be grievous bodily harm as opposed to Great Blue Herons) would be imminent.
Oh, gasp, horror, you know what I'm talking about. You experience something similar regularly, and I suspect, were you to be honest with anyone other than yourself, you'd say it was daily. Often hourly. Most likely most of the time your child isn't asleep or your husband out of the house.
Cam and I were up and out of the house early the other day to let Mitch sleep. By noon I'd been everywhere and done everything, and came home to him still sleeping. No big deal, he'd been at work until 3am. Between then and making a special dinner at 7pm, however, so very, very much happened for me to reach potential momicide.
Maintenance came to unclog the bathroom (toilet, tub and sinks all went at once), apparently they removed something that looked like dark brown feathers (stupid man at voodoo shop - said those chickens were biodegradable), and scratched the crap out of the porcelain. We were an hour late to an appointment, Cam puked down the side of the car when we got there but still managed to try to tear apart the office (minor relief came in seeing the men's faces when he grabbed a wayward golf club). Had hurried to get dressed in the morning and grabbed the nearest clothes, which was fine until I had to take my boots off at our Korean landlord's house and exposed two holes in my black leggings, and white gym socks. I was thrilled when they brought out china tea cups and plates (breakables) with brownies (messy), orange cheese puffs (messy and stains), cocktail forks (weapons) and put everything including the boiling water (are you serious?) on the coffee table. Got home, ran a bucket downstairs to wipe off the side of the car, came back up, turned on the oven, seared the steaks, opened the oven door to bake them and...it was all on fire with flames flickering higher and higher.
I could have killed someone. That someone being Cam, who has taken to opening the oven door and either climbing in the oven or standing on top of the door to see what's cookin', both literally and figuratively. I check it all the time for his paraphernalia, but wouldn't have been alarmed had I seen him with a few whole wheat cookies in hand, or had seen them fall down the cracks in the bottom tray. Wouldn't have crossed my mind that those would go up in flame faster than Smokey the Bear could say, "only you can prevent forest fire." Mitch saved the day, but not in time to save the steaks which were edible but not enviable.
It's this kind of stuff, on a daily basis, that makes me tired. Tired means I sigh a lot. Sighing a lot means on the edge. On the edge means momicide.
Oh, gasp, horror, you know what I'm talking about. You experience something similar regularly, and I suspect, were you to be honest with anyone other than yourself, you'd say it was daily. Often hourly. Most likely most of the time your child isn't asleep or your husband out of the house.
Cam and I were up and out of the house early the other day to let Mitch sleep. By noon I'd been everywhere and done everything, and came home to him still sleeping. No big deal, he'd been at work until 3am. Between then and making a special dinner at 7pm, however, so very, very much happened for me to reach potential momicide.
Maintenance came to unclog the bathroom (toilet, tub and sinks all went at once), apparently they removed something that looked like dark brown feathers (stupid man at voodoo shop - said those chickens were biodegradable), and scratched the crap out of the porcelain. We were an hour late to an appointment, Cam puked down the side of the car when we got there but still managed to try to tear apart the office (minor relief came in seeing the men's faces when he grabbed a wayward golf club). Had hurried to get dressed in the morning and grabbed the nearest clothes, which was fine until I had to take my boots off at our Korean landlord's house and exposed two holes in my black leggings, and white gym socks. I was thrilled when they brought out china tea cups and plates (breakables) with brownies (messy), orange cheese puffs (messy and stains), cocktail forks (weapons) and put everything including the boiling water (are you serious?) on the coffee table. Got home, ran a bucket downstairs to wipe off the side of the car, came back up, turned on the oven, seared the steaks, opened the oven door to bake them and...it was all on fire with flames flickering higher and higher.
I could have killed someone. That someone being Cam, who has taken to opening the oven door and either climbing in the oven or standing on top of the door to see what's cookin', both literally and figuratively. I check it all the time for his paraphernalia, but wouldn't have been alarmed had I seen him with a few whole wheat cookies in hand, or had seen them fall down the cracks in the bottom tray. Wouldn't have crossed my mind that those would go up in flame faster than Smokey the Bear could say, "only you can prevent forest fire." Mitch saved the day, but not in time to save the steaks which were edible but not enviable.
It's this kind of stuff, on a daily basis, that makes me tired. Tired means I sigh a lot. Sighing a lot means on the edge. On the edge means momicide.
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