Perpetually Puzzled

 I've begun at long last to sell extra dolls on eBay. It is what is known as a learning experience.  Questions arise that don't seem to be answered in any FAQ's. 

 
If boxes provided by USPS are the only ones suited for Priority mail, why are we always asked if we want our  Christmas fudge, boxed in recycled bleach boxes, to go Priority?

Why is the USPS FAQ so circular? When the general FAQ wasn't enough, I was encouraged to ask a question ... and was sent right back to a list of general topics, not one of which offered the specific information I wanted.

None of the priority boxes is the right size for an 18 inch Miss Revlon or a 22 inch lookalike doll.

Why have all large-sized padded envelopes vanished from stores?


I spent $7 to mail something that should have gone for $3 in a padded envelope. How can a company that sells up so often be in the red?

Why is eBay so pushy about leaving feedback? The Leave Feedback command pops up the instant you enter a tracking number. If you leave feedback at that point and something goes wrong, you can't change it.  

Why is it easier to end an auction early than to get revisions to stick?  Silly me. Because they can CHARGE you for ending an auction.

I need to keep records. Standard record keeping systems don't have the right kinds of spaces. I have to create a template.

Why is the 21st century so complex?

Having people bid on a doll I no longer have house space for is a mood elevator. Adding up the shipping costs and time is not. There's photography, research, writing descriptions, driving to the post office. Driving to the post office could be considered a mental health investment, because I actually leave the house.

I have spent money on a postal scale, postage, camera batteries (lots of them) and mileage. I have poured time into writing correct descriptions. I've still got too many dolls and researching dolls for pricing help makes me want more. 

I feel as if  there is only an illusion of progress, but I'm afraid to add and subtract and find out for sure.  I do have an appropriate monicker: haneysews.

Knowing Nothing about Pop Music

Until Christmas, I had precisely 3 music CD's (Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison, and Marie-Lynn Hammond), some LPs bought before I got married, and  tapes the former partner cringed at. Married, I never had to buy music because the partner acquired it the way some people breathe: in large gulps.

It was obviously time to buy more. I started with CD's from the dollar table at 2nd & Charles. Lee Ann Rimes, Reba McIntyre, Kathy Mattea, Shawn Colvin because I'd heard and enjoyed Sunny Came Home. Aside from that one song, I can't stand the Colvin album. Turns out it is a divorce album. Feh. So is the Kathy Mattea. I sure can pick'em. Lee Ann Rimes Blue is a good wailer.

I bought James Blunt's Back from Bedlam because I hovered between being appalled at how maudlin the lyrics were and enjoying singing along. James Blunt said that for the videos that went with his first album, he allowed them to bury him up to his neck in the desert, and push him off a cliff into icy water. Now that he knows more about the music industry, he said, he'll stick to videos where he gets to stand around on a beach. He's charming and funny and has good comedic timing in interviews (also on youtube). It is best, I find, not to think too much about the manipulative song construction.

Now I've bought Josh Groban (partly because he has cute puppy dog eyes and was amusing on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, a British show I devoured on youtube) but mostly because he can stay on key and is pleasant. I knew he'd sung a duet with Celine Dion in Las Vegas. Dion's singing has always sounded loud and flat to me. I feel that liking Groban puts me firmly among the fogies. He's known for full throated operatic treatment of popular songs, but this album seems more operatic. It was not on the dollar table.

Also from the Pop/Rock stacks, I bought Meat Loaf Bat Out of Hell II for I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That). The entire album is Jim Steinman tunes. The former partner HATED Jim Steinman tunes, calling them overwrought, over-emotional and manipulative (but how do you really feel?) I would never have bought it if Meat Loaf hadn't been so charming on Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

 I'm less than thrilled with the convention of overprinting the lyrics onto        photos, and printing in 4-point type. And albums that don't include lyrics? I really really hate them.

Happy Cookie

Why does drinking half a mouthful of mulled apple juice move me from glum to hopeful? A speck or two of nutmeg dropped into 8 ounces of apple juice along with 1/4 tsp of cinnamon, heated to boiling and allowed to cool to drinkable temperatures, lifts my mood from "oh mumble, another day" to mildly hopeful. I was just trying to make drinking juice less predictable and got a mood improver. Oh Joy, literally. 

Of course I had to research it. Imagine my delight when I encountered, buried in an article on the narcotic effects of nutmeg, this recipe:

"Cookies for Preventing Sadness

Christian Rtsch and Claudia Mller-Ebeling (2006) offer the following recipe for "Cookies for Preventing Sadness" in their book Pagan Christmas: The Plants, Spirits, and Rituals at the Origins of Yuletide.
2 Tbsp ground nutmeg
2 Tbsp ground cinnamon
1.5 tsp ground cloves
3 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 sticks of butter
2 eggs
pinch salt
3/4 cup chopped almonds 

Mix ingredients and bake cookies at 350F for five to ten minutes. The cookies are sweet, spicy, and they lift the spirits. Perfect for the holidays. "

There were no instructions on how to use the cookie dough. Did you roll it into balls before pressing it onto cookie sheets? Did you mash the balls down, like peanut butter cookies? Did you roll it into logs and chill, then cut off slices? I tried all these methods. Rolled into balls and baked is my preference. The brown dough does not get noticeably darker in baking, but the texture changes.

Cookies for Preventing Sadness are fine. I doubt that eating a Happy Cookie will quell a full blown panic attack. Neither will it transport you into culinary ecstasy.  

So far, eating three cookies a day means I accomplish more of the things I think about doing, and falling asleep is easier, or at least less impossible.  I suffer from seasonal glumness. When the days are short, so is my temper, and everything is an effort. Several times I have discovered that I am halfway through a project that previously was too much trouble. A coat needed its lining repaired. It's nearly done. Why don't I paint a metal washer with nail polish and see how it looks? Fairly decent. Why don't I use up those figs in a cake? Too much trouble.

I am not at all tempted to eat more than three, my arbitrary cookie limit, in a sitting. They are not particularly sweet. The amount of cinnamon makes my throat burn slightly. The cookie is crumbly, moist, and satisfying. 

For gloom, mild anxiety and sleeplessness, "eat a cookie and call me in the morning" seems a reasonable course of action.

Sewing Hubris

1. Sewing hubris may strike at any time.

2. Just because something is possible doesn't mean it should be done. For instance, just because, days before Christmas, I learned that a tall skinny person wanted pajama pants and I have more fabric and patterns than any one person ought to, doesn't mean I should fill spare moments with a strange pattern. I did anyway.

3. Reading pattern instructions does not mean you should follow them blindly. I read the instructions. I attempted to follow them instead of just sewing pajama pants the way I've been doing for eons. I ripped out all the seams twice, and gave up on finishing them for the tall one. I would alter the pattern so it would fit a short rounded person: me.

4. Just because it is an old pattern does not mean the measurements are out of date. I assumed that the pattern from the 1980s would do what most vintage patterns, have done--shift sizes downward.  I added 2 inches to each side.  I assumed that I would have to add a diamond at the center back because I have curves and the person for whom I was making the pants in the first place does not. But wait! The 1986 pattern also came in Short, Average, and Tall, and I had used Tall. No need to add in back, just remove in front. And my, these seem roomy.

5. When the pants seem roomy in the try-on stage, they probably are. I marked the waist by tying elastic around my waist and pulling the extra fabric over the elastic until the fabric fell without wrinkles. Roomy, though.

6. Even when the waistband is elastic, it's a good idea to have a separate waistband. It is so much easier to manipulate 3 inches than 30 inches of fabric. I got this right.

7. Mark both the waistband and the pants into quarters and stretch  the waistband to fit the waist.  I lazily figured that it was elastic, and would fit, and ended up unpicking half the band and redoing it.

8. The pants are about 4 inches too wide all around, the precise amount I added. They are pajama pants, lounge pants, and  it doesn't really matter. Besides, loose pants are good when one is battling a knee wound that oozes constantly.

9. Accept it that sometimes what you sew is neither a win nor a loss.

10. The pattern you want to use will show up just after you complete the item with a pattern previously unused.
11. Perhaps I should cut and sew pajama pants that are less roomy. How often does one need pants to accommodate a herd of ferrets?

Fear of Party Food

It's party season, and I am afraid. Everyone brings dishes to share, and no one wants to provide anything that might be seen as boring, comforting, or safe.

I am afraid of dishes embellished with pomegranate and cranberry. Yes indeed, those are lovely reds, but I don't want to see them touching my green beans, asparagus, artichoke, or romaine lettuce.

I'm afraid of glazed hams adorned with slices of pineapple and maraschino cherry. I'm horrified by miniature meatballs resting in a light brown sweet sauce accented by currants and raisins. I'm appalled by fried tofu, which bears a startling resemblance to hockey pucks and may actually taste like hockey pucks. I haven't been tempted to try them.

I think breaded fish fingers and chicken nuggets might possibly be safe to eat if one person  prepared them from beginning to end, but most likely these items have come from the test kitchens of major corporations and contain a smorgasbord of ingredients that, if properly combined, could   make plastic, or a highly toxic poison.

I'm afraid of Spam and Cheez Whiz on crackers, a fad which has mercifully died or is on its last legs. Cheez Whiz is now a homemade stain remover for greasy stains. If that doesn't make you think twice before using it as a condiment, nothing will. 

Raw veggies come in a variety of colors and can be dipped into a variety of things (if you spoon those things onto your plate, that is, because sharing dips at a party is a good way to spread germs) but artistic arrangements --nay, sculptures-- are off putting. Who wants to be the first to remove Abe Lincoln's broccoli eyebrow, or George Washington's cauliflower hair?

Salami, pickle and cheese kebabs are suggested party food at Betty Crocker holiday

Spinach and artichoke dip from the freezer section, with a salt content  marginally lower than that for the Dead Sea, was the fad a few years ago. May it never reach true food status, as salsa , hummus, and pesto have.

People get very coy about the ingredients of their showpiece dishes. Perhaps an ingredients checklist could go with each dish: This contains No Nuts, shellfish, HCFC, GMA,  polysorbate 60, red dye. Then again, perhaps someone will devise a dish that will contain all those things , and those who eat it will be issued cards that say "Proceed immediately to the emergency room."

Trendy, iconic, and amazing are words I don't really want to see again, but iconic foods can't be all that bad. Chocolate chip cookies, fudge, brownies, are iconic foods. Sorta like Mom's apple pie. My own mother abandoned pie-making when I was 12, claiming that I could make better piecrust than she could.(Blatant excuse!) But pie is messy to serve. Tarts would be nice.

I'm not precisely sure what makes up today's marshmallows, but extracts from mallow plants are not among the ingredients. Still, I do not want to see marshmallows adorning  raw salads, baked vegetables, cakes or pies. The proper way to use a marshmallow is to partially char it, and eat it nude and unadorned, preferably at a camp fire.