Archive: October 2007

Toward the end of my ranting and raving about my weekend, I slipped in a casual reference to the pumpkin dip I brought to our tailgate. Accompanying a tub of gingersnaps, it was a fantastic dessert-like addition to the beer, omelets, burgers, and did I mention beer?

I initially found this recipe over at Janet’s neck of the woods, but I was pretty sure that the original formula would make about a half gallon of dip, so I never used it. I mean, I did not anticipate having 4 cups of confectioner’s sugar lying around and I sure as heck wasn’t going to go out and buy that much. Anyway, I tried out a new recipe for pumpkin cookies* and ended up with half a can of pumpkin afterward, so I quartered the dip recipe and was quite pleased with the result. If you don’t feel like doing the math, it goes something like what’s below, per Brie’s request.

I love anything with pumpkin in it and I’m so happy to have this little number in the repertoire. It’s just the thing if you need to whip up something to bring to a fall shindig or hayride over the weekend. Or, you know, if you want to eat a lot of gingersnaps.

Pumpkin Dip (Quartered)
Yields about 2 cups

Ingredients:

• 1 cup confectioner’s sugar
• 4 ounces cream cheese (half of a brick), softened
• 8 ounces (or 1 cup) solid-pack pumpkin
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• Gingersnaps or apples

Directions:

1. Combine the confectioner’s sugar and cream cheese with a hand mixer until well-mixed and fluffy.
2. Mix in pumpkin, cinnamon, and ginger until fully incorporated.
3. Taste to make sure the sugar/spice ratio is to your liking; adjust accordingly.
4. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
5. Serve with gingersnaps or apple slices.

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* I highly recommend these cookies, but the next time I make them (because I definitely will), I’ll probably only use 1 cup of butterscotch chips. Also, I managed to get 4 dozen cookies out of the recipe and I really liked them small.

Since Ted joined our little nest, people have left comments alluding to the mythical benefits of puppy snuggles, especially when I’ve had the occasional bad day. I would read them and nod along in good faith, but I didn’t exactly get it. Maybe other people’s puppies liked to be hugged, but ours was a squirming pile of white-furred jelly, like one of those water snakes you buy at science museums that inevitably falls out of your hands or bursts in the car from overzealous grasping. Whatever the case, Ted didn’t seem to be a fan of the hugging, much to my dismay, because I am a girl who enjoys a good hug. Or many of them. Whatever.

Oh, how times have changed. Now that Ted has a little more meat on his bones and it’s not steamy and hot outside, it’s quite nice to have a warm puppy body on my lap while I skim my feed reader or watch The Office. He even takes well to actual hugs, not just petting. My primal fear that all dogs are trying to bite my face off (no exaggeration on wording) has abated somewhat in Ted’s particular case, so I can relax and enjoy this whole experience of — how you say? — puppy snuggling.

If nothing else, it gives JG, formerly my sole huggee, a break to read a magazine or something. So, really, everyone wins in this set-up. Am I right?

Tune in to Roosday-Tuesday and Wednesday-Bensday for the other two-thirds of the doggie cuteness trifecta!

A college lab partner and I had a series of sayings to illustrate how frustrated we could become. “Ooh,” she’d say, “you’re really wearing the bitter pants today.” Riding the bitter bus was even worse, but the most roar-worthy situations were classified as driving the bitter boat. We rarely hit the boat stage, but over the weekend, I was totally wearing the pants on that bus that was riding on the boat.

JG and I have season tickets to see the University of Delaware home football games and we have a ball every time we go. We usually have a small tailgate out of the Subaru’s trunk and we get to the stadium with plenty of time to see the band’s pre-game show so that I can hoot and holler for them and sing the alto part of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I learned how to watch football during afternoons in the student stands, so going to see the team holds a special place in my heart. I enjoy seeing all of the fancy tailgates, kids in jerseys, and just how many layers of Delaware clothing I can wear at once. It’s really quite festive.

With this beaming attitude, despite the 7:30am hour on a Saturday, we set out for Homecoming 2007. Woo! JG had packed a tailgate with ingredients for omelets and I had a short list of people to call once we got there because you never know who you’ll find at Homecoming. After a quick 20-minute drive, we were about half a mile from the stadium and JG commented that we’d be tailgating by 8am. We rolled to a stop at a weird point in traffic and then didn’t move. We sat for 40 minutes before we even got to the stadium, where we found out that The Powers That Be had limited the usual four entrances into tailgating lots to just one without telling anyone. Thousands of backed-up cards bearing thousands of confused fans were forced to drive past the stadium, make a U-turn back into traffic, and then pull into the stadium’s one entrance. JG and I were livid. Aside from the fact that changing a traffic pattern on the busiest football weekend in the season when an onslaught of alumni is about to descend is a really stupid idea, I was completely irritated that there was no publicity. There were no signs to indicate that only one entrance was open. The traffic cops did nothing except to wave us on to the next cop. People got out of their cars to carry their tailgating supplies and left their drivers to navigate elsewhere and illegal driving abounded.

As though the traffic weren’t bad enough, when we got to the one open entrance after an hour and a half, the cop told us we couldn’t park there. I was ready to jump across JG and strangle the guy. We followed their crappy traffic pattern to get to their one entrance and this is what happens? I screamed out my window, “This is freaking ridiculous!” as JG pulled away in a fit of frustration. We finally parked into a commuter train lot that was, painfully, exactly where we had started the whole debacle just before 8am. It was 9:30, I was not in a tailgating lot, and we were about to schlep our supplies to a friend’s van to crash his tailgate. I was composing my irate complaint (still yet to be sent) as a means to keep my spirits up. I was bitter. Oh, so bitter.

Fortunately, in spite of the infuriating start, we had a really good day. We dropped our stuff at JG’s friend’s tailgate, where we were handed beer without a word. I am not a beer person and I think it tastes awful, but because I was so jittery from the gnashing of teeth and clenching of fists, I opened it without hesitation as JG looked on with his jaw on the ground. I shrugged and said, “They have nothing but beer here!” and took a sip. Desperate times, people. Lo and behold! Beer still tastes awful! But the shock snapped me out of my funk and I got on the phone to call our other friends, who asked me where I got my so-called “lame beer” and exchanged it quickly for a Woodchuck Cider. Mm, much better. JG made me a fabulous omelet for breakfast, my pumpkin dip was a hit, and we won the game, so with all things considered, I had a fantastic Homecoming after all. In my eyes, Delaware Football, with the exception of the events staff, was redeemed. I happily jumped out of the boat, got off the bus, and shed those bitter pants.

Don’t feel fooled by my glazed eyes or jaw-cracking yawns — I am absolutely ecstatic to report that the scarves are finished. Nestled inside spirited gift bags with spirited tissue paper, they’re waiting in JG’s classroom until the end of the day, when his volleyball team will play the last home game of the year, the seniors will be recognized, and the scarves will go home with them. I wish I could be there to see it. Instead, I’ll be at work, struggling to keep my head off my desk. It’s a shame, really.

As much as I enjoy knitting, making nine scarves in nine weeks was a little more than I could handle gracefully. At one point last night/this morning, when I was fishing out finished scarves to tassel, I was struck with the delusional fear that I had only made eight scarves and was still bound to make a whole new one. In another dim moment, the sheer fatigue of doggedly cutting almost 300 tassels rendered my fingers unusable and numb. I switched to tying them for a change of motor movement, but the panic was there. I am only tassel-ing Scarf #3 right now. I’m not even two-thirds of the way done! How can I get through all of it before dawn?

Luckily, the panic passed and I finished everything as efficiently as I could have managed. In the future, I will definitely knit some “reserve scarves” in the off-season so as to offset the mad rush and I will refrain from doing all of the tassels at once. Although a satisfying task, it is 90% tedium and 10% gratification, the latter of which may be overestimated. For now, though, I’m taking a break from knitting so I can soak my head in some good reading. No knitting until ’08, I say.

Ultimately, I’m really happy to be able to provide the scarves to the girls. I’m not able to go to as many games as I would like, so I hope that the gift is meaningful and they will use and enjoy it at least over the next year. When I first decided to make scarves, I set out to forge a new tradition, but next year, the goal is to to break the part of the tradition that includes losing sleep.

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Crunch-Timetable (denotes end times for the following activities)

• Knitting: 11:23pm
• Cutting and tying tassels: 2:21am
• Packing into gift bags and adding tissue paper: 2:45am
• Being awake: 2:52am

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The Numbers

• Yarn used: About 19 skeins or 3,192 yards
  OR almost 32 football field lengths
  OR 1.8 miles
• Length of scarves knitted: 18 yards (about 6 feet per scarf — these are tall girls!)
• Tassels cut and tied: 288
• Knitting hours: Estimated at 12 hours per scarf or 4.5 straight days
• Blisters developed: 1
• Hours of sleep obtained last night: 3