Cool cat

Last April-ish, Biggie quit getting into bed with me all together. He was only on the bed when he would do a tear through the house, as a landing/jumping spot. He slept under the bed, in the closet, in the sewing room. He never got on the bed again.

Last night was the first night that it was cool enough back in my bedroom to turn the air conditioner off. It was lovely. When I went to bed, as usual, I sat on the bed with the TV tuned to the losing Mariner game, sound off, fired my book on, sound on and pulled out my tablet to play games. And up came Biggie! He nestled in next to me.

When it came time to turn off the light and go to sleep, he stayed. All night. Until daylight aka bird time. When I got up to pee, he squeaked and then resettled in against me. I was a little cautious at first that he might take this opportunity to chomp a chunk out of my arm but soon enough realize he wasn't going to and we just leaned in. It was just lovely. I have really missed his snuggle.

April-ish is also when he started biting me. Maybe he's allergic to Summer! Birds, biting, sleeping in dark corners... I know I hate Summer but maybe he does, too.

Also this morning I had this very weird spontaneous nose bleed. My nose used to bleed a lot and regularly. But, that's been several years ago. Today was only a 5 kleenex bleed. Back when it was routinely bad, I bought some tampax to help staunch the flow when it happened. I saw that tampax just the other day and thought, geesh, I can toss this since I never need it anymore. I ended up not throwing them out. Glad now. But also glad I didn't need them today!

I'm going to stay here today. I have a couple of errands to run but I have to be out tomorrow because of the house cleaner so I think I'll just wait and take my virus chances all in one go. There may be baking. I haven't decided.

Memory taste

I tried Mom's cookies again today. With the tweaks I had planned.

She made 873 bascillion of these cookies every December. And a whole bunch of other cookies as well as gingerbread houses. All for gifts. Corporate gifts for Daddy's work. Friend gifts. Gifts for those who has no gifts. It was kind of amazing what she did.

We kids were allowed to help decorate the iced cookies. We were not allowed to eat them. Just decorate them. We were sometimes allowed to eat broken ones. Unless we broke them on purpose. There were never enough broken ones, I'll tell you that. I never got my fill.

When this latest batch had cooled enough, I tried one. I took one bite and instantly felt like I should hide the rest so I wouldn't get caught! They taste exactly like Mom's. I'm so delighted.

They are a very simple cookie. 98% of the you reading this would take a bite and think meh. I did not ice these. I did brush the egg yolk+water over them just to see if that's what she did. (It is.) But the taste of these simple cookies is just making me so happy. I can finally get my fill!!

Oh and while I was rolling in good karma, I hunted on Amazon for better cookies/baking pans that fit my little oven. I found them. And a couple of other things. I have a return tomorrow and I'll wait until get that money back. And then I got an email with an Amazon card for $55 for a study I did!! Covered my new pans nicely. They will be here Friday.

Mom's cookies

240 g flour
150 g sugar
1/2 cup butter softened
2 eggs
1.5 tablespoons lemon
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

cream sugar and butter for a long time, make sure they are one. add in eggs, lemon, cinnamon and mix well. then add in flour bits at a time. Hold out a bit to flour the counter for rolling out.

chill for at least 30 mins - roll out and cut - roll pretty thin

400 degrees 9 mins - they should be browning around the edges and white-ish on top

Her icing (which I did not do)

2 egg whites

whip those whites until they are stiff and then add in sugar a little at a time as much as it will take or to taste. the icing should peak on its own. spread it on the cookies and decorate.