Homemade cottage cheese ..... or not

A friend posted right on my Facebook wall the other day that she wanted me to do more blogging, and I thought, IKR. So do I! I wish I'd slam a post up here every day of 2017 just to show that bitch I'm not giving up. (I meant 2017, not my friend.) And then I promptly scrolled on down through my feed looking for something incriminating to share about The Donald instead of writing a blog post.

But back in the far, unaddicted recesses of my mind, I remembered. I remembered my poor, moldy, neglected blog. And today, as I was about to post some random shit on Facebook yet again, the thought elbowed its way past all the other thoughts about what to fix for supper and how I need to mop the kitchen floor and I promised Coraline we'd read our book and I need to make a list of stuff to take on the bus to the march on the 21st and ..... bam. I could post this shit on my blog, because it might be the single most interesting thing that will happen to me this entire day!

Short story short, I was trying to make homemade cottage cheese, and I made something else instead. Not sure what. I followed the directions on a website for making cottage cheese with raw milk. I put about a quart of raw milk into a bowl and left it covered with a cotton towel on the counter. The next day, I skimmed off the sour cream, which was kinda weird and stretchy. More like a skin than a cream.

The milk was supposed to curdle into cottage cheese within a couple of days, but that shit just sat there. For days. Three days at least. (I can't really remember when I set it there.) And it didn't curdle.

I might have forgotten to check it for a couple of days. I get busy doing things I can't remember the next day.

Today I remembered to lift the towel. And at first I thought it still hadn't done anything. Just like a fucking last-minute science fair experiment, like a potato battery or the life cycle of bean seeds. Out of curiosity and a desire to avoid scrubbing the kitchen floor, I pulled out a spoon and stirred it around. Damn. It had changed after all, but not into curds and whey. It has changed into some kind of yeasty-smelling stuff the consistency of yogurt. Very little whey. No wonder Little Miss Muffet ran away. She wasn't afraid of spiders. She was afraid of what was growing in her bowl.

I'm still debating whether to taste it. I don't want to die before my first ever march on Washington DC. That would be cruel. And unnecessary, given the readily available cottage cheese just sitting there in the Kroger dairy case. Also, I've been doing so well eating low carb since the first of the year, and I have no idea how many carbs might be lurking in that fermented bowl of what used to be raw milk.

I put the towel back on and left it there. It might not have finished transforming. Also, I need to mop the floor before I taste it. I'd hate to kill myself with a failed science experiment and leave a dirty kitchen floor behind. How embarrassing would that be?

This and that

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Randomness #1126

Last night I wrote that I was struggling to juggle all the balls I've got in the air right now, including that ball that represents my overdue library books, and the $13+ I'd accrued in fees. This morning I was at the hospital getting some blood drawn, a long list of errands resting heavy in my pocket, when I got a text from my librarian friend Steamy Cynthia telling me she had renewed my library books for me.

As I sat there in the crowded waiting room I had to wipe tears from the corners of my eyes. Sweet acts of kindness affect me that way.

Last week after I wrote that I was having trouble choosing paint colors in my bedroom, she reserved a bunch of books on decorating bedrooms and color choices in general, and had them sent to my local branch of the library. (She works at a different one.) I had the same reaction then. Sappy.

So now you know. The way to make me cry is to do something nice. It doesn't even have to be for me. Surprise anybody with kindness, and I'll probably cry about it.

I'm still struggling with the bedroom wall color though. I finally decided on what I thought was the perfect color, and I bought a gallon of that color .... turned out it was too light. So today I went back to Home Depot and bought another gallon 2 shades darker. It looks perfect in the can. On the wall it looks like I've been fingerpainting with poop. I have never painted in a house that changes the color of paint once it's on the walls like this one does. I will not put put up the eggshell white flag though.

I recently started watching The Blacklist for one reason and one reason only: James Spader. What is it about this man that compels me so? He's not traditionally handsome. He talks funny, like he has to chew his words into submission before he reluctantly lets them go out into the world. He plays the same basic character over and over, and yet I never get tired of him. I was devastated when Boston Legal was cancelled. He was brilliant in that show.

I want to have him over for Thanksgiving dinner, because I'm certain he would adore my pumpkin pie. And then, of course, he'd have to spend the night, because I always make extra homemade whipped cream his wife would probably be angry that he didn't spend Thanksgiving with his family, so she'd tell him to not bother coming home. I could live with that. Whipped cream makes up for a lot.

Today, as I mentioned,  I was at the base hospital, which is a conservative place, quite unlike hospitals in the city where you might witness all manner of craziness. And that's why I was so puzzled when I noticed that the woman ahead of me on the sidewalk, who appeared to be in her 40's, had something that looked suspiciously like a thin striped tail hanging down from her .... well, her tail area.

What the hell is that? I thought. It can't be a tail. Why would she be walking through the base hospital with a tail made of fabric hanging out of her shirt? It's striped so it can't be a .... what the fuck else could it be?

I hurried to catch up, because I was afraid I was gaslighting myself. The man who was with her was older -- maybe 10 years older. I thought maybe I'd misjudged her age, and she was a very large 9-year-old who was there with her father. She turned to talk to the man and .... nope. In her 40's.

As I got closer I realized the tail was part of a sweatshirt that looked like something my 2-year-old granddaughter Coraline might wear. The hood was a cat face with gray ears lined with pink, and at the end of the sleeves she had paws hanging down.

Well, hey. Who am I to judge someone else's fashion choices? I just think it I were going to wear a tail to the hospital, I wouldn't wear a flat, obviously fake, tail made of fabric. I'd wear a big, fluffy, furry, red fox tail that hung down to my knees and bounced when I walked.

But that's just me.

What kind of tail would you wear to the hospital?