Melt

(This photo is here solely so you know this blog post has a happy ending. Consider it a spoiler.)

The existence of hot chocolate has always bothered me.
The premise is simple really, drinkable chocolate, and I am all over that like melted candy bar on my face after a gluttonous binge of untold levels of sugary decadence. But hot chocolate is a promise that isn't kept.
Maybe the wrong people are promising me though. Maybe if it was, say, Willy Wonka and not a hometown diner, offering up the promised delights of hot chocolate, it would live up to it's name. But so far it's been nothing. A dark, vaguely chocolate related, steaming hot mug of nothing.
I take my sweet treats seriously. VERY seriously. I have to battle away tears if I ladle hot fudge sauce onto ice cream and there is ANY delay in me enjoying that dessert immediately, before the warm gooey sauce to cold ice cream temperature window of good eatin' opportunity closes. Should anything delay me and the ice cream turns soupy and the fudge sauce is in turn diluted by the ice cream I am in untold agonies. I mean, don't get me wrong I'll still eat it, but mourning the lost perfection of what could have been the most amazing sundae ever the whole time I shovel it into my mouth. Plus every one knows tears and ice cream don't mix, it messes up the salt ratio.
So hot chocolate disappoints me. To the point where I shun it's existence. No longer being duped by decadent descriptions on menus and packages claiming dark, creamy chocolate heaven in a cup. HA! Ha, I say!
When I was a kid and given the choice of a beverage at a restaurant of course I'm going to order hot chocolate. When you're a kid your memory banks work differently. The part of your brain that controls the desire for sweetness overrides any bad experiences one might have had previously with watered down boiling hot brown water passing itself off as hot chocolate. It clobbers the rational side of the brain and grabs the grey lump that is chocolate desire and whispers sweet nothings in it's non-existent brain ear about the promise of how goooood the hot chocolate will be, much better than stinky ol' orange juice. I love a good orange but even as a kid, side by side, orange or chocolate? HA, again HA! Like there's even a choice?
But hot chocolate has broken my heart so many times that even the ever hopeful, puppy-dog-like, resilient, sweet treat lovin' part of my brain has at last learned it's lesson. We turned our backs on it, sneering at it on menus. It was deleted from our top foods menu of the mind and was never heard from again. We shoved hot chocolate so far away in side our brains that we almost forgot about it's pale unflavored existence, accidently making it on occasional hoping....hoping.....*sigh*
Do not weep for me though. I have had a break through.
Hot chocolate.
Hot chocolate and I have been reunited, we have done things to work on our relationship. It's become better quality chocolate now, none of this dried processed powdered stuff, and I have learned to treat it with a delicacy and restraint that can only come from experience and age. It's delivered a velvety rich chocolate experience that enrobes each one of my taste buds individually in warm luscious chocolate and I have come to accept that proper hot chocolate doesn't come in a mug. It comes in a shot glass.
I think that's what was wrong in our relationship all those years. I wanted hot chocolate to physically be more than it could be and fill a whole mug to boot.
How could chocolate have ever hoped to live up to that sort of selfish demand? How could it have turned a mug of warm water or milk into pure warm chocolate? It was spread too thin. Once I realized that the only way to have a decent hot chocolate was to give up my greedy notions of a Willy Wonka-esque type never ending river of decadence, harmony returned. Though in all honesty harmony was actually ACHIEVED as both hot chocolate and I can freely admit now, from the happy comforts of our newly renewed relationship, that what we had in the past was NEVER harmonious.
But, as I said that's in the past.
Because I know there are others out there who may have suffered similar torments as a child, being handed steaming mugs of brown liquid that broke our hearts more then quench our taste buds I shall share the secret to perfect hot chocolate.
It's not a measuring thing but a common sense thing.
Take a hunk of dark, good quality chocolate. The size of which you'd actually sit down and nibble on in one go. Be honest with yourself, it's gonna be a decent sized hunk. Now double it, after all hot chocolate is better if you share it with your sweetie. (see how much I've grown, when I was a kid I'd have been all "sweetie shmeetie, it's all MINE MINE MINE!")
Now break it up on a plate into smaller hunks with a knife.
Transfer these to a pot. Turn the burner on but keep it medium.
Let the chocolate melt slowly, stir it and as it's melting add a small splash of coffee liqueur and a dollop of organic milk. Not enough to dilute the chocolate to the watery stuff of hot chocolate by gone days, but just enough to thin it so that it pours and can be sipped before it re-solidifies into hard chocolate.
Now having stirred it into a gorgeously dark, creamy smooth, mouth wateringly perfect hot chocolate, prepare a plate of necessary side flavor essentials like fresh raspberries, lady fingers, cocoa beans and MORE chocolate if you're feeling ultra decadent.
Pour the liquid glory into the shot glasses and enjoy.
The shot glasses are the perfect size to fool the brain into thinking it's getting a whole glass full, plus they're pretty and the smooth column of warm chocolate between the fingers just adds to the whole experience.
Be prepared to jam your fingers down in the glass to wipe out every last chocolate drip.
I considered serving the chocolate on a plate for better lickability but I do draw the line. I am a lady, I have manners. There'll be no chocolate plate licking here, just finger licking and shot glass slurping, thank-you very much.

Eh!

It had been 8 years since I'd walked through that particular patch of woody area and I was a little annoyed.
The trees had grown while I was gone, the path, worn by my very own feet, had been reclaimed by grass and roots. Branches had the sheer audacity to block the way! Mother nature made no bones about who was in charge. I may have had delightful, unrestricted access, to that area for a large part of my childhood, but it was never really mine. Life's a bitch, eh.
Briefly I contemplated a face off with ol' Mother Nature, just to show her I was no pushover, even after years away from that particular patch of woods.
I was being woodswomanly you see, showing off my Nova Scotia outdoorsy type skills that are put to little use in Southern California. If you get lost down here it's most likely in a parking lot and if you hug a tree the palm police will haul you away for molesting a trunk in public.
On our recent Nova Scotia trip I happily led my husband through the knee high weeds and skeletal branches, still bare of spring's green. Trudging through a path that was now more memory than trail. Pointing out fascinating things like pine cones and thorns and swamp grass and birch bark and keeping a sharp eye peeled for spruce gum because every one should get to chew it at least once in their life. But just traveling along the path unscathed, unscratched was demanding enough, my bout with Mother Nature would have to wait.
Tempting though it was to voice my disapproval to her, I just smiled, politely, and batted branches out of my face, giving up on the idea of arguing this overgrown path nonsense and forged ahead.
Keeping a careful but cautious grip on my burr ball.
When planning our trip home we made lists. Things to do to prepare for the trip, things to take on the trip and things to do ON the trip. The third list was my favorite as it involved mostly Canadian foods. Ah Caramels, Tim Horton's coffee, Coffee Crisps, Wunder Bars, A&W poutine, and pizza donairs...let me just say that last one again. PIZZA DONAIRS.
But smack dab in the middle of the list was make a burr ball from the prickly little clingy balls that grow on the weedy burdocks plants all around the property where my Mom lives.
Let me just say that as far as lists go, you can considered that one dominated. I kicked list ass. I stuffed myself on every thing I had planned to and to top it all off, I made that burdock ball! It was a work of burdock art. My husband gamely trudged along with me as I sussed out dried brown little prickly things from the weeds, calling out "I found some more! And more, ohhhhh MORE over here!!!!"
When we were kids my brothers and I would gather burdocks, sometimes even voluntarily. It was not unusual to come in from the bushes with the little buggers clinging all over our pant legs and socks, making a mess of our shoe laces. Alan said he's had similar but less enjoyable experiences when he was a child with things he almost dare not speak of aloud because they are THAT evil.
Foxtails....ohhhhh.
Apparently as clingy as burdocks but more evil and in absolutely no way fun. But burdocks are cool, the most fun was had gathering them on purpose and sticking them together to make a MEGA BURR BALL.
Why? Well....we were kids, we lived in the country, did we really need a reason why? And if we do then I'll admit we may have thrown them at each other. Burr balls are the warmer weather equivalent of snow balls, plus they stick.
Apparently Fox tails can't be made in to a mega foxtail ball, apparently they just stab your socks and itch your skin and annoy the heck out of you when all you tried to do was take a shortcut home from school across a hill and you end up with stickers in your ankles and a pocketful of regret and a lifelong loathing for a weed you'd as soon obliterate from the planet as ever have to see it again.
Umm, but look husband. BURRS, round, cute, NOT evil!
It was a lovely moment in life for me, introducing my husband to non-evil stickery burrs, dragging him through the wild rose bushes, under the birch trees, through the dense fir tree branches and into the little swampy clearing I remembered so well, burr ball in hand.
I was like a tour guide, the spiel spilling out of me un-bidden.
"And over there is where the pitcher plant is, back there is where mushrooms grew, down there is where the stream is, up there is the tree I climbed, that hill over yonder was a good leaf sliding hill, these denser weed lumps are for standing on, the best moss is over that away, these trees grow berries and did you see the burr ball I made?"
A satisfying, free verse sort of description of my childhood that I was finally able to show my husband in person. I mean one can only describe the apple tree one used to sit in and chuck apples from into a bucket for the pigs for so long. Eventually one needs to drag one's husband through the field and point at it and say "THERE it is!" Then one wonders if said apple tree could still hold one's weight, plus one's husband's weight....
After making it through the overgrown bit of woods that once was a path I was pleased I hadn't picked a fight with Mother Nature after all. She's a strange sort of woman she is. So much had changed and yet so much hadn't. The natural playground beneath the trees where a tiny stream traveled was exactly the same. The trees in the area have always been tall enough to provide a natural sort of branch roof. The ground below a wide open place to play with smooth tree trunks like the pillars of a woodsy palace. 8 years later it looked the same. Now I have to wonder if Mother Nature was really blocking the path or just hugging the little area tight, protecting it with bushy arms and tangled limbs.
I took a few moments to bond with her, flinging myself on to a tree branch, whispered soft apologies to the lichens that clung there.
I think she heard me.
It was a wonderful trip, power packed.

(Tim Hortons is the lifeblood of Pictou County, Nova Scotia!)

A chaotic whirlwind of coffee, friends, coffee, family and more coffee, interspersed with perfect little pockets of nature. Deer sightings, river visits and trips down memory lane. The only down side was I forgot to throw..er...I mean GIVE my MEGA BURR BALL to my brother. The upside is I did remember, just barely, to take it out of my pocket before going through security at the airport.
Though I have to admit I am curious as to what customs would have thought of it. You can just never tell by looking at a person if they are a secret mega burr ball lover or not.

Ma poubelle

We have some kind of luck.
OR, as I prefer to think of it, we have some kind of strange guardian something or other floating about like a very specific skilled wish granter. Ask for a million dollars? Nothing doing. Ask for a piece of electronics to fix itself after being broken for several months, poof. Granted.
World peace? HA! It laughs in our faces. Have a mugger return a stolen wallet? Sure thing.
To clarify though, I have been reaping the benefits of said ghostly wish granter/protective spirit of odd and un-related things only through marriage. I certainly never had such luck. I really only get to stand under the umbrella of weird protection with my husband.
It's his eyeglasses who go missing in Maine and given up for loss only to be found, after miles of driving, hanging undamaged outside the car door. I don't mind that it's not personally my guardian object angel, marriage does have it's fringe benefits besides the hottie blue husband. :)
It's good to lead gently into one's chaotic thought process with illustrative descriptive mental images of a ghostly character hovering about our old printer. It's a good fake out for what's really on my mind.
Trash cans.
Again.
I either have a fetish, am very trash conscious or need to get out more and expand my horizons. A fourth and more creative option would be to start a whole new blog, Trash Talk, but I am fearful of the sort of readers one might draw near with a title like that.
The connection between a strange aura around our possessions and my trash cans is this. After several cans went missing, presumably stolen...one came back.
After more than a year one of our trash cans turned up at the bottom of our drive way and I am tickled pink, green and a light shade of iridescent blue.
The guardian has struck again.
The questions that bombarded my mind after seeing our lonely little bin we purchased from Lowes, sitting down by the mailboxes, almost left me speechless. Almost.
"What the..? Seriously? Look! LOOK! It's our bin! Is it? How..huh? I...er....."
These questions were just my brain's way of trying to process an almost impossible situation. Our stolen bin had come back. It did not have the look of a plastic trash can possessed by a sentient spirit so I assume the bin thieves returned it themselves. Unless....unless the guardian of inanimate objects has been working out and has managed to develop a few corporeal muscles and pushed the bin back all by it's invisible self. I am actually leaning really hard towards that possibility. I like to picture the expression on the bin thief's face when our can started hauling itself out of their bin thief hide away and began bumping it's way along the road towards home.
We stood that day. Staring at our long lost member of our trash sorting family. Warm afternoon sunshine played over it's dull grey brown features. It's shadow stretched across the road as if reaching for us.
"Is it really our bin?" We asked, not wanting to hope and have our hearts broken.
We looked around, peering into the bushes and neighbor's driveways for possible bin thieves with nefarious n'er do well intentions on their faces. We were alone. Me, my husband, the guardian of inanimate objects and our garbage can.
There was no mistaking it. It was OUR can.

(exhibit B, pull made from plastic handles off of boxes, how many other bins identical to ours would have an identical extra handle for long armed husbands to hold when pulling the bin up and down the steep driveway?)

It still sported the fashionable little pull we'd made from plastic handles off of some boxes. It was missing the lid, which we very well knew was in our garage, lonely and useless as the cruel bin thief didn't take it when it had taken the bin.
I marched over, ready to take my bin back to where it rightfully belonged. Thoughts of neighbors *accidentally* not noticing they'd taken a bin from the communal trash area, that in no way matched any of the other bins down there, had a special handle and kept it for over a year...accidentally....washed through my mind.
I stepped close, victory so close. Score one for justice....
"Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww."
I will save you a description but suffice it to say the....bin-napper....for lack of a better word, had apparently tossed a half can's worth of perishables in the bin for goodness how long and left it.
Perishables, no lid plus Southern California heat is a pretty nasty math equation.
I was tempted though...to retrieve what belonged to us, to clean up some one else's careless and disgusting mess just to return the bin to it's rightful place.
I stared hard at the can....and I sighed.
"I guess it's their bin now."
I was only sad for a moment, it actually seemed like pretty good instant karma. Leaving the mess where it was. As it turned out the garbage men didn't even touch the can, and who could blame them, I'm not sure they get hazard pay.
BUT...
I did get one teeny weeny extremely power packed moment of satisfaction from this whole peculiar bin experience.
I took the garbage can lid that belonged with the bin, and the very day we saw its return, placed it lovingly and a little sadly on the can. They might as well have the lid too.
Then...I cackled all the way up the driveway. Rubbing my palms together in a seriously evil genius sort of way. Imagining the mind trip that was gonna do to them, if they even noticed.
And they did.
Perhaps just a little bit of justice and a tiny sliver of shame. As later when we walked down to check the mail, still that same day, we saw the bin had been moved to the other side of the cans. As if to hide it from view.
They'd need much bigger bins to hide their shame though.
I like to wonder if that messed with their minds...knowing that we know....and yet didn't take the bin back? Ah well.
Maybe they're not jerks, maybe they're actually some forgetful old lady who accidentally took the wrong bin home after gathering her cans in the middle of the night and then maybe she lost track of it in a garage full of junk and cats and old lady belongings for over a year until finally she spied it through her dusty spectacles and declared "That's not mine, oh golly!" and promptly returned it.... Yeah, it was probably that.
I find most of life's annoyances go down smoother if I pretend they're perpetrated by forgetful old ladies.
In the mean time the bin remains, they apparently not claiming it and neither are we...unless I actually break down and reclaim what's rightfully mine and clean the heck out of that thing whilst half sloshed on rum. A person would have to be half sloshed, at the very least, on something before attempting such a chore.
Ah well.
But kudos to the guardian object angel, I am seriously impressed. I do not suppose many people can claim their garbage bin was stolen for a year and then returned...what a strange and oddly satisfying experience that is.