conuly

( Piano stairs! )

Link from this blog.

(No surprise there!)

You have to understand, my mother bitches and moans about the fact that nobody seems to get her birthday or Christmas presents ever (I pay for the "kids" to get her a present, which I really think ought to cover me given that they ARE NOT MY CHILDREN, but that's beside the point), and totally ignores that we give her stuff all year long. And we've largely given up giving her gifts for those occasions because it's really annoying to carefully pick out a present and then see her not only never use it, but later that year claim you didn't get her anything. (Last time she went on a rant about this, I told her she really should just stop buying presents for people who don't buy her anything in return if it does bother her, and she goes "What about YOU" and I go "Yes, even me, thanks" and she got mad at me. )

But I saw this book for $4 at the used book store, and could not resist. And it doesn't look like a used book at all, so if I keep my mouth shut, she might even think I spent well more than I did. (Not that the amount of money spent matters, but I suspect it does to her, another reason people don't really want to get her anything.)

The book is "Monet's Kitchen" or something of that sort, and it's a collection of recipes written down by Monet (yes, the artist Monet), who happens to be her favorite artist. (I bought her a calendar once, and she didn't even unwrap it, I had to, after the year was half over, and she didn't ever change the month either, not for ages and ages and it stayed on the wall for years anyway. I'm kinda sad she took it down to paint, because it was fun to point it out years after the fact and say "See? I do get you things!", although I didn't really do that.)

And do you know what's really cool about this book?

Monet made cinnamon toast.

Not only that, but he made it just the way I do! I mean, he didn't melt the butter in the microwave first (at least, I hope he didn't, because that would just confuse me and my odd notions of history and anachronism), but otherwise - just the same! And I didn't know! If that's not just the coolest thing you or I have ever read, I don't know what is, and that's the truth.

I mean, it's like reading an account of a Sumerian schoolkid and finding out he had bad grades, or learning that Romans had a word meaning "fart", but even cooler. You kinda know people did that sort of thing back then, and that right now is a kind of back then too, but it doesn't really click in the head until you see a little fact about how they were really like you after all, right?

I just love it.

This is enough to make me wanna be a seven year old again. In England. With bad manners. *swishes around an imaginary wooden sword* Swish. Swish. Snicker-snack!