Stupid Things and Stupid Moments

"OMG"

This phrase is reserved for those special moments in life when I am stunned by the asinine actions of another, I hear some bit of horrible or shocking news, or after the committing of miserable act brought on by my own stupidity.

I often mumble the words, "Oh my God" on those occasions. If it is an especially bad situation, I might pepper the minutes afterwards with expletives ranging from "crap" to the Big Gun F-word. (Words such as "shoot", "dadburnit" or "dang" have no place in my vocabulary. If one must cuss, cuss for the full effect. Don't play with baby words.)

Hence, my afternoon began with OMG, and had experienced a light drizzling of follow-up "potty mouth". I had to simply walk away, and get my mind off the situation, before attempting to continue my work. (By the way, it is when I'm pissed off and don't cuss that you should be really worried - a horrid hurricane of anger is building to catastrophic proportions in those cases.)

What in God's name (you blasphemer!) are you prattling on with, Aut?

Please allow me to enlighten you: if you are not a Paleontologist, Anthropologist, or Dental Hygienist, the tediousness of the work might escape your imagination.

Up until ten minutes ago, I was hunched over a small table, the bright fluorescent overhead lights illuminated a work field of brown crumbs of debris. My hands ached as I guided a small curette (that is a sharpened instrument normally used to remove particles interproximally between teeth) over the surface of my project - I had to allow the tiny sensations guide me as I prized stuff out of the cracks and channels. Every so often, I would offer the project a puff of gentle air and a sharp whisk from a stiff brush - it is hard to see what you are working on when too much foreign material is in the way. Careful... careful... each movement was a controlled scraping of the stainless steel of my curette. I did not work in feet or inches, but in millimeters, one square part at a time. It is an agonizing job, trying to coax the actual object from its embedded tomb without damaging the object or the instruments. My neck began to stiffen, and my spine whined in protest, but holding myself steady was essential if I didn't want to damage the project too much.

Am I uncovering a juvenile velociraptor skull, or perhaps tiny bits of femur? Is it an ancient seed pod that lies caked in the concrete-like stuff? Am I on the verge of a whole new discovery, one that will put my name in the Paleontological journals on an international scale?

Oh Hell, no. I'm trying to degunk my pizzelle iron after I had (so stupidly) forgotten to grease it.

Trust me, opening that pizzelle iron was a complete OMG moment, followed by a stunned WTF - and about 45 minutes of F's, S's, and GD's. Very few things bring out the sailor in me. Sewing tapestry fabric of inferior quality, proximity to the ocean, and stupid Autrice Actions are the three things. A fourth might be Better Half pissing me off, but as that is a monthly occurrence (he can't help it, the poor dear. PMS sucks), I usually do fine if I avoid tapestries, boats and doing Stupid Things.

Here I am, fresh from recovering from a Tapestry moment (that was yesterday and I am pleased to report the project is done) when I go and do a Stupid Thing. It didn't seem to be a Stupid Thing at the time, though. I have never made pizzelles before, and so I am mastering the technique on a huge learning curve. I can usually think ten steps ahead, and thus avoid Stupid Things. However, who would have foreseen that my ten minute break (talking to my Mum, of all people) would mandate that I re-spray the pizzelle iron prior to dropping in two dollops of dough?

Better Half is downstairs working on it now. I promised to rip his lips off should he give up and dump the whole iron in water (it can't be submerged.) Oh, here he comes now with a progress report...

"It's my back. I got four rows done. That's it."

Better Half best do more than four rows.

Now he's mad at me for saying that.

He really should learn to read my mind - he would be able to hear the silently thought expletives.

Those are not aimed at him, of course. After all, it was my own Stupid Thing.

I can not help it. It is my bitchy time of the month. I'm not going to rip my wings off over it, however. There is a bright side to all this:

1. I learned that pizzelle irons are evil, foul - ahem - that I must grease the iron if it sits too long.
2. Dogs enjoy burnt pizzelle crumbs.
3. Never call my Mum to gloat about how well I master something until I actually master it.

The pizzelles made before the Stupid Thing happened are absolutely delicious.