Wednesday Weekend '21

On Tuesday evening, probably around the time I was posting to my blog, my inbox was suddenly barraged with paperwork from the production company.

I-9s, payroll, health care, COVID rider, you name it. All there.
I scanned my I-9 stuff, filled everything out, signed, dated, sent it all back. Got a confirmation of receipt and a big "Thank you!" for being so quick to turn it around.

I guess this is really happening. Insane.

Now that the employment paperwork is complete, not just the contract, I really do feel like this is a Real Thing and not something I dreamed up because I was aching for the career I went to school for.

Isn't it funny how life turns out?
I don't think 5-year-old me could have imagined any of this when asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
(For the record, I wanted to be "a unicorn or a bus driver")

This is why it's useless to have a five year plan, folks. I had one, I was following it, and now it's completely out the window.


On Wednesday I woke up nice and late. Because I have TSA PreCheck in the afternoon and class at night and an extra day off to work with, I decided to push bread baking to Thursday instead of my usual Wednesday. After a nice slow breakfast I sent a few emails updating family on the tour situation. I also reached out to several of my bandmates, as their contact info had been included in all that paperwork. There are two woodwinds and two trumpets. I'm the only trombone. Drums, bass, guitar, two keys. Sounds about right.

My friend Josh is one of the keyboardists, it'll be nice to have a familiar face in the pit. The others I've never met, but it was easy to find them on social because the music world is small and we've all got several mutual friends one way or another. I'm especially excited that one of the trumpets is a female! So for the first time in my life (outside of the all-female Ruby Princess house band) women will be the majority in the brass section! Woot! I hope that the three of us get along well. Our playing abilities aside, when you're on the road with people for an entire year you've got to get along and keep drama to a minimum. I'm all about that!

After breakfast I did a quick garden check. My poor Meyer lemon has three lemons on it but is infested with mealybugs, I'll have to look into what I can do to protect it while I'm gone. The sundew has loads of babies that I'll try to give away too. The cowpeas have given me several good pods of beans.


I've dried a handful of them, and today I took the beans out. I've probably got about 1/3 cup of them. Not going to get very many unfortunately, but maybe one night we'll have a southern dinner with black-eyed peas and collards and ham or something.


Everything in the yard is going to have to survive on its own, and currently everything looks good.
The bananas continue to grow quickly.


The vanila is way up in the tree canopy again. The vine is getting a lot thicker and it seems happy.


The milkweed is doing "ok", all of it is still alive though some of it is infested with aphids.
I found this beautiful orchid bee gathering pollen.


And my little Joe Pye weed has finally put out buds! I can't wait to see what the flowers will look like!


After that was done I got out the blender and made some watermelon strawberry popsicles, throwing in a bit of lime juice and maple syrup because some website or other suggested adding those things. Then I made a grocery list and ate lunch, watched an episode of LEGO Masters with Jameson, and hit the road to get to my TSA appointment on time.

On the way I passed through a few sun showers, not an uncommon event here in Florida. But when I turned on my wipers, the smaller wiper somehow hit the larger one, and broke it clean off!! You can imagine that I arrived at my appointment SUPER stressed haha. And then they made me wait for about 30 minutes. Finally I was called in to give my fingerprints and confirm a bunch of personal information. From here, I guess homeland security has to process my profile and make sure it doesn't match some criminal mastermind's or something.

After all this I was supposed to go to World Market and then the grocery, but decided against the grocery for now. I went to Auto Zone for a new wiper and also got gas, then hit World Market for miniature condiments which I hope will be useful for the first few weeks on tour. I got little 3oz jars of honey and olive oil, a small brick of coffee, and a mini silicone spatula. Because I'm still considering an electic skillet.

Then I got home, had a little rest, and went into steno class. Then I practiced trombone for a short time, took the trash out, got to chill out.

Tomorrow morning I'm making wheat bread, then I'll have to hit the grocery.
I think I'd better divide up my posts this weekend so the post isn't too long.

Thursday Weekend '21

Thursday morning, made breakfast and got started on the wheat bread dough.

I used the AP flour that I got from Pennsylvania, grown and milled there.
I used red wheat flour, but also subbed in some white wheat flour just to use it up.

In the vein of making this a "Pennsylvania loaf", I also used dark buckwheat honey from Draper's, an apiary in the middle of nowhere PA. And instead of the plain oil called for in the recipe, I decided to try out the walnut oil that I got for my next challah loaf. I also tried adding some "dough enhancers", vital wheat gluten and a small amount of vinegar. Both of these are supposed to help the shelf life and enhance the texture of the finished bread.

After letting the yeast come alive in some warm water, I mixed everything together. The walnut oil is already making this dough smell incredibly fragrant. Here's the dough after mixing and resting to let the flour absorb the water.


Here's the dough post-kneading. I use flour for half the knead time, then switch to oil in order to retain moisture.


Then the dough had to rest and rise for 90 minutes, during which time I cleaned up, ate breakfast, and got some trombone practice in.
Before and after rising.



Then I shaped the dough, which I forgot to take pictures of and anyway my hands were messy. I flattened it out and then rolled it up into a log and then a loaf shape, basically, and put it in a loaf pan where it went to rise for another hour or so.


Then I gave it an egg wash. I noticed a lot of larger bubbles on the surface, so either I let it overproof a little or I shouldn't have proofed it in the microwave as it might have been too hot and the yeast too active. Anyway it turned out all right, just the egg wash was kinda runny and made a weird "lip" around the edge of the bread cap. Kinda looks like a mushroom, or the head of one of those rounded screws.



The crumb is good, and it's definitely more moist than other loaves I've made. The flavor was very nice, slightly nutty and sweet with the hearty flavor of the whole wheat flour.


This was a variation on the "Kindergarten Honey Wheat" recipe in my bread lesson book. I think next time I'd like to try someone else's recipe, maybe King Arthur's, specifically for sandwich wheat bread. But this was fun, it was good to see that I can make so many changes and still come out with a really delicious loaf of bread :)

Once the bread was done I drove out to Whole Paycheck to get our steaks, fancy cheese, etc.
The drive was terrible because the tourists are back, so there were accidents everywhere and a six-car pileup at the I-drive exit. Idiots. I left around 2:15-2:30 and didn't get home until 4pm. Waste of my day. But this time at least it's worth it, so I can make lovely steaks for us tomorrow!

I came home to find this waiting for me on the doorstep:

https://instagram.com/p/CRpP40ZnHeV

This little tableau was playing out between a sphinx moth and a black racer snake. I didn't realize until later that I'd probably interrupted the snake's hunting. Sorry little brother.

Two packages had arrived for me while I was gone, one of which was a viral TikTok thing, an articulated color-changing 3D-printed slug!
The left pic is when the slug is warm (pink) and the right is when it's cold (purple).


The person who makes these normally makes soaps to sell out of their home, but printed a few of these for fun and ended up going viral over them. So now they have thousands of orders, and are probably having trouble keeping up! Can you imagine what that must be like? I can't! I had to wait almost three months for this believe it or not.

Yes, it's just a stupid gimmick toy, billed as an ASMR or fidget toy for adults.
I bought it with the intention of bringing it to work, and to share with Jameson. Just for fun, kind of like the stupid "raw egg" stress balls I bought us a while ago. Sometimes little things help you get through the day. My office is VERY cold because of all the computers, so I thought it would be fun to see the slug turn purple indoors and pink when I go for my walks at lunch. It's also nice to play with and makes a fun noise from all the parts sliding over each other. Anyway. Articulated slug. I enjoy it.

We ordered pizza for dinner and I made wings in the air fryer. Watched an episode of Cobra Kai, then I went to finish practicing trombone while Jameson had a D&D session with his friends. When tromboning was done I switched to steno practice, then it was chill time. It's really nice to have a whole day off tomorrow too.