So there's a voting thing happening next week. Tuesday, in fact. Primary day in Maine. It is also the day when the Maine Christian Civic League plans to be out in force encouraging people to sign a petition to repeal discrimination laws protecting people based on their sexual orientation and to eliminate funding for school Civil Rights Teams, which have been wonderfully effective in reducing bullying and creating safe schools. It would also ban gay marriage in Maine. Which is already against the law, but what the hey, it's the CCL, so why should facts and laws get in the way?
So some friends of mine are working with the great folks over at Equality Maine to staff the polling places with a sort of "Truth Squad" of volunteers. To my dismay, the volunteers will not be causing any kind of a ruckus or stink. They are merely going to let people know what exactly they are being asked to sign and ask them to please decline. They are not going to confront the CCL folks, not going to badger them, not shout at them, call them names or in any way be unpleasant.
Obviously not a job suited to my personality.
I was asked to volunteer for a shift, but after considering it with the local organizer, we agreed that I would not be the best person to represent EQME as a volunteer. So we figured out a way I can help out, but that will not require me to be nice or polite to anyone I don't feel inclined to be nice or polite to. I'm going to bake cookies for the volunteers.
K, the local organizer, asked if I would make little boxes of cookies for the volunteers and I readily agreed. Great! She said. I need 20. Oh shit.
That's a lot of cookies. Even if the boxes are small, that's a LOT of cookies.
Well, it's getting to be about that time of the year anyway, so I fired up the home cookie factory and got crankin'. At the end of the first day, I had two full batches of ginger cookies ready to be made into ohmigods, a full double batch of sugar cookies a quadruple-batch of chocolate-peanut butter no-bakes, and two triple batches of coconut macaroons. I am nearly up to my ass in cookies.
Today I cleaned the living room with my friend D, and took a vacation from cookies. Tomorrow, though, I plan to make some chocolate chip cookies, some Russian Tea Cakes, and possibly some peanut butter cookies. It depends. Peanut butter cookies and I have issues. It has to do with power and control and burned edges.
As you can see from the picture, I have a variety of tools for the job, but very little counter space. In my home kitchen, I use a plank laid across my double sink as a work-space. There is very little room. So, in order to make a little extra, I lay the board you see across the top of the open drawer to create a little more work area and to provide easy access to the things I am going to need. It ain't perfect, but it works pretty slick.
I just made a batch of macaroons for a friend of mine who is in town for the weekend. This will put me up the list of most-favored-friend status and may even garner some bribery points for favors later on. I'm hopin' anyway. My triple batch of macaroons makes 12 large cookies about the size of a half a tennis ball, plus about 50 about the size of half a golf ball. After quality control, the true yield is usually something less than that, but it's about right.
2 comments:
So, they want to keep you in the kitchen cooking huh? Sounds a tad suspicious to me. Keep the troublemaker out of sight. ;)
Yep, barefoot and pregnant, that's me!
Um, no.
I do not want to damage the public image of an organization I value, so I am following my own, very simple version of the hippocratic oath - first, do no harm. So, for that to happen, I need to keep my yap shut, and the best way for me to do that is to keep busy. Busy without results is dumb, so I'll make cookies to reward those blessed people who can and will speak politely in impolite circumstances.
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