V-Day.

A lot of single people talk about "surviving Valentines Day". As if this one day in 365 makes their current situation so utterly horrific it may very well kill them. Clearly they are chicken shits. For me, "surviving Valentines Day" is more akin to "surviving The Holidays".  It implies that you are going to have several days in a row so packed with things to do/people to interact with/shit with that you may burst into tears before the end of it. Not because you feel sorry for yourself but because your brain is so blitzed that crying seems like an appropriate thing to do. That was Saturday through Tuesday of this past week. 

I knew it was coming of course, it was all written down in my calendar, I prepared in advance as well as I could, but it was still a little intense. And there was approximately .5 seconds of tears.

First up was making sugar cookies for work with Miss Jess and later that night the Valentines Dance with my Ladies H&M. I look forward to the dance every year, it's basically a wedding reception without the wedding or annoying relatives. Lots of dancing, drinks, photo booth (!) and looking like a real girl! It also makes me stock up on "lady things" like mascara, jewelry and pantyhose. Made it home by midnight.

Sunday (thankfully hangover free) was Flower Shop Day where I processed over 300 red roses. Which is basically the most epic game of He Loves Me/He Loves Me Not ever played. Rose petals everywhere! Pincushion fingers! It's completely put me off red roses. If anyone ever gives me a dozen red roses I may punch them in the face.

After a trying day at work and a botched cookie hand-off I was back in the shop after work on Monday. I stuck baby's breath into arrangements, shoved tulips into vases, tidied the shop, and did whatever else Miss Cait and Mr Chaaarles told me to do. I had a lot of fun, mostly because I didn't have to be there for the total shit storm of V-Day itself. I'm glad to say the two of them made it though with their sanity intact. Mostly.

My night wasn't over yet though, I still had a dozen sugar cookies to frost!

After watching a Bones episode when Booth and Brennan shoot Tommy guns at the firing range for Valentines Day I decided I wanted to make V-Day Massacre cookies. Fortunately Miss Jess was completely unphased by my morbid suggestion. She even suggested we make broken hearts. We got red coloring for the icing and French Drangees (silver balls) for the bullets.

I had too much fun layering blood over bullets on the hearts (and humming Bon Jovi to myself)...

and smearing it around on the poor gangsters.

We used a recipe from a dear family friend of mine, Miss Rose, who kicks her icing up a notch by putting some almond extract in there (I skipped it this time but it is really tasty and I suggest you try it!).

 By the time V-Day actually arrived I was pretty worn out. I had grand plans of seeing Tinker Tailor (again), but was too damn tired to keep up with cold war espionage. So after a particularly hellish bus ride home (crying babies AND detours?! whhhhyyyy) I treated myself with a no effort required dinner of take-out sushi, a pint of B&J's Mudslide, and not one but TWO Pink Ladies (the Elise de Wolfe version, not the one with eggwhites. Blech). Miss Anwen and I watched the New Girl together via gchat. The diabetic down the hall managed not to burn the building down when she collapsed while making her dinner thanks to the speedy response of the CFD. Didn't do my dishes. Went to bed early.

The rest of the week was an exhausted blur which ended in me making a truly disgusting dinner. Not sure exactly where I went awry but there was waaaaayy too much salt. Or soy sauce. Or fish sauce. Or reducing it made it salty-er. I don't know. Something terrible happened somewhere. What was supposed to be sticky asian chicken over rice tasted like a salt lick. Not that I've ever licked that. I'm not a deer. But that must be what they taste like. I scraped the sauce off the chicken and made myself eat some of it, but I know deep down that the leftovers are going to sit untouched in my fridge until my next trash day.
Boo hiss.

Today was Tax Day (which I sickly enjoy doing for some reason)! After the horrible incident the night before I decided to play it safe and get chicken lo mein from down the street to accompany my number crunching and Stranger Than Fiction watching (duh. what else would you watch while doing your taxes.). And I am pleased to report that Uncle Sam owes me. And I aim to collect. Now I can drink my tea peacefully, with no muttered threats to dump it out my window in protest of clearly being un-represented.
Or turn into an anarchist baker.
Totally want more gangster cookies though....tasty tasty murder.