Not Always Practical

Ok, so now I'll focus on the head injury aspect of my new life.  New: because I have applied for the big D, and am now pretty much retired.

Now I have time to do all things that were once just passing thoughts. But I've told you, before, how the ideas in my head are not always practical, given my disabilities. It isn't unusual for me to picture myself easily accomplishing entirely new tasks, flawlessly. The fact that I didn't do said task prior to my head injury, doesn't cross my mind.

A holiday memory I've cherished forever is baking Christmas cookies with my best friend's family.  We are making Spritz; green wreathes with red hots as berries, and red and white twisty candy canes.  Yeah, I say to myself, I'll make those to take to the Life Skills kids!  Those were the kids I was teaching when I left the daily education grind.  Maybe I have time to be nice, I thought, and this plan could double as my attempt to be the nice person I kind of wish I was.

I quickly found the recipe in my husband's ancient Better Homes and Garden New Cook Book, and I recalled the loss of my own prehistoric copy of the Joy of Cooking.  My ex thought old recipes didn't cook as good as new ones, and he trashed it.  This New Cookbook was far from contemporary, but it was the book my husband, the cook, uses. It quickly became my New cook book.

I spend a couple days gathering ingredients, like almond extract.  Who has that on hand?  Probably a real baker type person, I thought.  We had everything but the almond extract, and Red Hots, and it was then that I realized my husband really did do a lot of baking. I must admit I was waiting for him to glance at the cookie-makings and simply take over.  In my head I heard: Oh. Lexie, were you making Spritz?  I can do that for you, while I watch the game.

But this was my reality, now, and he probably thought I needed something to keep me busy. I started early in the day, and made sure everything I  needed was close at hand. The recipe instructed me to cream sugar and butter, together, completely. I was thrilled because I knew exactly what that meant!  This was going to be a cinch, I laughed.  I did resort to mixing it with my bare hands because we have no mixer-thingy, but I finally got things all put together, and green.  Yes, I decided to forego the red for the candy canes.  I would start small.

Mixing the dough with my spic-n-span-clean hands was only the warm up, I realized, as loading the press was tricky, AND sticky. My previously dominant hand doesn't work quite like it should, and my non-dominant hand is now dominant.  You know, I use to be right handed; everything that required any fine, fine motor skills was done with my right hand. And, yes, getting the dough inside the cookie press, required a lots of fine, fine motor skills.  Just remember, using my left hand, the same way I used the right, is not always pretty.

After stuffing the cookie press full, I was ready to form wreathes, but the press wouldn't really press.
That is until I wedged the handle against my gut, and leaned into it.  I was, in effect, using my body weight to push the dough through the press so that the long thin piece,  that would form the wreathe, had fancy edges.  I judged the length of the first piece just right, curled it into a circle and embellished it with a red hot. This may not be too difficult after all, I surmised.

The warm/fuzzy feelings ended there, though.  My judgement on the next piece's length wasn't  good so I set that chunk of dough aside.  I pressed a couple more duds but became concerned about the bruise the dough contraption was more than likely leaving on my stomach.

Flipping the press over, I used the counter as a substitute for my gut.  The handle slid on the glass cutting board and the whole contraption slid across the surface. During the melee, the top came off the press and I couldn't get it back on. Long, ugly story short, the press went in the trash, and the dough was formed by hand; my left, now dominant hand, doing most of the work.