Chocolate Thumbprints and Toes

Ok so my chronological order thing didn't pan out as well as I had hoped. Chocolate thumbprints are in the rich and dense section. What can I say? I'm a rebel.

These cookies are a childhood favorite of mine except the peanut butter version. These turned out almost exactly like the picture says they should, just not as photoshop-ingly uniform and smooth. Mine were slightly spikey and had a little chocolate slopped over the sides. My favorite part was the piping of the chocolate into the thumbprints. I used my poor-mans pastry bag (ziplock with a corner cut off) and filled those prints to overflowing. And had enough left over to squirt some into Beep's mouth to which he said "MMMM! Chorat!" Then I loaded them onto paper plates and hopped in the car to drive them the 2 minutes to Pickle's work to share them with his tellers. As I was turning left out of our neighborhood onto the busy thoroughfare, the cookies on their plates slid allll the way off the seat. Biscuits!! I pulled the car over and looked around to see if anyone could see me scrounging around my floor board for cookies. Now, before you judge me, let me say that only two cookies were really gross and I chucked them out the window. The others had landed filling side up and so I felt good about brushing off the bottoms and putting them back on the plate. I took them to the branch and the tellers loved them. 

So.... there. 

Please don't tell on me! 

I made and delivered these Wednesday afternoon. Every Wednesday night, I volunteer at the community center downtown to sew costumes for the children's Dia de los Muertos parade. Things have come up the last two Wednesday's so I was really excited to go this week. I had finally gotten there and been working for about 5 minutes when I received a frantic call from Pickle saying that Beep had broken his toe! He said our heavy metal step stool had dropped on his big toe and it was turning black and blue and he hadn't stopped crying for about 20 minutes. Well it took me about 15 minutes to get here and 5 minutes working so... this had happened right after I left. I couldn't help but think "Really?! I haven't even gotten my machine out yet! Why do catastrophes alway happen when mom is away?"

Speaking of catastrophes when mom is away, reminds me of when my mom went to France to visit a friend. My dad was "watching" us, meaning he had us for a day or two until friends could take us for the week. He had taken us to a Giants baseball game and we were walking to the makeshift parking lot in a dry, dusty vacant lot. My sister was probably 8 or 9 years old and tried jumping over a low hanging chain between two poles. Her "shoelace got caught" (she was wearing slip ons) and she face planted into the ground. She had a big gash right under her eyebrow and was bleeding heavily. Some kindly, older Giants groupies ran into their RV and grabbed a rag to staunch the blood. I sat in the back of the car with my sister's head on my lap as my dad rushed us to the South City Kaiser ER. After much bleeding and vomiting, she was stitched up and we were home again. My dad went out of town that week and we went to stay with our dear friends in Santa Cruz where I had to nurse the stitched up eyebrow. We got back from that week to find a huge window in our sunporch had been completely shattered and a pipe in the kitchen burst. When my mother stepped off the plane from France, she was accosted with all this information and it took all the strength of the three of us to hold her back from running back down the jetway. 

Back to the toe, I felt for my mom in that moment, experiencing only an 1/8 of what she did- France vs. 15 minutes away, bruised toe vs, scarface child, flooded kitchen and broken glass. We didn't really know what to do for a broken toe so I call my retired doctor mother-in-law who is our go-to medical champion. We call her for everything. It's wonderful to get a second opinion on things or to find out if you really SHOULD go to the ER for that elbow that is bent the opposite direction. Anywhays, she said there wasn't much you could do if in fact it was actually broken. Tape it to stabilize and give him Tylenol. I was trying to weigh my options. Miss out on a third Wednesday night for something I can't fix or have faith that nothing was really broken and that dad could take care of the comforting. I stayed. And had a wonderful time. I got home after Beep had gone to bed, and I went and checked on him. He was uncomfortable and woke up whenever he bumped his toe, but it wasn't broken and now it's just righteously black and hurts when he bends it funny. 

As much as I wish I could have been there to either a) prevent it or b) comfort him afterwards, I was really happy that I stayed. I met with a truly sweet, tatted up, hippy mom and her daughter and we created her a lava costume for her to wear with her stilts in the parade. I enjoyed doing something for myself, getting out by myself and doing something I enjoy. I'm working harder at doing things for myself. I ordered myself new clothes which I haven't done in... I don't know how long, my gracious friend Tyler invited me to play on his adult soccer team, and I'm registering for school in November. And I'm contemplating taking a ballet class at school. Yes, ballet. And I'm going to get me some toe shoes. I'm very athletic, haven't you heard?