Slightly Odd Day...

It started nice and early with the electricity going off, for no reason I could figure.  I had just poured my first cup of coffee, when suddenly everything went dark.  All the utilities are underground, the weather was overcast,  but no wind or rain, so I don't know what happened--still don't.  The furnace had barely come on, so the house was cold and getting colder by the minute, then the two hard-wired fire alarms started to alternate between an annoying chirp and an ear-splitting screech, which sent Max into I'm-Gonna-Die mode.  The poor guy, he runs down one hallway to hide in the den, and the alarm bleats; he freaks, runs down the other hallway just as that alarm does the shrieking thing.  Back and forth he ran, until I finally put him in the back bathroom, far from the turmoil before he had a heart attack.

[And speaking of those blasted fire alarms.  Why would anyone have alarms that were wired into the electrical system?  So, your electricity goes out, you're blissfully asleep, and the house catches fire.  What kind of plan is that??  Alan and I installed battery-operated ones, of course, but who knew the electric ones would come to life like hungry vampires?]

Half an hour later, just as I'm wondering how to open my (electric) garage door so I can get the three of us out of the house and into a warm car, the lights are magically restored.  I quickly open the garage, and we head down the mountain to the park.

The soccer park is totally empty, which means the boys can have a little off-leash time, and I'm the only car in the whole huge parking lot.  As I start to open the back door to let the dogs out, this gnarly ol' pickup truck comes toward me, and parks about three spaces away...in a lot with dozens of empty spots.  Crap.  Ozzy is bouncing up and down, eager to get going, but I'm not liking this scenario, so I make him wait while I wonder what's up with this guy.

He lumbers out of the truck, and right behind him two pit bulls come flying.  Double crap.  Neither dog is wearing a collar, which means no leash, though right off the bat it's pretty clear this isn't a leash-type guy anyway.  There's no frigging way I'm letting my two snacks out of the car now.  Resigned, I get back in and drive away, Ozzy whining the whole time.  We ended up at a different park, very muddy and boggy, but the boys didn't care.

Back home, I make a coffee, then call Mom for my usual Friday catch-up.  She wants to make scones, and has a recipe I sent her from Scotland, but the butter amount is too smudged to read, so she asks me how much.  Bear in mind I sent her this recipe in 2003; like I remember how much butter?  I start going through my cookbooks, then my two overflowing recipe boxes, and though I find several scone variations, I'm not finding the one that matches the one she has.  Eventually, comparing all the versions, I make a judgment call on the flour to butter ratio.  By this time I'm wanting some scones myself, so when we hang up, I whip up a small batch of eight.

When I take them out of the oven, 20 minutes later, they look like crackers.  Flatter than pancakes.  WTF?  I'm dumbfounded.  I've made scones dozens of times.  Grumpy, still trying to figure what's gone wrong, while putting the self-raising flour back into its container...I notice the expiration date says January, 2011.  Two years, people.  Two.

Goes to show a) I don't often use self-raising flour, and b) they really mean it on that expiration date.

I'm having Santa Fe soup tonight for dinner, and these scone crackers will taste great with the spicy flavor of the soup.  They're a bit crispy on the outside, and soft in the middle; I'm thinking of sprinkling a little Parmesan on top, then giving them a quick broil.  And hey, I might have just invented an entirely new snack cracker.

Though, I still want a scone.  Too bad I don't have any flour...