Last week, Charlie surfaced just after my banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookie extravaganza. His first words were a sorrowful, "There aren't any with raisins?" So, today I made cinnamony, oatmealy, raisiny cookies for the lil' bro. Then, I dipped them in a thinned-out cream cheese frosting.

Things I've learned:

1. I've gotta quit making this face. It isn't attractive.


2. A kitchen can be a jungle gym if you're of a petite nature.


3. You can never have too much cinnamon. Ever.


4. My take on a hand mixer. Spiffy—they're the best tools you got. One might even call them handy.


5. Never photograph a half-cookie. Viewers are likely to wonder who consumed the other half. *guilty blush*

My father is a character—perhaps Elmer Fudd more so than Prince Charming.

For years, people have commented on my personality, its likeness to my mother's. I've let it go to my head. "Look at me! I'm nothing like my father! Yay!"

Not true. I was soaking in a bubble bath tonight when I crashed cruelly into reality. Of all the personality quirks I could have inherited...*sigh*

My father has a humor appreciated by a small circle...namely, himself. He delivers jokes that draw deafening silence from a room, and yet he laughs on...and delivers the same faulty joke at the next gathering, and the next, and the next, and all of them in a 10-year rotation.

It occurs to me that I often find myself terribly witty in the face of a crowd whose eyes look upon me and call me "idiot".

I was dining with my mother and aunts last night. My aunts were discussing how the couples with large height differences seem to be the happiest. They named off several examples, alighting upon the master and mistress of mlphillips last.

I replied immediately, "Well that's because we don't even try to see eye-to-eye." I smiled the smile of someone who thinks they just said something remarkably funny.

The table conversation abruptly changed directions. My comment went unacknowledged. I continued to smirk about it all night. I should start a list of Jokes That Failed, but I fear its length.

My father is a PBS addict. I hear from Miles that this can be common ailment among fathers. Every Thursday night during high school, he and I had a television power struggle. I, naturally, wanted to watch NBC's Must See TV. I've always been one to follow commands.

Dad would kick and scream for his right to watch Outdoor Wisconsin, though he would start snoring about 10 minutes into the program—only to wake abruptly if you so much as brushed your fingertips against the remote.

Not much has changed with my father. One can, perhaps, give him kudos for his steadfastness. Meanwhile, I have stopped watching television nearly all together—aside from the occasional Golden Girls re-run, obviously. Last night, being Thursday, my father's calculating eyes alighted upon my position on the couch as he lunged, dived, and rolled for the remote in a farcical parody (I suppose that phrase is a touch redundant) of stealthy operation.

I looked on, humored. "You've got no competition from me, Old Man," I mused as I watched him straighten, remote tucked to his chest. He flattened himself against the wall, coming to the tips of his toes as he seemed to Riverdance to the couch.

I found it thoroughly delightful to watch the program this time.

Yes, that was sarcasm.

I thought it curious that the featured ice fisherman was wearing blaze orange.

In one segment, a man, probably in his early 30's, was crying brokenly as the camera zoomed in on a yellowing, black and white picture of horse. I added my voice to the melodramatic soundtrack. In a poor Laura Petrie (of "Oh...Rooooooooob!" fame) imitation I cried, "It was the best horse there ever was!"

Mom, quick to wit, replied in the same poor imitation, "The horse got shot so I had to break his leg! Ohhhhhh! *sobs*"

My brother, fellow Scandinavian—someone who actually knows what fattigmand is—is wrought with Italian blood. In an impressive show of mozzarella and marinara, he fashioned a pizza of such delectability that I am left wordless in its wake.

HAH. Wordless. Riiiiight. You wish!

My vigilant nose caught the divine scent upon the air. I stole into the kitchen. Peering into the aromatic oven, I captured the visual feast:

Catching the dying embers of my camera's flash, Charlie rushed to the room. "Pictures? Of my masterpiece? Yes, Yes! I must document this creation!" he must have thought. I willingly obliged.

It was a two-man job to transfer the pizza from the pan. Unfortunately, all we had to work with was a word geek and an Italian-Norwegian. The job still got done—with the application of cuss words and burned fingers. Ah, but such is the price of greatness.

It was almost too attractive to eat. Almost. We inched the pizza cutter closer to the pie. This next step must come to pass, though we loathed to destroy such a treasure.

Consulting my thesaurus...
Heaven: (n) ecstasy, rapture, rhapsody, bliss, paradise, Charlie's pizza.

Yes, I had a piece. I couldn't resist. You can't know the siren song that this pizza sang. As if the golden glory of the breading wasn't enough, the Italian-Norwegian whiz kid stuffed the crust!

I was not a happy camper. He wove that tale of irresistible proportions purely to break me—and break me, he did. "Look at the cheese—just the way you like it! You know you want some, Laur!" And I did. I partook of the bubbling beauty.

Below, you see that my ambivalence was well documented. The impatience on my face reflects my fall from dietary responsibility, my deviation from self control...and the knowledge that I would do it all over again if the opportunity presented itself.

Time to get back on the treadmill.

A conversation with Dad:

"So these cookies..."


"Yes, Dad?"


"They've got more healthy stuff than bad, right?"

(is this question coming from my father!?)

"W-w-well...I-I..It's..."

(his expression was so hopeful)

"Just wondering...?"


"Well...there's the fiber from the oatmeal..."


"Yeah!"


"...and the potassium from the bananas..."

(Have I mentioned Sarah?—lol)

"Yeah!—and chocolate chips!"

(Clearly he was missing the point. I considered the chocolate chips...)

"Uh...yes, and the uh...copper...from the chocolate chips..."


"Say, why is it that dogs can't have chocolate? Is it the copper?"


"I wouldn't know, Dad."


"So these cookies..."


"Yes, Dad?"


"They're good for you?"


"Hmm...I suppose they could be worse...?"


"Good, because I had about 5 handfuls of them last night."