Stress Baking with Gnomes

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Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

Last night I resorted yet again to stress baking. No wonder I am so fat these days: there must be healthier ways to work out one's angst than making chocolate pound cakes in the middle of the night but, on the other hand, it is true that there are few more delicious ones. Besides, my friends and family are not inclined, no matter how many pointed comments they make, to really stop me stress baking: the fruits of my relief from the evils of modern life are pleasing to them. Oddly enough, I have found that nobody ever complains about having too much cake in any real and serious way. At any rate, there is yet again a chocolate pound cake on my kitchen counter - this chocolate pound cake, to be specific - and while extremely tasty, it's a little dry and could use whipped cream, just in case, you know, some of the calories were trying to escape. Also, it used up 10 eggs and 3 sticks of butter, which is sort of alarming in one solitary cake.

While I was making this cake, Audrey was busy trying to clean up the kitchen from the last day or two of, respectively, chicken enchiladas and then steak and potatoes. "You have to stop cooking like this!" she said, "This is ridiculous!"
"Yes," I said sadly, "I know." And then we ate the leftover potatoes.

Meanwhile, the side of the dish drainer was crowded with mason jars. We used them for the tiedying and then washed them and then discovered that they had no real place to live. "Put them somewhere," instructed my daughter. "This kitchen is hopeless."
She is right. This kitchen is kind of hopeless but I like it anyway; still, there was nowhere to put the mason jars. "Wait!" cried Audrey in the tones of one who has had one of those cartoon lightbulbs light up over her head, "Do the gnomes fit in them?"
They did: perfectly. I started putting gnomes in jars.
"This is making me a little uneasy," I said, looking at three gnomes in sealed mason jars. "I feel like they need air holes or something."
Audrey came over to look as I put the jarred gnomes on the shelf next to the army of unjarred gnomes, who were, as usual, marching in formation on the kitchen shelf.
"Look!" she said, putting a gnome in a jar upside down. "We could make. . . snowglobes! Just, you know, glue them down and then fill it up with glitter and water!"
"Yes," I said, carried away with the beauty of this idea, "Gnome snowglobes! We'll never need to buy another Christmas gift!"
"On the other hand," said Audrey, "That's kind of an ugly snowglobe."
"Also," I said, "Large. Larger than your average snowglobe."
There was a little silence. The gnomes in the jars, imprisoned next to the free regiment, regarded us balefully.
"What are they," said Audrey, "POWs or something?"
"Yeah," I said, "They look like they're awaiting execution."
"They need airholes."
"I can't take this," I said, "I feel too guilty." I carefully decanted the gnomes and went out on the porch for a moment with my daughter.
"I think we're probably really weird," she said, "I can't help thinking about possible ways to appease the gnomes in case we've really pissed them off."
"This is wise," I said, "The last thing we want is to come in the kitchen tomorrow and find them all moved around."

And so, just to be on the safe side, we apologized to the army of gnomes. Hopefully they will not be too angry because, man, even with happy gnomes, things already disappear in this house on a regular basis - socks, phone chargers, plates, pint glasses, dog eardrops, that one wooden spoon and, of course, money, which manages to evaporate from my wallet and bank account at a rate that can only be caused by gnome infestation - so angry gnomes, clearly, are just not a risk we can take.