Alaska is still the land of the midnight night, right now. We have twelve hours of day and twelve hours of night. I should be able to sleep during the darkness and walk around like a normal person in the daylight, but no. Late yesterday afternoon I decided to try out my new-to-me Ninja blender. If you aren't familiar with these blenders, they are like the monster truck of blenders. I think I could use it for a wood chipper.
I got a hankering for a chocolate milkshake. But more healthy, of course. Made with yogurt, a banana, a tablespoon of chai tea for kick, and let's see...what kind of chocolate do I have around the house? Chocolate chips? Naw, I just bought those and I don't want to open them. Cocoa powder for baking cakes? Ummmmm, no, that's probably a little too intense and I don't want to get diarrhea. Wait! I have some Ibarra Mexican hot chocolate, let's try that!
You may not be familiar with Mexican hot chocolate. It's a hard round of chocolate about three inches in diameter, and almost half an inch thick. It's chocolate, sugar and spices. You are supposed to use about a sixth of it grated into a cup to make hot chocolate. I decided to drop the whole thing in the pitcher.
I'm eager to see the pure shredding and mashing power of this blender. In goes the banana, the yogurt, the tea and one whole round of the hot chocolate. It's a lot of chocolate, and I forgot that it also has sugar in it. No matter, I want to see the blender crunch that baby up! It's built like a tank, plus it has a killing blade about ten inches tall, and you have to clamp the top on. This is the most serious blender I've ever seen.
There is an actual smoothie button. I push it.
If you think this is heading toward a massive blender misadventure with chocolate all over me and the ceiling, you will be disappointed. However, I didn't know that the blender would put on a show! It goes RRRRR like you think it would, but then it stops, starts, stops and starts again, goes on for a few more extended RRRRRRRS and eventually decides my smoothie is finished. It does its thing, you know? Someone must have made a Smoothie Macro. Imagine that, someone in a Blender Research Lab, wearing a white coat and goggles (for obvious reasons) making smoothie after smoothie, pushing the button and holding it, pushing the button and letting go, until they have exactly the right number of Whooshes vs. RRRRRs to make the optimal smoothie. "What do you do for a living?" "Oh, I'm a Blender Engineer."
I pour my milkshake into a glass. The sugar in the Mexican chocolate didn't dissolve, because it can't do that in cold yogurt. So it's a little crunchy. No problem, I can deal with that. I stick a straw in it and it's so good! Other than the crunchy sugar, it's a smooth chocolate banana milkshake. I drink it down while streaming a TV show. Delicious.
Everything is fine for a while and I feel great. Really great! And then I get a rapid heartbeat, and overall feeling of Uh Oh and realize I've done it again. Given myself a case of chocolate overdose. Yes, I've done this before. Hint: don't make brownies from scratch from real chocolate and then eat half of them. You will find out what chocolate toxicity is. This time it isn't as bad as the brownie episode, so I just keep watching episodes of my TV show and wait to feel better.
After a while I realize I've been watching that show for quite some time. I feel fine again. The rapid heartbeat has gone away and I'm back to normal. It's 2am. Time to go to bed.
The dog has already gone to bed, so I join her and snuggle down and there I am. Wide awake. For hours. I can't tell you how many times I checked my farming game on my iPad.
It was 6am before I fell asleep. I guess I shouldn't have had that chai tea in the milkshake, or so much chocolate. You think?
I was totally knocked out and having a fairly rotten dream when both of us were awakened by a very loud scratching noise on the house or balcony. This was so loud! What's up there? A wolverine? (Not a serious possibility mind you, but it was loud!) My bed is right by a window. The super loud scratching noise suddenly stopped as a squirrel flew through the air and landed on the window with a loud BAM. Then it ran away.That's not something that happens every day, or has ever happened. I have no clue whether the squirrel was being chased off my balcony by something or maybe had had a large caffeinated smoothie the night before.
This was a new and novel way to wake up.
About an hour later my dog started talking to me about the front door. Not barking, like she does at a moose, fox, or other dog. But just a "errrrmmmmaa ggrrreeemmm" like "Mom, you gotta see this!" Now I can't say it was the same animal, but what do I find coming right up to the door? Fresh squirrel tracks. Like it wanted to come into the house...for some smoothie?
