well ok if your on the boards we’ll rescue ya and take ya to civilization aka La County ca or SF 
I don’t think those are Cheeto stains on your fingers. I think your fingers are embarrassed that they were forced to type that pun.
I understand the sentiment behind letting Florida rot, but there are some innocent people there, including members of my family. My SIL is a firefighter trying to wait until she’s vested before she moves, if they move. They just had a baby. She had the baby through IVF with her wife and I feel like the stakes would be much higher in that case, it worries me a bit with all the hostility toward LGBTQ people. But I know she loves Florida. She has a vast network of people who love her.
I once called Florida a cesspool and she said, “But it’s our cesspool.” God knows that state needs Democrats.
If I was I’d be a much better person.
Point taken…
Dear person who sends me an email at 4:00 p.m. on a Friday afternoon requesting payment by check to be sent to you overnight on an invoice we haven’t recieved, OR ELSE: I giggle at you. You’re silly! 
So it’s been a month. But the real fun started last Friday night, when my internet shat itself. At 7:00 p.m.
No biggie, sez I. I’ll noodle on down to the local interwebs cafe in town over the weekend to pick up email and such, then get my aces computer guy in as soon as possible for the fix.
Best laid plans, eh? Next day at the interwebs cafe, I discover that my computer not only cannot find my network at home, it can’t find any network! Anywhere! I’m dead in the water until Monday at best!
Thankfully, aces computer guy got back to me fast on Monday morning and I was able to drop my computer off and visit with him while he messed about and got it working properly again.
There still remained the ongoing problems with something at the home end, but computer guy accurately adduced it was a faulty router. He sent me home with a new one, I was able to configure it well enough to get back online and we finished up on Wednesday with what was left to connect to the network (recalcitrant printer, etc.).
None of this has anything to do with my ensuing rant. It is merely window dressing to explain why the following is so annoying.
I have a beloved friend. Her only fault is bending over backwards, unsolicited, to do things for people she is sure they want. She’s not always right.
A few weeks ago, we were at lunch and I was waxing nostalgic about my Ukrainian grandmother and her fabled varenikis, which I loved as a child. I loved them well enough to work out how to make them in my early 20s. I haven’t made them since.
Next thing I know, beloved friend has decided to throw a Slavic party, with each of us tasked to bring a Slavic recipe. Of course we know what I was tasked to bring.
The party is tomorrow. Guess what I’ve been working on making for the past two days, instead of getting caught up with the work that piled up while I was fighting with my computer?
Yesterday I made the cheese. Today I made the dumpling dough, stuffed the dumplings with the cheese. Shortly I will boil the dumplings.
The worst part is, these are not really a portable dish. Tomorrow I’ll make the sour cream and onion sauce, and then I have to figure out how to get this hot dish transported more than an hour away without the sauce breaking or the dumplings getting over soggy.
To my beloved friend: Next time you get one of these hare brained ideas, please… just… don’t.
But you just reinforced her behavior. Too bad you couldn’t say “Not this week!” or at least "GREAT idea! And some other week I’d have time to make that fussy dessert. I’ll bring some Slovenian Cream Cake* instead.
*Just got back from there, and they laugh about how simple it is. They basically pour vanilla pudding into a pie crust.
“And Bingo Presto, we make National Dish!”
Or Bosnian Bubble Gum.
Well, the problem is that the time crunch hadn’t happened when I’d already agreed to make the fussy dish. The computer failures hadn’t happened yet and I wasn’t so far behind on my work.
I didn’t feel I could back out, having already committed to this particular dish – which was the whole reason she’d planned the silly party in the first place.
I’m just kvetching about an unfortunate coalescence of events.
I just hope the varenikis are as good as I remember them!
Hey, even if they’re half as good… the rest of the Slav Wannabes won’t know what you remember them as.
The thing is … you’re not in your 20s anymore and the roadblocks are both time and distance. If you were in your 20s, you could say, “Of course I can make that… but only in Your Kitchen. Is your guest bedroom free?”
Then you gather the tools you need from your kitchen, store them in a cooler, and also bring along a laptop and an overnight bag, and away you go! You shop for the ingredients by her… you type on the laptop between batches… and you hope you won’t be fired on Monday.
(Ok, that’s not such a great work around…)
I ran out of plastic food wrap this morning. So I opened up my other box. But here’s the back story rant.
I have long been in the habit of using gigantic restaurant-style plastic wraps, which are typically 11" wide and 2500 feet long and last practically forever. I knew I was running low months ago and ordered a new one from Amazon.
I knew that all the new packages come with a slider type cutting attachment instead of the simple serrated cutting blade because of the fact that the world is always getting shittier. This is just a force of nature.
I despise the slider because it takes two hands instead of just a simple downward jerk with whatever you’re holding. I presume the reason the serrated blade disappeared was because some asshole sued somebody and got a few million bucks as a reward for being an incompetent klutz.
The insert with the serrated blade from the old package didn’t fit into the new one which was slightly narrower, so I had to indulge in a bit of customization with kitchen scissors and here I am, ready for about another five to ten years of plastic wrap with the convenient one-handed serrated cutter.
If you never hear from me again, it will probably be because the serrated cutting edge of my new plastic wrap leapt out of the box and fatally attacked me. 
You can have guns, everybody, but by golly, you cannot have sharp edges on your boxes of plastic food wrap, unless you build it yourself in secrecy!
That’s pretty funny, and I’ll have to keep it in mind next time I’m trying to be an authentic Slav. Much easier to make than old school varenikis!
Well, they’re done, and they turned out well.
Last night after I had boiled the dumplings, I coated them liberally with butter and put them in the fridge to finish up today with the sour cream and onion sauce. I had a very bad moment this morning when I looked at the dumplings all piled together in their glass container and they appeared to have all melted together in the night. Fortunately, this turned out to be an optical illusion due to all the butter that had puddled and then congealed in the bottom of the container.
After I made the sauce, I did have one just for testing purposes and they are still lovely. 
I’ll transport them in a crockpot and hope for the best.
As I’m self-employed, I’m not in danger of being fired, at least! 
Happily, this cause for ranting is now past. I’m sure I’ll have something new to be ranty about soon!
Note to self: must not kick you when you are down.
Also, somehow I left you in your 20s and that’s not good.
< Presto-Change-O >
If you had dumplings melting in a refrigerator I would definitely be concerned about what’s happening there.
Not… not that I’m any expert at all… but a sheet of saran wrap between each layer of dumplings might be prudent?
( It works for Pierogi… )
Or waxed paper, if that’s what ya got handy.
( I’m not going to lie: These days I cheat and buy Pierogi < the farmers cheese kind> at a little shop I know in a Polish neighborhood. They are very good fried. I like to add black pepper or a few drops of Tabasco, but only after they are on my plate. Pairs well with wine. )
I need to vacuum. I don’t want to. I loathe vacuuming. And 5 minutes after I’m done the cats will shed all over and you won’t even be able to tell anyways.
Blah.
Yeah, vareniki and pierogi are virtually the same thing. And either cling film or waxed paper would have been an excellent solution if I’d thought of it.
Were I to make them again, I’d do some things differently! As it is, they turned out well and were a hit with my Slav friends. Nothing to bring home – just how I like it! We had a nice time and now I’m glad I made the effort.
I have enough farmers cheese left over to make another small batch of varenikis. I’m going to freeze them and see if the result is acceptable. I think it can change the texture of the cheese a bit, but maybe not enough to be a big drama. And I’ll fry a few of those, too! Granny never did that, but it sounds delicious. (Especially if it pairs well with wine!)
Thanks for all the suggestions, you lot.