Barmy Blue's Bland Blog

Merry 13th of February one and all. I assume everyone knows what tomorrow is. I'm not big on Valentine's Day myself. I guess it's okay if you want to use it as an excuse to be romantic with your partner or confess to the person you like but why wait for that one day? I read an article a few years ago about this time of year that stated women don't generally like red lingerie and that for Valentine's men tend to buy their partners red lingerie. It stated that most women they asked would have preferred black underwear. I have to admit, I agree with them. I find that red is a very unflattering colour, especially on people as pale as me.

Anyway. I almost killed my dog. (figured I'd get to the title of the entry and then ramble aimlessly. Sound good?) I was working on a project I'll explain later and dropped a square of white cooking chocolate. It fell out of the way and under some things and I didn't want to get my hands dirty until I'd finished my plan. The dog was staying out of the kitchen and I figured she wouldn't find it too easily. She started coming in towards the end but by then I'd forgotten the chocolate. Just as I was finishing my project she found it. I tried to grab her but it was only a small piece so it was down in an instant.

Now I'm freaking out. Chocolate is poisonous to dogs. Everyone know that. (actually it's not so much the chocolate itself but a main component of chocolate Theobromine, and a little caffeine but mainly the Theobromine stuff.) I consider making her sick. I call mum. We conclude to keep an eye on her (and by that I mean I keep an eye on her). I relax a little and set down to write this. I get as far as the "pale as me" bit and she calls me back. She's been looking it up and decides we should call the vet after all.

I call.

He doesn't answer.

Surgery is closed for the day but his answering machine gives me the number of the emergency vet.

I call mum to discuss further.

I call the vet again but this time I'm after the message. I write it down but he says it too fast so I can't be sure. I'm hoping there's no one at the surgery who's getting annoyed by the afterhours calls.

I call mum again. While doing this I'm looking up local vets to find that number, find out if it's correct and what kind of surgery it is. The message implies that it's an emergency surgery and I worry about troubling people unnecessarily. I'm also looking up questions regarding white chocolate specifically. I'm a little pleased but then concerned by what I find. I calculate the amount of chocolate against the weight of the dog. It should be fine. I even measure the height, width and depth of the square.

I call the vet again to check the number. It is right. but I'm even more concerned about who I'm troubling. It said that a vet may be called to respond at the surgery and to only call if you can travel. I can't drive. And I don't think I can take a dying dog on the bus. What if no one's there and they have to come in for nothing? Is there even a receptionist there all the time? What if it's an automated message thing? No. They wouldn't have something like that there.

I call mum to discuss further. The dog looks absolutely fine anyway. Maybe we should just monitor her. As luck would have it I finally find the surgery in question. Even luckier still, on Mondays they're open until 8pm. Now it's about 7:40pm. I can call them while they're still open and it won't be a problem to anyone.

I call them. The vet is consulted then speaks to me. I tell him how much and what and how big the dog is. He calculated the toxicity of the relevant piece in regards to the dog. Just to be safe he calculates the entire bar instead of one square. It's all fine. Even if she'd eaten the whole bar (150g) it wouldn't have been toxic to a dog of her size.

Sweet relief.

Stupid dog. Making me worry like that.

Stupid human. Leaving nasty thing for dog to find.



I watch a lot of anime, as you know. Generally I seem to veer towards school, romance, comedy, mainly because there's usually a happy ending and it's quite easy to follow. I've struggled to watch Code Geass and I just don't want to see Gundam style anime. It bores me.

Usually, for Valentine's day the lead females will have an episode where they get together and make chocolates. They don't necessarily give them to their boyfriends or boys they have a crush on, they sometimes give them to friends or family or just make them for themselves.

I like making things. The Christmas before last I got a little chocolate tree decoration making kit and made some. It was quite fun to enjoy something I made. I considered getting some heart shaped ice cube trays and experimenting with heart chocolates this time last year. But I couldn't find the tray I was looking for in Tesco (probably because it was actually sold in Homebase) so I didn't bother.

I wasn't so bothered about it this year. I'd still like to try chocolate making but I'm in no hurry.
I wasn't so bothered until I had a look at the empty trays of Belgian chocolates mum got for her birthday. The trays were nicely patterned and deep enough to act as a mould. Seemed a shame to waste them. Despite being thin plastic they seemed strong enough. There's even two heart shaped parts. I figured I could share them with mum or maybe she could take them to work to show them off to her colleagues. A kind of here have a chocolate. My daughter made these. She's so clever. (Ah. I hate to admit that my self confidence is so low that I seem to need constant validation for things, which explains this idea).

I've also recently seen numerous videos and tutorials involving interesting chocolate making and decorating techniques. I'm quite fond of watching the sweet making kits shown in RRcherrypie's Youtube videos.

So, this weekend I got some chocolate and today I had my first real go at making chocolates. I also got some crushed hazelnuts and flaked almonds for variety. Just as I was about to put the second tray in the fridge Yuki ate the piece of chocolate.

I've just taken them out of the fridge and they look pretty good. An air bubble or two and the colours have merged a little because I didn't cool the first lot of chocolate before putting on the second. But overall they don't look too shabby. I used milk, white, dark and pink strawberry flavoured chocolate and the tray had little patterned wells so it was quite easy to use different chocolate to make a pattern.

Ah well, I'm done now. Bluebiird out.