Nothing Says Loving Like Not Really Following the Instructions and Making a Huge Mess

Yesterday Miss Edith had a guest come visit for lunch; very delightful company, a young woman of exceptionally high quality. Smart, vivacious, and she has one important leg up on Miss Edith, which is that she knows how to dance. (Miss Edith is better known for sort of sauntering, which doesn't require actual physical skill.) Our guest enjoys a good cup of hot chocolate, and since it was a grey cold day, I felt moved to produce some for her.

I used a product I'd never tried before, some Nestle Abuelita. These are chunky tablets of cocoa and cinnamon which you melt with hot milk in a blender. What could be easier? (Well, lots of things, but this promised to be better than the easier things. Let's move on.)

I heated the milk and poured it over the tablet in the blender and pressed "puree" or some such button and instantly bespeckled my lovely orange-and-blue-and-green-on-an-ivory-background embroidered tablecloth -- oh yes -- with light brown splotches of hot Abuelita. Hot chocolate on the credit card bills on the kitchen table. Hot chocolate on the estimates we'd gotten for having our beloved cat's teeth cleaned. Hot chocolate on Miss Edith's pink oxford cloth shirt that had the cuffs turned up just so. Hot chocolate on the floor by the water bowl for aforementioned beloved cat. You've never seen hot chocolate in so many interesting places.

"Shit," I said eloquently.

I pressed the blender lid down more tightly and reached for a dishtowel to cover it with while I pressed a less aggressive button. No further disaster ensued, and I poured the frothy mix into mugs, which we enjoyed thoroughly. '

Later, as I began to clean up the blender and hot milk pot and put things away, I noticed a line in the Abuelita instructions which I'd neglected to note before:

"Cover blender lid with towel when blending and only blend on low speed."

Ah.