Bad mood blondies

On Thursday, someone smashed the rear window of our car. It was parked at the train station and the husband discovered it in dismay at the end of the work day. Nothing was taken, because we leave nothing in the car, which you can tell very plainly from the outside. So whoever did it just to do it.

Frankly, what I find most offensive of all is that the window was smashed not just with any bottle but with a San Pellegrino bottle. Perhaps it was one of the many BMW-drivers who also parks there, someone so repulsed by our car's weathered exterior they had to hurl their sparkling Italian water bottle through the glass. I won't lie to you: it's a 1990 Honda Civic with some serious battle scars. But hideous enough to merit an attack? Not even close.

Anyhow, the incident put me in a bad mood. I'm not a perfect person, but I try to be decent and considerate and not break other people's stuff. But I guess there are plenty of jerks out there looking to steal and vandalize things that belong to someone else just for the thrill of it. It's the kind of small event that can make me feel very down on the human race.

My tactic for occurrences like this it to try not to think about it. It's the old ostrich maneuver, which in plenty of cases is not a good thing (say, when it comes to your job, your relationships, your health) but in certain cases is very appropriate. When you cannot change something and could not have prevented it, you gotta keep on rolling.

Distracting yourself helps. So I decided to bake up some blondies. I love making blondies because they come together in a flash and create hardly any dishes. Plus I love that faintly burnt smell that you get when you blend melted butter and brown sugar.

These are from Mark Bittman. He says chocolate chips are optional, but who are we kidding? Of course, with a whole cup of chips in such a small batch, calling them blondies might be pushing it. But as you know from reading this blog, I'm no purist. I'm of the "do what you like" school of thought and this week, sweet, sticky, melty, chocolate blondies fit the bill.