Monday, December 30, 2013

The Amorphous

"Amorphous" is a Mr. W kind of word. In fact, though I understood the gist of what it meant by his context, I still looked it up.

From Dictionary.com

AMORPHOUS:

a·mor·phous

  [uh-mawr-fuhs] 
adjective
1.
lacking definite form; having no specific shape; formless: the amorphous clouds.
2.
of no particular kind or character; indeterminate; having no pattern or structure; unorganized: anamorphous style; an amorphous personality.
3.
Petrography, Mineralogy occurring in a mass, as without stratification or crystalline structure.
4.
Chemistry not crystalline.
5.
Biology having structural components that are not clearly differentiated, as the nuclear material incertain bacteria.

His context? He referred to some cookies Baby Girl and I made as amorphous.

The cookies in question?

These:


Amorphous is a totally appropriate term. So is blobby (my made-up term for them). Though you can't tell by the picture, these cookies were originally cut with cookie cutters. Perfectly lovely shapes that went into the oven looking precisely what they were, and came out...amorphous. You can kind of see what shapes they were if you look reeeaaally closely and have a good imagination.

Top row, l-r: gingerbread man, reindeer face, stocking
Middle row, l-r: stocking, Christmas tree, shooting star
Bottom row l-r: bell reindeer face, ornament

Yes, go ahead and laugh. I'll wait.

Turns out Baby Girl and I used the wrong sugar cookie dough which turned our Christmas cookies amorphous and not identifiable as having anything to do with the holiday season. But, I have to admit that once the frosting was on and some colored sugar...it didn't matter much what the cookies looked like. They were still delicious.

I hope your holiday baking went off without a hitch. And, oh, you totally know I'm going to use "amorphous" in one of my books. Keep an eye out for it. 

***

PS: The gingerbread men cookies reminded me of a Christmas past and the telling of a love story. If you want a quick smile, go back and read the recounting: http://www.booksbyheather.net/2010/12/pictures-of-day.html

5 comments:

  1. Oh, amorphous is a very good word! I was able to identify the far left cookies of the top and middle row before I saw the list. Once I saw the list I could "see" a couple of the others, but man, some of those shapes were really lost (reindeer heads I NEVER would've guessed!). Like you said, though, frost and decorate and they will be so delicious regardless their shape. Enjoy!

    Cute love story! Made me smile.

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  2. LOL--the reindeer antlers never stood a chance. Vanilla frosting covers a multitude of sins. :)

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  3. You are wrong, their shape is happy.

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  4. I bet they were just as tasty.

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