The Creativities of Jour Fériés

Today is a jour férié, also known as a bank holiday.  My calendar tells me we're celebrating Armistice Day 1918.  On November 11, 1918, the Allies and Germany signed an armistice in Compiègne, France, thereby ending World War I.  So, today, all these years later, everything closes down in memory.
The bad weather has me rained inside, preparing lessons and stories for the coming week (I've also been working on my November Novel a bit!  Actually, no exclamation point belongs at the end of that sentence, because I'm sorry to say, this is my most abysmal novel yet.)  But what I hadn't thought about was the fact that I haven't been grocery shopping in a week, and so, have practically no food.  Here's a view of my refrigerator for any doubters out there.  There's some homemade ranch dressing I attempted, two pieces of badly made apple pie, two pear halves, an old container of lardons and some crême fraîche.  I'm not sure even Jamie Oliver could make anything out of these elements. 

Being Armistice Day, all the grocery stores are closed.  Fortunately, I found a frozen pizza shoved in the freezer, but more than anything, I badly wanted hot cocoa.  So, while I didn't have any packets of cocoa left, I decided to go through my cupboard and try to make cocoa on my own.  ON MY OWN.  That's a big thing for me.
So, off I went to try and make a miracle happen...

With a little cocoa, some sugar, some milk...

...and one failed attempt at whipped cream to put on top...

I finally made myself a fantastic mug of hot cocoa.  Maybe the best I've ever had even.  And, while working on this, I noticed there was a carmalized almond hot cocoa recipe on the back of my cocoa box.  Once the stores open again, I think I'll get really ambitious and see if I can make that!

But word to the wise, it's best not to drink too much cocoa and cream and milk.
Yesterday in class, I was teaching when one of my students pointed out toward the street and said, "Look that pregnant lady is coming."
The woman beside her replied, "That isn't a pregnant lady; that's just a fat lady."
So, better be careful from here on, now that I know that they notice those sorts of things.