Jem…Chapter 168

*Before…

She’s smiling at me. “I’m going to make more go juice you want some?”

“Sure I’m going to wash the bedding and do the rest of the laundry but I think I’ll need another mug and your help.”

“My help?”

I grin at her. “I think it’s past time for Starlight Music and Entertainment to copyright Pointer’s Rock.”

Okay it’s way past cool and beautiful the smile that’s on her face because it’s so huge and glowing.

“Actually Angel I’ve already gone and done that for us.”

I can’t help but to mirror her smile. “Okay that’s awesome and maybe it’s time for me to be the one that would be so crushing on you if Rayne and I weren’t together and madly in love.”

Watching her go from beaming to shock to a voosh speed super blush was pretty awesome too.

I actually am that stoked I bounce down the stairs to do the laundry.

*And Now…

Carmen has the basement really tricked out now and it’s actually pretty cool. She has the furnace walled out of sight with plywood that at some point in time she got up and it’s covered with hairstyles and with pages from magazines for like rock and metal bands so it doesn’t really look like plywood and it’s still easy to get at the furnace.

Then there’s a long homemade workbench that dad made that goes along the far wall from the washer, dryer and water heater to the corner and it has been now covered with material from like our band stuff and all the cool stuff that Josie makes. One side has like a long set of like bar styled bathroom mirrors on the wall and all her cosmetics and hair stuff and the swivel tire based bucket seat chair she uses for doing our hair down here.

There’s another chair like it in the far corner where there’s a sewing machine and all the stuff she uses for our outfits and on the wall opposite the laundry stuff are the old school pipe racks for all of our things and she even made this cool little area with one of the small couches/love-seats that was at Dad’s house in front of the washing machine.

It looks really awesome and plus the couch gives like more space to put clothes and fold them and stuff.

But it’s such a far cry from what it was when I moved in here.

I get the laundry started back up for the bedding and then I go through the rest of the house getting everyone else’s and all the towels too and take it down and stay until the bedding spins out and I take it out and put it in the basket and start the next load.

The bedding I take out back to that little back yard and step of ours and put the sheets out on the clothesline while we can still use it.

Mom use to love clothes dried outside and she couldn’t do it too much because of the garage and all the diesel smells and stuff and just remembering the look on her face as she smiles doing it makes me doing it feel nice.

It’s definitely getting to fall though.

Which is actually alright since it’s actually always been my favorite time of the year.

I take a few minute just to take it all in back here too and make a resolution to use this space more.

Then I head inside and get a coffee.

Sort of inspired by the whole fall thing I mix it with some cinnamon and gift it a blast in the microwave getting it really hot and add a little brown sugar and some creamer and then head into the living room where Molly’s at.

“So what did you do to register a trademark for Pointer’s Rock?”

She’s typing and clicking again at warp speeds and she just sort of smiles a little and talks all the way through doing what she’s doing.

“Pretty much what I had to do for all of our other trademarks, you really do need a lot of them when you’re producing art and things like lyrics and music especially with a website too.”

I sit beside her. “Can you show me how?”

She nods into her game? “Just after the raid okay?”

I nod and laugh. “Okay I’m going to make stuff for tonight up and do some cleaning while you’re kicking ass.”

“Good luck.”

She raises her fist absently. “For the horde.”

That actually makes me laugh as I head into the kitchen.

And start making bread dough again and enough of it for bread but also for making cinnamon rolls and some for other rolls like them that I want to try.

And I take out a roast of pork and microwave defrost it and then once it’s out of its package it goes into the slow cooker with carrots and some celery as well an onion and onion soup mix powder and some salt, pepper and garlic. Add some water and I put the lid on and turn it on high so it’s really going to cook.

Then I boil a pot of rice and get it drained and fluffed.

Some will be for dinner but the rest is for supper.

Then I’m panning the bread and letting it rise and making the cinnamon rolls and I make some pumpkin harvest rolls.

The first thing is I make a caramel with leftover coffee and brown sugar. I want the coffee flavor in there and its strength as part of the effect and just a little thicker than syrup.

I roll out the dough and pour it on and smooth it out and let it get tacky and sticky. I follow that up with some canned pumpkin pie filling and I put on a lot of it making it the thickest layer.

Then it’s whizzing up some graham crackers and then shaking them out really liberally onto the dough. Then some Skor bar bits uhm those are a candy bar that’s hard butter toffee that’s coated in chocolate. The bagged baking one are just bits of that toffee with no chocolate, I like them in brownies which was why I originally bought them but…they’re going into my harvest pumpkin rolls recipe. I follow that all up with a layer of brown sugar that I mixed with cinnamon and nutmeg and some salt, I put the salt it because it will spike the sweet flavors and highlight the pumpkin pie filling and the last touches are a drenching in melter butter and a light few shakes of water.

Then like the cinnamon rolls I roll it up like a bakers cake roll and slice off the rolls and pan them and let them take some time to rise up again.

The topping for them is easy because I’m making the cream cheese icing for the regular ones I just make double and for the pumpkin ones I add some lemon juice to add a blast of zip in there and I grate a carrot and toss it and some butter, cinnamon and a little nutmeg in a bowl and into the microwave so the carrot will cook soft and the butter will carry the flavors too and then as I mix it with the cream cheese and icing sugar frosting base I take the zester part of the box grater and grate some tangerine zest into this icing.

Then it’s both icings in the freezer until I need them and the pans of buns into the oven and set the timers.
Happy sigh…that’s done.

I slip out and check on Molly who’s still into her game and I grab some rags and a pail of hot water and just go through the house really quickly and wipe stuff down just getting like dust and well trafficked spots all touched up.

It actually never takes long if you actually stay on top of it.

I know some folks might think it’s such a girl thing but it’s more like growing up in a garage thing.

You get two types of folks and that’s can and does live with grease and grime everywhere and then there’s the ones that don’t.

So you have to stay on top of things.

And it’s a habit.

I head downstairs and switch out the laundry real fast and have the next loads in and then I head upstairs and take the baking out of the oven and put in the second trays.

Okay another pot of fresh coffee.

We make a lot of coffee and that’s more a factor of we have a smallish perk machine and we have more than a few coffee drinkers in the house. Though with this I make it special with two of the bigger mugs and a scoop of coffee ice cream into the bottom and a little coffee creamer and I slowly pour the coffee over the ice cream.

I think the Italians do something like this but I make two and take the icing out of the freezer and take the coffees into the living room.

Molly’s done like the raiding play and now she’s like doing all the leveling stuff like after the fact and she looks up and me and she grins. “That smells really good, actually the whole place smells amazing.”

She sniffs the air again. “Did you clean?”

“I tidied.”

Molly makes a face. “I should’ve helped.”

I shrug. “No biggie.”

“And you baked?”

“I did but I like doing that so it’s not really work.”

She looks at me. “Yeah well for me it was work, it was almost literally at home the shackled to the stove.”

I nod. “I like it because it’s useful and makes everyone happy and I can be creative with it. And….I can’t like draw or paint and things.”

She shakes her head and takes a sip and raises her eyebrows. “This is really good.”

“It’s coffee and I put some cream and coffee ice cream in the bottom then slow poured th coffee over top.”

She’s taking another long sip. “This is really good like coffee place good.”

I sip at mine and savor it. “Thank you and speaking of that would you like a cinnamon roll or a pumpkin spice roll?”

“Pumpkin spice please.”

I go and get one each and I melt the icing in the microwave and pour some over top and take it in and Molly’s eyes widen. “That looks amazing.”

We sit and take the first bites and while I’m not a huge fan of the trend of pumpkin spice it’s because there’s usually not a lot of actual pumpkin to go with this. But these are full of the pumpkin pie filling and there’s the brown sugar and the butter making this gooeyness and the graham crumbs and Skor giving all this extra texture and just this sort of barely there almost brule like taste with it from that coffee caramel I brushed on first and all that richness is cut by the icing which is as usual more cream cheese than sugar but has the pop of the citrus in there and this whole carrot cakey thing too.

Okay I rarely food brag but these are really, really good.

We slowly eat and both just sit back and do that and drink our coffee and just chill for as long as the hot fresh buns last.

And when it’s just down to coffee I ask Molly to show me how she trademarked our phrase “Pointers Rock.”

It turns out it’s a lot like copyrighting a song. Titles for example have to pretty exclusive to not be common use stuff and phrases are like that too. And then there’s doing a copyright search for it to see if someone has done it before and if they have done it before that they still hold it or it was passed to someone else like in a will or something.

Our stuff for example uses our tax number for Starlight Music and Entertainment which is like your government social security or social insurance number for your business which I had made up and everything from our banking and everything.

It’s actually really, really cool because Molly has it all down on files and even printed out stuff too in a couple of binders and with our music copyrights and our songs and our other credentials we’re as a business looking more and more together especially with us being a band.

And with the website stuff and the links to all of our stuff we’re pretty googlable and able to be checked out.

And for future use Molly actually shows me our numbers for doing this myself and how to get onto and use the Canadian Intellectual Properties Office which is actually in the whole Gov of Canada website were you go to look at taxes and things like GST/HST and all of that stuff and more.

And I know that this is going to sound really, really geeky but I sit down and I click up in the corner to take me to the Gov of Canada main page and I just start looking and reading the business section first and while it’s not school it’s got so much ere and I start reading.

Actually I go and do the last bit of laundry and then pull the rolls out and set things out to cool and then I sit down and seriously start to read things on the site and even pulling a notepad over and start making notes of things to look up more on and then stuff like taxes for the band and employee insurance for the band and health insurance for the band…seriously I know Canada has really decent healthcare but it doesn’t cover a lot of drugs and it doesn’t cover dental or eyewear and a lot of other things.

And some of these premiums we can put on the cards I think and then pay them off and maybe even like claim some of them as like business expenses.

I bookmark the pages I still want to look at and then switch over to grants and bookmark than stuff too and then permits and things and bookmark that as well before going to the Harper’s Point City Hall Website and start looking there especially at building codes and permits.

We need an office and the landlord was very cool about letting us do things and the garage/shed outside in really old and like from the sixties I’d say by the look of the paint and shingles.

Build?

Build and add onto the house?

Maybe look for an old trailer/mini-home that we can renovate into an office.

Actually that sounds pretty smart it’d have rooms and a bathroom and a little kitchenette and the living room we could actually use for meetings maybe.

But that would cost a lot I think.

We’re so going to have to have another band meeting and talk all of this stuff through.
I was really into that when I hear the vehicles pulling in with Brooklyn and Kimmie but Mike and Carmen catching a ride with him.

Okay that went by really fast.

I get up and stomp feeling back into my legs and head to the kitchen.

I kinda know what’s going to happen so I get up and make a quick count in my head and take one pan of the pumpkin harvest rolls and half of one pan of the cinnamon rolls and put them in wax paper and into several Tupperware containers to take to The Pine Tree tonight.

The rest I leave out and I start supper which is me pouring off the liquid from the roast in the slow cooker into a Dutch oven and getting it hot and to a boil and I scoop out the veggies and sort of mash them into the liquid and get out the rice that I made.

It becomes a pot of stir fried rice pretty fast and half the meat goes into the rice and the other half I do pulled styles with just a little bottled Chinese VH pineapple sauce drizzle over it and a bowl of washed but fresh bean sprouts on the side and a little green onion tossed on top.

And…I write needed things down on the magnet pad that’s on the fridge of stuff I want and we’re out of.

And then the house is full of voices and life and laughing and I hear Kimmie saying stuff smells amazing and I’m smiling as I lean in the kitchen doorway. As busy as this all can get I actually do enjoy it when we’re all together and supper’s ready and we’re getting things just y’know right.

We’re all getting things together and Mike comes over and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “Hey.”

“Hey back you, how was school?”

He shrugs. “Classes were okay, Adam and company were there today and being their usual.”

“Ouch, so who’s the new victim?”

“No one concrete but pretty much everyone that’s not in his crew.”

I frown.

Mike nods. “He’s definitely busy though with something I don’t know if it’s legit stuff for his label but he was on his phone and texting and doing stuff a lot today.”

“It could be legit; I’m getting to see where a lot of the business stuff has a whole lot of work and things to it.”

Mike nods again. “But….it is Adam.”

I nod. “Yeah I’ll assume he’s up to doing stuff that’s no good.”

“Safest bet.”

I nod and I see Carmen coming down freshly changed from her school stuff and in comfy jeans and a band t-shirt and she comes in and she gets a glass of orange juice and leans on the kitchen counter with a sigh.

“Bad day?”

She nods. “Still detoxing but it was a combination of that and all the homework that I missed and dealing with the cunt squad.”

I’m glad I wasn’t taking a drink then and it’s kinda mean but yeah I get who she means.

“They might be in the same fix as you were.”

She nods. “I’m still in that mess really though aren’t I in a way. But there are some of them Angel that aren’t being caught up in his games and they legit want to be that way and toady up to Adam.”

I look at her. “Did he bother you?”

“No, he was pretty self-absorbed today but Justin wasn’t.”

“What’d he do?”

“He cornered me in one of the bathrooms and said that my dyke ass had better find that cousin of yours before Adam doesn’t have any more use for me.”

I look at her. “He threatened you?”

“No just that but he was really in that quiet and angry zone when he said it all, y’know like he was hinting hard that something might happen.”

I exhale hard and look at her. “I’m sorry.”

Carmen shrugged. “It wasn’t you it’s them, and Justin’s a fucking bully anyhow he’s got a mean streak six feet wide. And this, this was bound to happen because it’s not like I’m directly under their thumb anymore and that all by itself is just enough to piss them off.”

I chew my thumb a little. “Are you sure, I don’t want you in danger.”

She looks at me and at Mike. “We’re all in danger Angel; Adam’s a rich bastard from a family of rich bastards that have been doing this shit like generation after generation. I’ll watch it but that’s like all I can do, it’s all we can do short of something big and out in the open with the cops.”

And Mike’s like. “We can’t do that if we want to actually save everyone and nail his ass.”

I look at him. “What do we do?”

He sighs. “Right now…you make a call…talk to Uncle Bobby and see what he thinks.”

I nod. “Okay that’s the best course of things.”

I let out another hard sigh and I look at the clock.

“Rayne’s late.”