Good god, y'all. I am relieved, annoyed and pissed off, and it's all (mostly) my own doing.

I've been stressing out about a project for the past week. It was that lovely combination of quick-turn, insanely complicated and high-priority. BUT, it fell on top of like 9 other projects with earlier and less malleable deadlines.

So anyway, I'm already a couple of days behind schedule, and way behind on unearthing the data, and then I look at the email from Big Important Person and realize I didn't even notice a handful of components to it and then I look at the email again and realize that eight or ten big pieces of it were actually tasked to someone else.

So now I'm all relieved that it's not all on me, but pissed that I spent all week stressing about trying to do it all -

And then even more pissed off because what the hell, people? None of you noticed you were assigned any part of this? Because I guarantee I never heard from anybody, and since all the pieces need to come to me (if not be generated by me) I think I might have noticed.

Man, sometimes I just don't know.

What I got from my family were: glass pots, anything with a bowed out or ridged bottom that wouldn't sit right on the glass, and cast-iron. Possibly they were overly cautious about breakage? I don't know. Free pots for me, I didn't ask a lot of questions. I do know they have glass-topped electric stoves, not magnetic induction.

I have a magnetic induction countertop elvish device and it's pretty awesome in August for not heating up the kitchen. I get a lot of satisfaction from knowing that I am cooking with magnetism, mostly. So sci-fi.

How do they work as far as heating food satisfactorily and evenly. From what I've heard about 90% as good as gas. Is that your experience?

It's a long time since I had a gas stove, so I don't think I can make a direct comparison, but I haven't had any problems with uneven heating. And mine can be set to maintain a specific temperature (rather than being set to high, medium, or low) which is nice for deep frying, or simmering something a long time.

So how are the glass pots going to work for you, -t?

The elvish device is in addition to the mundane electric stove that doesn't care what kind of pots I use.

Go not to the elves for cooking, for they will run both hot and cold.

I am so confused. Elven stoves? Do the elves come in and cook for you too, or is this just a stove that utilizes elven technology? I think I need to go see what the previous posts were about.

I love the concept of induction cooktops, but they work best with flat ferrous-metal-bottom pans. None of mine are really flat any more or ferrous. The advantage is that since they heat by exciting the electrons in the metal, the temperature control is very precise and the burner area doesn't get hot.

I hate baking in a gas oven, plus I really prefer electricity, which doesn't explode. Also, the residual combustion products aren't really good for things like asthma.

Do the elves come in and cook for you too, or is this just a stove that utilizes elven technology?

SIGN. ME. UP.

Which reminds me of a recent conversation with Dad:

Me: "Why aren't we a family that got a house elf?"

Dad: "That part of the family disowned us. Plus we moved, so your acceptance letter for Hogwarts got to us a couple years late."