A recipe for Sunday morning

We accidentally lived in Texas for five years, and had a lovely time. One kid and a baby. Times were good. I should have appreciated things more.

While we were out there, my two best old-time friends came out to spend a week. We went to Dallas to the Farmer's Market, which is the damnedest place I have ever been in my life...heaven on earth...and came home with all sorts of goodies, which we ate within 24 hours because OMG!!! Too, too good.

While they were there, I made these biscuits. These are NOT what we in Alabama consider biscuits. They are...delicacies. Pleasures. Delightful. This recipe came straight from a book called The Farm Market Cookbook, by Judith Olney.

Dencia Hunter's Apple and Cream Biscuits

4 cups fresh self-rising flour (Martha White or Gold Medal)
1/2 cup sugar
1 stick margarine
1 cup raisins
1 cup walnuts or pecans, broken into pieces
2 big Red Delicious apples, peeled, cored & diced
1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
2-1/2 tablespoons cinnamon mixed with 2 tablespoons sugar

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
2 tablespoons butter
3 ounces cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups sifted confectioners sugar

Preheat the oven to 425. Lightly grease a baking pan.

Here is how to measure the flour: Pour 4 rough cups of flour into a large bowl. Stir the flour to aerate it. Scoop it into a dry measuring cup and scrape the flour level with the blade of a knife. Measure your 4 cups this way.

Stir the sugar into the flour. Cut the margarine into slices and add it to the flour. Work the margarine into the flour with your fingertips or a pastry cutter until it disappears.

Add the raisins, nuts and apples and toss lightly in the flour.

From now on, work very gently and never knead. Sprinkle the condensed milk over the dough ingredients and turn them briefly with a spoon or your fingers--never mind if not everything gets wet. As you are gently turning the dough, sprinklethe cinnamon in swirls.

Pat the dough together. Cut the biscuits with a 3-inch cutter.

Place the biscuits on the baking pan and bake for 12 minutes. Remove and cool briefly.

When just warm, prepare the frosting: Melt the butter and cream cheese over low heat. Stir in the vanilla and then the sifted confectioners' sugar. Add a few drops of water if necessary to make a thick, drizzling frosting.

Drip the frosting over the biscuits. Serve while still warm.

(I didn't use raisins because I don't like raisins in baked stuff...I don't think it made much difference and I might try dried cranberries next time. We ate these with ham and fresh fruit. Funny...I can't tell you where I was Tuesday of last week but this breakfast? I can smell it as I type.)

Busted: Crimes Against Publishing

Last night I was all hunkered-down in my reading chair. Feet up, glass of 2005 Ribera del Duero at my side (shout out to the entire country of Spain: I love your wine! Have you ever considered sponsoring a blog?), a half-read copy of "The Reader" in my left hand, a kitten batting at my right.

Around the corner comes Hubster, he stops to survey the scene of domestic tranquility and I'm pretty sure he's thinking loving thoughts and feeling the marital bliss.

Then his face fell.

And with that the tranquility was shattered.

"You can't DO that!"

Do what? Drink and read? Oh, hell yes I can.

"What?"

"You can't skip to the end of the book! I just don't know how you DO that. That's just wrong."

I look down at the book. Sure enough, I've given myself away by inserting a finger where I've left off (midpoint) while reading the last page.

I give myself a mental kick in the ass. Time to go on defense.

"Where is it written that I can't skip to the end? You flip through magazines back-to-front."

"That's different."

"Is it?"

"If the author wanted you to know how the book ends when you're only half-through, he'd have put the end in the middle and then flashed-back... Are you really that impatient?"

Truth be told, much of the time I am that impatient. But there is a method to this breaking of The Reading Rules.

"Look, if I get half-way through a book and am not completely in love with it, I skip to the last chapter. If I like the way the book ends, I go back, read the second half, fill in the details and then reread the last chapter in its rightful place - at the end.

If I don't like the way the book ends, I set it aside and take another from The Giant Shelves of Unread Books.

If I love the book, I read it in the order intended by the author."

:: Another doubtful look and an exit ::


So the part of the "The Reader" - and I don't think I'm giving anything away here, because the commercial for the movie shows this scene - I'm struggling with is the courtroom scene.

I've already - 100 pages ago - figured out The Big Secret. Also, the back-and-forth between prosecuting attorney, defending attorney, judge and defendant isn't nearly as interesting in print as it is on the big screen. And it's in Germany, and it's 40 years ago and I'm frustrated that Hanna can't speak up for herself in the courtroom the way a modern American would.

All this led me to skip to the last chapter - and to get busted.

I didn't pick this book. This is a Book Group book. I'm slogging my way through, but I need a little help. I need to know how it ends. At least I'm not skipping the book and just watching the movie.

So I'll give you all one guess as to my favorite shot in "When Harry Met Sally."

Yes, I have a favorite shot, a favorite scene, a favorite line, a favorite song. I have ovaries. The movie was released when I was 22 years old. I was susceptible...and I've watched it about 40 times since then.

My favorite is the quick little part that shows Harry starting a new book and then immediately flipping to the last page. The phone rings, Sally asks him what he's doing, and he says, "I was just finishing a book."

My hero.

Friday Funny: "Try Not To Think About It"

Gentlemen, please show a bit of restraint in the Comment Section.
No jokes about swallowing....

Source: This is Indexed

Top ten reasons my (Methodist) children go to Catholic school...

Today was Field Day. If you are a child, this is A Big Damn Deal and your Mama packs a Super Lunch. Ham and cheese, with separate lettuce and tomato so your sandwich doesn't get soggy. Watermelon. Little Debbie Cakes you aren't normally allowed to have. Sliced cucumbers. Chips. Eat or share, doesn't matter. Because it's such a long day? Your mom packs your lunch in a special cooler. Because she loves you.




















Then, your mom shows up two hours late because the OTHER kid was up texting all night long and couldn't get her act together. And when your mom DOES show up? The teachers are lovin' it. Absolutely lovin' it. Because when you sent your kid with this really cool lunch?

Guess what you left in the front pouch.






There's a reason I'm the most popular mom on the sidelines. I have ice, too.

Hump Day Place Holder

CG1 and I are crazy busy today.
Or just feeling extremely lazy.

Accept that you'll never know the truth and enjoy this image, selected just for you by our crack team of double entendre and innuendo scouts.

Head's Up

If you follow our good friend Mel at Taking What's Left - and if you don't, you should - she's moved over to Wordpress.

The link to her new place, Colorful Metaphors, is on our blog roll at left.

And she's having a blog-warming party, with prizes and everything.

Go visit. Have a drink. Peek in her medicine cabinet...you know the party routine.

The Ultimate Salesman

Last week a local merchant died in a private plane crash - those of you who live here know who he is - we'll call him Mike, who owned Mattress Town.

His obit appears in today's newspaper...it closes with this line.

"In lieu of flowers, Mike asks that you shop at Mattress Town."

Mike is dead. Mike died a week ago. He asks that you shop at Mattress Town? Really?

So what the writer of the obit wants us to believe is that Mike's spirit, rather than ascending (or descending) to its final resting place, stuck around to make sure the quarterly sales goals are met.

Now that is dedication.

Hub read that to me this morning. I told him he must have read it incorrectly. He read it again. I double-checked. I'm stubborn that way. Sure enough: In lieu of flowers, Mike asks that you shop at Mattress Town. I'm still sitting here shaking my head over it.

I can't decide if this is creepy or funny or just plain, old-fashioned tacky.

I met Mike on several occasions and, honestly, he just didn't seem like that aggressive a salesman to me. So is he spinning in his grave over the fact that his business partner is trying to cash in on his headline-making demise?

If this isn't a typo, and that is actually the case, and if I were Mike? I would haunt that bastard's ass to within an inch of his sanity... but that's just me. Even in heaven - or, more likely, purgatory - where I'd have plenty of other things to deal with, I just don't think I could let that go.

Maybe he's just relieved to finally be out of the mattress business? Who the hell knows.

"Ebeneeeeeezer...."

Image Credit: The Onion.

Leaving Las Vegas

Subhead: The Good, The Bad and the Ripe

Sub-subhead: I Hate Vegas but I Have to Go to Las Vegas (bitch moan, bitch moan)
Episode 3.

(Ironic Spoiler Alert: If we were paralleling Star Wars, this would be the movie in which Anakin is lured to the dark side)

Flashback: The last installment of I Hate Vegas found me in a FABulous room at the Venetian hotel feeling guilty for dreading the annual pilgrimage to Lost Wages.

In the episode before that I obsessed over Sin City doorknobs and STDs.

Okay, so the verdict is...that this trip was not so bad. As a matter of fact, it turns out that the fourth time is actually the charm. Not that it went completely, perfectly smoothly... that would have torn apart the fabric of time and space, creating a black hole and you'd all be interstellar spaghetti right about now (paging Dr. Who, Dr. Who....).

The Good:
Obviously, my room. I Love. The Venetian.
There was nothing about this hotel I didn't like. The doormen were lovely, the restaurants were very good, the casino was more than tolerable...even the freaking bath soap was fabulous. And yes, four bars found their way home with me. I'm not normally a klepto, I don't have a vast collection of shower caps pilfered from hotels around the world, but this stuff...the whole hotel smells like bitter orange and clove - I think it's because everyone is walking around with bars of soap shoved into their pockets.

The other good thing was the trade show: We got better results from fewer, more interesting people. What's not to love about that?

And speaking of interesting people...Don't you love when you randomly meet people with whom you absolutely click? Like you've known them for years and you're just picking up a conversation that was left off when you saw them last month? I met three people like that and they absolutely made my trip: Cute Boy 1 who could be the fraternal twin of The Only Boy Who Ever Broke My Heart...which freaked me out for about 5 seconds. Then he opened his mouth and I became convinced he was the younger brother my mother never told me about. Made me wonder if my dad had visited Idaho in 1976. Total mind meld. Very freaky. Very cool.

Same thing with Cute Boy 2 - so much in common that I was almost afraid I was actually in some B Movie where somebody studied my life and then showed up to gaslight me and I go insane and he steals my inheritance...Okay, so the insane came factory-installed, and my people are blue collar not blue blood, but you know what I mean. Click.

And again with Awesome Girl who has a job like my brilliant friend "H" who works for the government but can't actually tell you what she does. On day two we were finishing each other's sentences...the coolest part is that she actually gets to Huntsville now and then and will be here in August. Weird, no?

Oh, yeah, the other good thing? I won $1,000 on a slot machine. Did I mention that? Did I MENTION that I actually won money in a casino? When I took my little $1,000 ticket up to the cashier, I asked him what I needed to do to get the money - like do a little dance - or if he was just going to, you know, give it to me. He gave it to me. No strings. I went straight back to the room at that point...and slept on my $1,000 winnings. I shit you not.

The Bad:
Sleep deprivation, bloody nose, dehydration... par for the trade show course.

Also, it's too soon to know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but our Chief Technical Officer - third in line to the corporate thrown - walks up to me, totally out of left field, and asks me if it's true that I like bourbon and cigars....Um, yes? I mean, "Yes. Yes I do." And he just looked at me and then walked away. Time will tell....

The Ripe:
Oh, Lord....So I sat next to this odd little guy on the flight back home. We were on the bulkhead row - the first row of Chattel Class where you're pressing your nose into the glass of First Class...can smell the hot food and hear the clinking of the glass glasses...but can't actually enjoy it. You're stuck making the most of .00025 ounces of peanuts and swilling warm, $4 beer from a plastic hospital cup. This is also known as The Charon Row.

Anyway, so halfway through the flight Odd Guy falls asleep, and lets slip the gaseous byproduct of - what could only have been - the monster burrito with diablo sauce he had for lunch.

Holymotherofgodinheaven it was...not human. I don't know what it was. My eyes watered. I zipped my little travel fleece as far up as it would go and buried half my face down into it.

Then I panicked.

What if everyone thought I was responsible for releasing the mustard gas?

Forget Snakes on a Plane, this was All Quiet on the Western Front.

I've never been so happy to be sitting directly beside the airborne outhouse. I convinced myself that due to our proximity to the communal in-flight shitter, my neighbors would think someone had been sick dans la toilette and not pummel me with their buckwheat neck pillows.

Like I've said before: Business travel is sooooo glamorous...The moral of this story, though, is that I will not - NOT - bitch about having to go back to Vegas next year. Hear me now and believe me later: My mind is wiiiide open.

(Ahem. I can hear the doubt from here....you'll see).

Pickled Garlic Seeds...who'd a thunk it?

This is the view out my kitchen window, and look what I found over at Gothamist. I just love it when that happens.

Recipe of the Week: Pickled Garlic Seeds

After garlic scape season is over, garlic flowers are ready, full of garlic seeds. You don't usually see these at the greenmarkets unless you ask a kind farmer to bring them in for you, but if you do, they are just wonderful, a rare treat.

The garlic flowers are bursting with seeds like tiny cloves of garlic, packed all around the surface of the spherical flower. When you get them home, it takes some work to pull the seeds off the flowers, but you can pickle and can them and enjoy the tiny intense bursts of flavor for the rest of the year.

Pickled Garlic Seeds(from Baconbit of Greenmarket Report, who adapted it from The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich)

1/2 C white wine vinegar
1/2 C white wine
1 small dried chile pepper
1 small thyme sprig
1 small rosemary sprig
1 small bay leaf
10 black peppercorns
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp pickling salt (a finely ground salt with no additives; you can use an equivalent amount by weight of kosher salt instead)
1 C garlic seeds

Put all of the ingredients except for the garlic seeds into a large non-reactive saucepan. Bring to a boil, then gently boil for 5 minutes. Add the garlic seeds, then return to a boil, cover the pan, and remove from heat.

Let stand at room temperature for 24 hours.

Sterilize canning jars in boiling water, then set out to dry a bit.
Bring the pickle to a boil again, then divide the seeds and the liquid among your sterile jars.
Process the jars in boiling water for at least 15 minutes, then set them out on the counter. As the jars cool, you can hear the lids pop down as the vacuum seal is formed in each. Store them in a cool dark space, and wait at least a week before tasting.



(And yes, those are last year's tomato cages, full of weeds. I moved to the front this year. Haven't gotten around to cleaning those up. It happens.)

Friday Funnier

That Friday Funny was just...Meh.

Let's try again.

Friday Funny

That history thing...

When you're in school and you're learning about...I don't know, George Washington Carver or Hood's army or the instigation of the assembly line, you're always asking, "Why do I need to know this?" And at the time, it doesn't seem to make sense. Later on they tell you that if you don't remember history, it's destined to repeat itself. Specifically, the mistakes will come back to haunt you.

Well, let me tell you what you need to be paying attention to because this is the stuff of NIGHTMARES. Today? I am horrified at the revival of the SpongeBob ass. When we were in high school, everyone was really skinny and I'm not making that up. I checked the pictures. And at some point when we were about...16? Fourteen? Hip huggers were invented. And we all wore these really low-slung, big-legged pants. With "body suits," which were shirts that buttoned at the crotch so you had a long, lean line. Looking back, this is the ugliest thing I have ever seen. It made your legs look short and your hips look wide, only...we didn't have any hips so it sort of worked. Not a lot but if you look back...we still looked skinny.

Fast forward to today and OMG!!! SpongeBob ass!!! It's everywhere! If you put on "low riding" jeans, and you are bigger than a size four, your ass is square in those jeans. Don't get in front of a mirror and twist around to see...that makes your waist smaller. Get a picture of yourself straight-on from behind and...YOU HAVE A SQUARE, FLAT ASS. Doesn't matter how you're made...you look like SpongeBob!

I have yet to see ANYONE wearing low-slung jeans who didn't look like an overloaded pickup truck. Back-end dragging close to the ground and no angel in sight. (Bonnie Raitt)

What set me off? I walked into a store the other day looking for a plain pair of sandals with no glitter and no baubles and no extra accessories intended to piss me off and there, right inside the front door, no lie, was...........MAXI DRESSES.

Say it ain't so.

At least when we wore maxi-dresses, we were imitating the hippies from the decade before us. But if you think wearing an ankle-length dress in loud colors makes you look like anything other than a shower curtain that just got out of bed? Go back and look at the pictures. "What's old is new again" only works if what's old needed repeating.

Maxi-dresses and low-slung jeans got dumped for a reason. Let them rest in peace.

I'm gonna call my mama and see if she has pictures. That stuff was UGLY.

I hope it all comes out in the wash...

...that would be, what happens to these kids.

The Not Nice Kid is an awesome athlete and I don't say that because I'm her mom. Her mom? Can't run and spit at the same time and wouldn't know a grand slam if it showed up in the pasta salad. I follow directions.

She had a make-up soccer game last night...we really are in the process of building arks here because of the rain. And we won, 3-1, and she scored our three goals which is why she's the top-ranked player in this league. Girls and boys. Great game. Good competition.

We came home, fixed supper, did homework, took baths and went to bed. Life is good. We won. She fought hard.

And then TNNK proceded to play soccer ALL NIGHT LONG. The first time she woke up in a panic she came and got in bed with me and The Big Boy went to her bed. (There's not enough room.) And then she worked that soccer field for the rest of the night. She kicked and fought and ran and stole and at one point? Sat straight up in back and yelled, "Keep your positions!" and then turned over and played some more. Long about 2 a.m., she had a nightmare that woke her up and kept her up until six this morning, when she fell back asleep. And it's the nightmare that has me wondering...WTF? (I did let them sleep in and checked her in at ten.)

The nightmare consisted of TNNK, me and The Big Boy. And we were somewhere and some guy shows up on a motorcycle and tries to steal me. And I climbed up on the roof of a truck and turned around and yelled at TNNK and TBB: "Someone do something before all hell breaks loose!" And the guy on the motorcycle steals me and we ride away and they come after him and beat him up and get me back.

Jesus Christ.

Either we have the perfect storybook life (interspersed with profanity) where there's a heroine and a bad guy and a hero, or this kid is smoking stuff I didn't know we had. When I finally dropped them off at school this morning? I came home and had cheese and salami and wine for breakfast because...my day's not just startin'.

I'm done and it's not noon yet.

Do y'all know I'm 53 years old? And this kid is NINE?

Red Label Bud

Me: "We're Rednecks, aren't we?"
Hub: "Ah...No. We definitely are not Rednecks."
Me: "Are you sure? Because it seems to me like we're Rednecks, and maybe I'm just in denial."
Hub: - garbled sound -
Me: "If you KNOW we're Rednecks, but you're keeping it from me, you need to come clean...because I'm pretty sure we're Rednecks.
Hub: "I have no words."
Me: "Because we're Rednecks and I've finally figured it out and now you're dumbstruck."
Hub: - more garbled noises -

So, you know how some days you look in the mirror and think, "My GAWD, I'm ugly. How did I get like this? I think, at some point, I used to be cute. What the hell happened?"

I call these Ugly Days and they are usually remedied by throwing away all of my old makeup and helping someone at the Clinique counter make her daily sales quota, or by completely changing the color of my hair, or by buying several pairs of new shoes.

I had my first Ugly House Day the other day.

The kitchen renovation - 19 months later - STILL is not complete.

The windows need reglazing. How can I tell? Panes of freaking glass are falling out of our 60-year-old six-over-sixes. I get a breeze without opening the window. THAT's how.

The yard is a DISASTER: unmulched beds filling with poison ivy. Untrimmed hedges growing out into the street, unpruned shrubs growing up over windows. Our house looks like a hermit lives there. Of course, it has rained every freaking weekend for the past two months, so it's been tough to do yard work, but...don't Rednecks always have excuses?

Note to Mel: I did remove the tape from the windows we painted two months ago. You shamed me. Thanks for the intervention. I needed that.

This is not right. My sister would not live like this. My mother would not live like this. Granted, they are stay-at-home sorts of people, which is wonderful, but while I mostly work from home that doesn't mean that I can just run outside and trim the hedge in the middle of the day. Because I'm, you know, working.

During the week I rarely have enough free time to beat down the cobwebs let alone paint the garage - the NAKED garage. The poor garage whose cheap, crappy paint was slopped on by previous owners and has long since washed away. I am convinced this house was inhabited by gypsies before we moved in.

So today I checked into the Venetian in Las Vegas - see previous posts if you are confused as to how I truly feel about Vegas (ugh). Except that this time, when the hotel room door closed behind me, I said - out loud and to no one - Holy SHIT!

The room...the suite...for I am in a King Suite is to. die. for. Those pictures above? My hand to God, they were taken with my telephone camera, not downloaded from the Interwebs.

Hell, if every room I had in Vegas looked like this, I'd like this place a WHOLE a lot more.

So this is how "the other half" lives. Except that the other half is actually only The Other Twelve Percent. Especially in this economy - which is how my company could afford such kick-ass rooms. Apparently hotels are giving them away.

I am here for a week. A Week. This room is amazing. I may never leave.

The bad news is this: the problem at home, clearly, is NOT that I've forgotten how to appreciate my surroundings. I clearly am still able to recognize and appreciate beauty and luxury. Which just reinforces for me that Hub and I live like freakin' hillbillies.

Something. Must. Be. Done.

Friday Funny

They keep telling me I need to get out more...

...I'm beginning to believe they may be on to something.

It started a couple of weeks ago, when we had to be somewhere at two o'clock on a Sunday afternoon. On the way we stopped at Bojangles for fried chicken because...it's Sunday. And ain't no WAY The Mama is frying chicken because it's not the chicken-frying that's the problem. It's getting the fried okra, mashed potatoes, biscuits & gravy and chicken all ready at the exact same split second. And while I CAN do it, I don't. (Unless it's your birthday. And it wasn't.) So when we got ready to leave, I got up to refill my tea and The Big Boy said, "Get us a go-box."

No big deal. I'll get the box. Only I couldn't find it. Looked all around the cups and the tea and the napkins and setups and lids and straws and I'm telling you, there were no boxes. When I got back to the table and explained that? They looked at me like I was crazy and TBB said, "You really need to get out more."

At which point The Not Nice Kid got up and went to the counter and asked for a go-box. Imagine that.

I have two beautiful butcher blocks in my kitchen. One about 30 inches long and the other 36. I LOVE my butcher block and no, we've never gotten food poisoning from using them. Get over it. They were getting a little dry looking and one of them has a small split at one end, so off I went to get mineral oil to restore them because I don't know what happened to the other bottle. There's a good chance I used it all and just wasn't paying attention. Or an errant child could have used it to start a fire. THAT'S happened before.

Okay. The catch to this story? I am 53 years old and have been living in rural Alabama for most of my life and...I did not know that mineral oil is used for a laxative. Never heard, read it and I SURE didn't imagine it. SHOULDN'T DRINKING THAT STUFF KILL YOU? Mineral oil? What in the hell is mineral oil made from? Where do they get it? What did they do to...minerals?...to make them give up oil? There can't be anything NATURAL here, can there?

So I just walked into Dumbass Mode. Bigger than hell.

I went to the hardware section and started through the paint thinners and restorers and polishes, and there wasn't any mineral oil. That irritated me because that meant I had to walk all the way across RetailHell to the furniture polish in the grocery section. Wrong. Wasn't there, either. Okay, this store carries fifty million items and this is NOT a strange request so WHERE THE HELL IS THE MINERAL OIL? It's just a butcher block! Why does this have to be so complicated? I started getting a mite testy.

But it was, complicated, so after I nosed around for a little bit I finally found someone who worked there and asked...Where's the mineral oil? And when the nice boy says, "In health and beauty," MY clueless ass said, "What is it doing over there? This stuff was shriveled when I left...after I've walked WalMart for the afternoon it's probably BRITTLE by now."

I really did. Say that. The look on that boy's face SHOULD have told me I was...wandering in strange waters. But I wasn't having a really empathetic day so I didn't notice anything. In hindsight? Don't you know he went home and studied even harder so he could GET OUT OF RETAIL? Where all the nuts are?

Got myself over to health and beauty. Now, keeping in mind that I'M looking for wood products, I had no clue where to start. No idea. I wandered around a little bit...checked out the lotion.

Not there.

Checked out (and you have to admit, at least I was getting warm) the feminine/reproductive products.

Not there.

At this point, keeping in mind HOW CLUELESS I STILL WAS, I marched up to the pharmacy counter and when the nice lady got there, I unloaded.

"I have been hiking through this store for what seems like a significant portion of my life, and all I need is some mineral oil. And I realize that some clueless someone somewhere dictates all this placement stuff but...it's not where it should be. When I left home this morning I had a minor problem that only needed moisturizing but at the rate I'm going by the time I find the mineral oil the only thing I'm going to have left are some hard little chips."

Hard little chips. I said, "hard little chips." I stood there, ranting to a pharmacy assistant, and used the term "hard little chips." Because the only thing I knew you did with mineral oil was moisturize a butcher block.

It was right there. Next to the Preparation H and similar items. On the bottom shelf, costing about a dollar.

I said, "hard little chips." To an intelligent stranger.

It wasn't until TBB picked up the bottle and asked, "What the hell did you buy THIS for?" that someone explained things to me. It's even on the bottle..."lubricant/laxative." I just never noticed it before.

The good thing that comes out of this is that, obviously, I WON'T EVER BE ABLE TO STEP FOOT IN THAT STORE AGAIN. And next time? I'll just get myself to the Rite-Aid and avoid a lot of grief.


But now I'm divided between...do I really need to get out more? Or do you people need to be questioning WHY THE HELL YOU'RE DRINKING MINERAL OIL? Because from where I sit, I think I'll stay home. People who drink mineral oil probably have sterno with spam. And mouthwash with Pop Tarts.

I Know It Isn't Friday, BUT....

Overheard

The Scene:
The buffet table at a Mexican restaurant.

The Setup:
Everyone at the restaurant belongs to the same professional organization.

The Players:
One very frosted blonde 45-ish-year-old wearing a tight Alabama football t-shirt and tighter blue jeans. We'll call her Candy.

One brunette 45-ish-year-old wearing a long, knit, halter dress and accessories. We'll call her Ruth.

Scene 1
:: Ruth is filling her plate with rice and beans at the buffet before joining the rest of the group in the banquet hall::

:: Candy is reaching into the same pan of rice and beans before joining her friends at the bar::

:: Candy looks up and sees Ruth::

CANDY: OMG! OMG! Ruth! I didn't RECOGNIZE you!

RUTH: You didn't?

CANDY: OMG. Nooooooo.

RUTH: Um...well, I look just the same as I always have.

CANDY: No you DON'T! You SO don't!! You look GREAT!

:: crickets::

Aside: The woman digging into the pan of cheesy beef enchiladas with me stops dead. I freeze. We glance up at Candy, then at each other, drop our spoons and walk away in opposite directions. Neither wanting to witness what might come next.

Scene 2
For the next four hours, Ruth dances around the bar-area, working hard to avoid Candy. I believe if she gets too close she will stab Candy in the eye with the business end of a tortilla chip.

Candy remains oblivious, watching NASCAR (Darlington. Night race.) sucking down Bud Selects and loudly passing judgement on everyone at the bar.

END

Unfortunately, I was not in possession of the equipment necessary to flatten Candy's tires. You know, just to help along Karma a little bit.

Ruth, my sister, I'll never leave home without drywall screws again.

Image Credit: http://www.manbottle.com/picture_library/blonde_wish...

What With All This COOKING Going On

Okay, so the NPFPE site is not down as planned...but it isn't being updated either. All updates will, henceforth, be posted right here.

However, our favorite cooking blogs are now represented (represent!) on this blogroll and we're going to add features to the sidebar entitled "Our Favorite Recipes" and "Our Favorite Posts." Stay Tuned.

"So WHY, CityGirl, did the content not get moved?" Glad you asked. Nice segue. Thanks for that.

Because, like you, gentle readers, I had 150 hours worth of chores to execute this weekend, and only 48 hours in which to get it all done. And just to slow things down we are still experiencing precipitation of BIBLICAL proportion.

Will it EVER stop raining in Alabama?

This cannot be good for the cotton. We're going to have to plant rice if it keeps up....

Anyhoodle, since I took a cut in salary in exchange for the luxury (not a wisp of sarcasm there, I promise you) of working from home, I've been slaving over a hot stove at breakfast, lunch and dinner anywhere from 4 to 6 days a week.

In an effort to maintain my weak grasp on sanity, I cook as much as I can on Sundays and then rework, reheat and reconfigure for the next few days.

Yesterday I roasted a chicken and threw it in the fridge; marinated, grilled and sliced a flank steak - threw it in the fridge; made Asian slaw with homemade ginger dressing - fridge; made fresh hummus and baked chips from stale pita bread (that's all for lunches this week, although we did have the steak and slaw with mashed sweet potatoes for dinner last night).

Today, on my lunch break, I will make a batch of blueberry pancakes (freezer) to throw into the toaster oven for breakfasts this week and bake a lemon-poppy seed bundt cake for desserts and lunchbox treats. For dinner tonight? Greek Risotto.

The best part? All those ingredients, for a week's worth of excellent - if I do say so myself - eating...cost less than $100.

I ask you, who has time to rework blogs?

Greek Risotto

1+ lbs Large Shrimp/Prawns, cleaned and cut in half (the more, the merrier)
Olive Oil
1 Onion, medium, chopped finely
2 Cloves Garlic, minced
1 cup Risotto/Arborio Rice
1 cup White Wine
1 cup Water
3 cups Chicken Stock
1 10-oz package chopped Spinach
1/2 tsp Oregano, dried
1/2 tsp Mint, dried
1/2 cup Feta Cheese

Add oil to medium-hot stock pot, to cover bottom.
Add shrimp, saute 3-5 minutes, and remove.
Lower heat to medium, add onion and cook - stirring - until translucent, about five minutes.
Add oil if pan looks dry.
Add garlic and cook until it beings to color, 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly.
Add rice, combine with onion and garlic and cook until all liquid/oil is absorbed, about 2 minutes.
Add wine and cook, stirring, until absorbed.
Add stock and water, 1/2 cup at a time, letting liquid absorb before next addition.
STIR CONSTANTLY.
With the last addition of stock, add spinach, oregano and mint, stir to combine.
Remove from heat.
Add shrimp and cheese, stir to combine.
Taste for seasoning, adjust as necessary - should not need much salt, as the Feta is quite salty.

PS - Things I did not accomplish this weekend included NOT finishing my book club novel, NOT finishing the apron I'm supposed to have ready for someone on Wednesday, NOT starting my Ravelry knit-along project, NOT getting tomatoes planted and NOT removing the tape from the front window we painted two MONTHS ago, which drives me outofmyeverlovingmind every time I pull into the driveway.

I don't THINK so...

It came a little while ago. The call that...the first few years you're a mom? Makes you smile and get all soft inside. A few years later, the call makes you feel appreciated but you also close your eyes and take a deep breath...as you remind yourself, they DO love you.

Then, after motherhood has lost the "new car smell" and reality and broken Waterford and left-on-all-night outdoor water faucets have introduced you to reality, as opposed to baby powder sweetness, motherhood takes on a WHOLE new meaning.

Meaning as in, to my kids? "You owe me your soul for as long as I walk this planet. And I intend to collect."

They called a little while ago. The Phone Call. The Nice Kid said, "Mom, we're cooking out for Mother's Day. What do you want?"

NO.

WE ARE NOT.

COOKING OUT.

There will be NO food prepared in THIS house for the entire time frame that constitutes Mother's Day. Ain't gonna happen; no way, no how. And considering that we've been parenting for going-on 29 years? SOMEONE NEEDS TO BE PICKING UP ON THIS.

WE are cooking out translates into: Mom. We bought meat. Marinate it. Shape some bread to rise and preheat the oven. When the meat has marinated, light the grill, put the meat on a tray, lay out the tongs and set it on the counter. While the rest of us are outside throwing football and kicking soccer and looking for worms for the chickens, wash some lettuce and cook some bacon for a salad. Remind someone to put the meat on the grill. Wash and cube some potatoes, go outside and cut some rosemary and then come inside and watch the oven while you oven-roast the potatoes. Remind someone to watch the meat on the grill.

Oh, yeah. We need dessert. Run to Foodland and buy a blackberry cobbler, and make sure you get a little thing of ice cream to go with it. If they don't have vanilla bean ice cream, then go to the OTHER Foodland to get some. It's only nine miles. Don't worry about the meat...the grill went out and no one else knows how to light it. We'll wait.

Every mother on here is sitting in front of the computer nodding her head. Every husband and child is wondering what in HELL is wrong with me and why I'm so cranky and hard to please.

"We were just trying to be nice!"

So here it is...presented in black and white and simple language:

Take out. Or a restaurant in the middle of the afternoon. (Avoid, at all costs, The Church Crowd, which food service people will tell you is the stingiest, meanest, most demanding single group of people on the planet.) Let someone else wash the lettuce and let someone else set the table and MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL...

Let Someone Else Clean It Up.

I assure you your mother will thank you. And she'll love you a little bit more than she did. I promise.

Monday update...HOW COOL IS THIS?!!! And the irony of the "perfect family" picture and the "real family" picture is not lost on me. They have no booze, no mis-behavin' kids and...good Lord...at what point in time do you point your toes like that? That's just weird.





I will point out here that we are missing 50% of the family contingency. They were at the country club. There's a reason we WEREN'T!

Mad Dogs and English Peas

I don't normally post personal photos, but I was out in the garden staking peas when Cliff Claven - aka "the waaaay laid back dog" - peeked around the corner to watch what I was doing....and I couldn't help but pull out the ol' camera phone.

Is he not the handsomest boy?

Garden Goodies (and compost castoffs) regularly consumed with abandon by my abnormal companions:
Figs
Blackberries
Apples
Cabbage
Carrots
Cucumbers
Green Beans
Lettuce
Squash
Cherry Tomatoes
Celery leaves
Avocado scraps

Friday Funny

A nod to the new Star Trek movie opening this weekend. I'm sure it will be very good, but there will never be a Star Trek like the original Star Trek....

Ballad of the Bad Neighbor

I've told you all before about the neighbor who hates my dogs...all dogs...and how I went
"Tony Soprano"
on him a year or two ago for yelling at my dogs...I tried to find the old post, to link to, but it is buried beyond retrieval.

The Reader's Digest history: A guy and his wife moved in kiddie-corner behind us, so the southwest corner of our back yard touches the northeast corner of his back yard.

Immediately after moving in he pulled out all the mature landscaping around his house - we assume because he was afraid of termites - cut down the 40' pine tree between our houses (we know he was afraid it would fall on his house...another neighbor shared that tidbit) and cleared every BIT of noise-reducing vegetation between his house and my yard.

Then he complained to all the neighbors - not to us - that he could hear our dogs bark.

Hubster and Asshole, as he's affectionately known around Chez City, have had words. Many Words about how Asshole complained about us to all the neighbors who, btw, did not sympathize with him. Because we ALL have dogs. Except for Asshole.

They also argued because Asshole threatened my dogs with Oscar Meyer products and antifreeze.

A year after he moved in he cut down a half-dozen 80-year-old oak trees on the street around his house (he lives on a corner) and pissed off all the old timers in the neighborhood. Talk about Persona Non Grata. Aaaand by cutting down the trees he displaced about 100 squirrels. So the squirrels came into our yard.

I'll give you one guess as to what my dog - a Lab-mix - does when she sees squirrels in the yard.

Yessiree, Bob. She chases them and she barks at them and she feels good about herself. She now, in an effort to keep the neighborly peace, wears a bark collar. A shock-bark collar because HE cut down the bushes, cut down the trees and created a squirrel diaspora.

And he thinks HE's the victim here.

It's been about a year since I was playing in the yard with the dogs one evening, throwing tennis balls, and the dog - the waaaaay laid back one - was yipping at me (he's a shepherd, so you know a YIP coming out of his pipes is playful) to throw the ball to him.

All of a sudden Asshole comes storming out his back door and starts screaming in my general direction, "Shutupshutupshutup! Dammit SHUT UP!"

Naturally, I screamed back at him. A stream of obscenities his Baptist ears probably never heard before. I went deaf and blind and when it was over, I wasn't even sure what I'd said.

Fortunately, Hubster and all the other neighbors were outside that evening and were able to reenact the scene for my benefit...and their continued entertainment.

A year or more has passed since that last encounter.

Until last night.

Asshole was visiting nice new neighbor with new dog in the other yard that's kiddie-corner to ours. Undoubtedly he was warning new neighbor about barking and the noise ordinance.

I'm in the shower and I hear both my dogs go mental. Even the quiet shepherd was LOUD.

So out I jump, put on clothes and run barefoot out the back door to find Asshole cutting across the yard behind ours, coming toward our fence, taunting my dogs, "That's it, bark. Bark. Bark. Bark. All you do is bark."

At this point I'm not sure it's Asshole and I'm dumbfounded. A guy is walking TOWARD our yard, using a taunting voice, and...what does he expect? The dogs are going to freaking bark at him.

ITS. THEIR. JOB.

By the time I get the shepherd by the collar to bring him into the house, I'm right on the other side of the fence, and at this point I know it's Asshole because I recognize the whiny tone and he's walking toward his house.

All the while, still taunting, "Bark, bark, bark. Go ahead and bark. All you do is bark."

So I said, loudly, "You. Are. Fucking. Ridiculous."

Louder he says, "BARK. BARK. BARK."

This is a grown man with a PhD in something. Computers. Proctology....

So I told the dogs: "BARK AT THE BAD MAN. THAT'S IT. BARK AT THE BAD MAN."

I sunk. All the way down to his level. Again.

Say what you want to me, Asshole, because I will verbally reduce you to Shredded Wheat. But pick on my dogs and I'm mentally back in the 4th grade along with you....

So that was upsetting. Not just because I had to deal with him, but because I sank.

Sink. Sank. Sunk.

The new guy behind me? She doesn't bark at him. The new people next door? Doesn't bark at them. Guy on the other side of us who has parties in his yard every weekend? Doesn't bark at them. Asshole who has lived here now for 4 years? Can't not bark at him.

It's what dogs do. They sniff each others backsides all day. She knows an asshole when she smells one.

My secret joy is that we rented the house next door, which is directly behind Asshole, to a couple with a Pomeranian who Never. Stops. Yapping.

Heh-heh-heh.

The reason these kids turn out so well

------Original Message------
From: Mom
To: The Big Kid, The Big Boy
Sent: May 6, 2009 11:36 AM
Subject: MothersDay
Given a choice, I would like a bag of refractory concrete for Mother'sDay

-----Original Message-----
From: The Big Kid
To: Mom
Who are you burying?


-----Original Message----
From: Mom
To: The Big Kid
Don't piss me off and you won't have to worry about it.-----

Another Phase/Chapter/Experiment

Dear Peeps:

About a year and a half ago, CG1 and I decided that because – at that time – our readership was nearly evenly divided between girl people and boy people (hell, there were only six of you) we’d take our cooking/baking/recipe talk to another URL.

And so No Place for Picky Eaters (NPFPE) was born unto the Blogosphere.

:: cue the choir of angels ::

For a while – I’d say a year – we didn’t do a terrible job keep up with both blogs.

Let me put it this way: If the blogs had been children, DHR /DFS wouldn’t have taken them away from us…they’d just have assigned us a case number and kept an eye on things...random home visits and drug tests and whatnot.

But lately… lately we’ve not been doing such a fab job with our youngest offspring.

Yesterday NPFPE came home with a school suspension, a tattoo on her neck and knocked up. We have failed her.

These days we average 35 readers a day on CG/CG and the vast majority of you – as far as we can tell – are Womenfolk. People who wouldn’t mind a recipe post now and then. God knows you stuck with us during feminine hygiene and reproductive rants in the last year – a bit of soft food porn should come as a welcome relief.

We may even post about sewing and knitting and gardening now and then.

Yes, CG/CG is primarily an outlet for the bitching and moaning of two sarcastic, cynical, sometimes sotted Southerners.

But we’re so much more than that.

Do you know that CG1 is a Master Gardener, a connoisseur of cheeses and a critically acclaimed (by half the damn County) baker?

And I… Well, I can knit, and I can sew…and I like to dig in the dirt, and while I am not anywhere near as domestically accomplished as CG1, failure makes for better storytelling, no?

So next week, I think, NPFPE will cease to exist. As a bridge I’ll reroute the URL here and transfer all our faves to this blogroll – shout out to PBE, yo!

Year three, format three - these Alabama girls are RESTLESS!

- Single Barrel Wishes and Stilton Bleu Dreams, City Girl

PS - Yes, that is an image of Country Girl baking 10 dozen yeast rolls this past Easter. I think we got her good side!

STDs and H1N1

The new visitors here don't know this - and for the more mature readers it bears repeating: My MIL falls slightly to the left of crazy. She isn't certifiable, but is definitely diagnosable. Needs meds, won't take meds, makes everyone else as crazy as she is...so WE take the meds.

She's very nice, but very, very paranoid, imagines things, jumps to ridiculous conclusions ...your garden variety of otherwise harmless crazy.

Taking that into consideration, you can probably guess the worst/best thing that can happen to someone who is paranoid, overly imaginative and prone to panicking - compounded by an Associates Degree in Nursing - is disease. Like, H1N1.

Henceforth I refuse to refer to H1N1 as swine flu, even if pig references did make for several great puns. It is a combination of swine flu, avian flu and human flu and I don't think it is fair that piggies are taking the rap. And, anyway, in Israel they're calling it by the kosher term "Mexican Flu," which - while much more accurate - is totally politically incorrect. H1N1 it is.

On day two of the "outbreak" Hubster had to fly to rural Illinois for a professional thingamajiggy.

Immediately upon his return home, his mother called to ask if he'd caught swine flu while he was away..... In Peoria.

Not in Cancun, not in Mexico City - while he was in Peoria. At this point, no one had died in the US from H1N1 and cases here were pretty much confined to Texas, California and one of those square, western/southwestern state where cows outnumber people.

Enter my trip to Las Vegas in two weeks - that she doesn't know about. That she CANNOT find out about.

Not because she's worried about ME dying from the superflu, but because I could smuggle it home in my carry-on and transmit it to Our Lord and Savior On Earth, her only begotten son.

Me? I'm more concerned with catching Herpes from doorknobs in Sin City. Communicable disease is to Las Vegas as bovines are to those angular states - innumerable and in my mind damn-near unavoidable.

I hate Vegas. Not just because I am genetically programmed as a Morning Person so all the night life is lost on me, or because I don't care to gamble, but when I'm there I feel like I need to shower a half-dozen times a day. And not just to steam away the lovely desert nosebleeds that plague me whenever I set foot west of Iowa, but because I feel like conventioneers have recently had sex with prostitutes on every freaking surface in the state. Eeewwww.

Maybe I should double-up on my meds while I'm gone. ::shudder::

I probably need to go back and read the manual

In my quest to single-handedly save the world through my thoughtfulness and frugality and recycling and and being careful? I think I'M the economic stimulus. Didn't mean to be but it has crossed my mind in the past week that there might should be a breathalyzer on eBay.

I'm just sayin'.

You know about the refrigerator dying. What was REALLY funny was that the one I ordered? That I sent back? The second one was $300 cheaper and they wrote me a check for the difference. Oh, yeah. Like I'm gonna mention that? Do I LOOK stupid? So I have this extra cash in my account, and I'm looking around.

Background here...my ONLY extravagance in my entire life has always been a good camera. A really good camera. Not the BEST camera but a good camera that captures moments to a tee. So three weeks ago, I broke down (actually I didn't break down...I had two margaritas at lunch and this is at my margarita HAUNT and they love me and my margaritas are NOT yellow. They're brown. If you don't know what that means? That's okay. You didn't buy a Nikon SLR at lunch.) and I bought the Nikon SLR I have been coveting for over a year. Just walked in and bought that sucker. I LOVE THIS CAMERA. Absolutely LOVE this camera.

The problem is that the REASON I wanted this camera is that it takes spectacular sports shots and I have a spectacular sports child. Except? THE LENS I NEED COSTS MORE THAN THE CAMERA. What I needed is a 70-300 mm lens. Oh, yeah. They are just GIVING those away. So I haunted eBay and I checked out CraigsList (carefully) and I haunted Amazon and...no one was coming off the price of that lens.

So I bought it anyway.

And then, while I was at it, I bought a monogramming sewing machine so that my kids will stop losing all their stuff...particularly their nice little Catholic school UNIFORM stuff which, trust me, doesn't come cheap.

So...in the past six weeks I've bought two new sets of tires and had the front-end bouncy things in my car replaced. I've bought a camera, a lens and a refrigerator. The world is going to hell in a handbasket, our retirement is down 35% but BY GEORGE. I have cold milk. I have great pictures. And I have a sewing machine I don't know how to use.

The Great American Dream. You gotta love it.

How to kill a chicken...

...in five days or less. I'm afraid PETA is about to come after us.

(Now, I could let on that we really WENT to a Chicken & Egg Festival to see chickens and eggs, but the truth of the matter is that we went to hear
Paul Thorn. Who has nothing to do with chickens OR eggs but is one HELL of a musician.)

While we were wandering around waiting on the music to begin, we ran into some old friends and stopped to talk. The Nice Kid wandered off and next thing I know, here she comes...talking a mile a minute and all excited THERE'S A GUY SELLING CHICKENS! Baby chickens! (You think?) And can she pleasepleasepleaseplease have one? Please? Because our first two (who actually WERE really cool chickens...pets who liked to be stroked and fed treats) have died, and the next two disappeared. So PLEASE MAMA? Pleasepleasepleaseplease?

"Two," I said. "Go pick out two." The joke of the day? "He cut me a deal!" She spent the rest of the night with a box holding TEN very young chickens under her coat so they'd stay warm. We came home and found a light and put them in a box. And went to bed...TNK sleeping on the couch next to them to make sure things went okay.

Method #1 for chicken homicide: Bring the smallest chick to sleep with you. When you roll over in the night? He slips down in the cushions and suffocates. Dead baby chicks are VERY small.

We had a funeral for that one. Buried him. Lamented being so careless. The next night? The next smallest chicken starts...suffering. Nothing wrong with him, but his legs stopped working and TNK picked him up and cuddled him and held him while he died. #2 Failure to thrive. It happens.

That one just went into trash.

Two days later? Failure to thrive, victim #2. We're down to seven chicks and I'm beginning to wonder just what the HELL I'm going to with 20 pounds of chick feed. Maybe the cockatiel eats it?

Seven chicks. Lookin' good. Growing like weeds. So...LET'S TAKE THEM OUTSIDE! To enjoy the sunshine and the breeze and peck at the grass. Good idea...nice thought...except...they were in a collapsible pet carrier. And guess what an exuberant puppy and a lackadaisical basset mutt can do with a collapsible carrier? Guessed?

You're right! THEY COLLAPSED IT. Scattered chickens everywhere. Now in all fairness, they did not KILL those chickens...they played them to death. I realized this when I saw a dog pass the window, fling his head into the air and something small and helpless and fluffy go flying up from the ground. Into the air which...if you can't fly? Not the best mode of travel.

I screamed, we all hit the door and started searching.

Method #3? Schedule a playdate with the resident bullies. THAT'll thin out a flock!

The death toll was three. Two were dead when we found them and the third died shortly after. This was probably a good time to make a speech about responsibility and taking care of those who depend on you and thinking through an action but...I didn't. Pretty good chance TNK picked up on that herself.

So here we sit, with four healthy chicks. Eating well, growing, messing and raising a racket ALL damn night long. The PLAN is that we'll have fresh eggs, but that road is looking REALLY long. Really long. And I keep looking around and thinking, "I went to college for 16 years. HOW THE HELL DID I END UP HERE?"

And this is the MIDDLE kid! I've got to go through a whole 'nother set of growing experiences with the LITTLE one.

Thank you, God, for bourbon. I love my life.

Friday Funny