In the Headlights

FURminator

Cousin Julie just spent a few days here, but in that short time made a number of important changes.  One was placing the butcher block table in the kitchen, where it looks right at home, and another was to put the cat dishes under the butcher block instead of in the corner of the kitchen, where most of my friends have stepped in them at one time or another.  No biggie with the dry cat food, but the water dish is another matter.

Equally momentous was a suggestion that has changed the life of Dandelion, my big shaggy tomcat.  I mentioned that 90% of what the vacuum cleaner picks up around here is cat hair.  She saw my ineffectual attempts to brush his coat with a conventional cat brush, and said "You need a FURminator".

So we went out and bought one.  Not cheap.  We got the small one with a 1.7" edge.  At first, Dandy fought our attempts, but  seems to be taking it in stride.  The tool removes undercoat, leaving the topcoat intact, but removing a lot of the dense fur that makes it hard for some hairy cats to groom, and also adds considerably to the cathair tumbleweeds that pile up.  This morning, I caught him as he napped, and he let me have my way with him for a couple of minutes before bestirring himself and leaping to the ground.  By then, I had a large handful of hair in my hand.

Dandy looks better already.  I wonder how far I can push this.

I'm a Furniture Mover

My cousin Julie was visiting the last few days.  In addition to eating and drinking, antiquing and playing poker with my folks, we've been moving furniture.

We looked at some furniture at a local antique mall.  That was a lot of fun.  We took pictures of some furniture (a couple of benches, an antique chaise lounge that is very nice, a marble-topped wash stand) to see how it would fit with what I have.

What came of all this, though was that Julie said "What is that butcher-block table doing in the corner of the parlor?  It should be in the kitchen.")  Red and I had considered that.  It's a big old maple butcher block that Red got somewhere and sanded (and sanded, and sanded), then finished with salad-bowl finish, so that it has a food-grade surface.  But we were afraid that in the kitchen, it would interrupt the flow of traffic, so we put it in a corner.  It is so heavy, we never moved it around.

Julie told me she and Bob put these casters under their heavy furniture (even a piano) and one person can move those items around.  Then I had a eureka moment.  I had bought some such items called Super Sliders when I had my dining room table delivered.  Unfortunately, it turned out the legs of the table are hollow (big square corner legs, built in boxlike squares).  Couldn't use the Super Sliders.  But I still had them.  I tilted the butcher block and Julie slid the casters underneath.  Then we folded the carpet back and almost effortlessly slid the butcher block into the kitchen.

It sits there in the middle of the kitchen.  No problem with flow.  And it's convenient to place the occasional hot pan or place ingredients for easy access.

Over Their Heads

Natural selection.

Res Ipse Loquitur.

Thanks, Laura.  I hope that's a joke and not a live wire.

Bloody Men

by Wendy Cope, from Serious Concerns (Faber and Faber)

Bloody men are like bloody buses
You wait for about a year
And as soon as one approaches your stop
Two or three others appear.
You look at them flashing their indicators,
Offering you a ride.
You're trying to read the destinations,
You haven't much time to decide.
If you make a mistake, there's no turning back.
Jump off, and you'll stand there and gaze
While the cars and the taxis and the lorries go by
And the minutes, the hours, the days.

[Via The Writer's Almanac]

[Image from Double Decker Bus to Brighton]

Dear Diary

I write this blog on the premise that every day, I can find something that amuses me and that I find worth sharing.  Without a doubt, some days that something is better than others. 

I just ran across something I clipped from our newspaper a ocuple of months ago.  It's about someone who wrote a lot, about nothing interesting.  At least I think so.  His name was Robert Shields, and when he died recently, he left behind a diary of 37.5 million words, found in 91 cardboard boxes.  To produce this volume, he sat in his office in his underwear, and wrote about his life every five minutes for twenty-five years. 

It seems to me that the temporal burden of writing every five minutes would leave no time to experience anything to write about.  The former minister from Dayton Washington wrote every time h took a crap or ate a meal.  He also spent quite a bit of time being interviewed by the media. 

Here's a link to an interview by Michael Feldman  from a 2000 show.(Michael Feldman's Whad'ya Know,  incidentally, be coming to Jacksonville in a week).  Shields says he writes about four hours a day.

There are days when writing one post a day seems like a burden.  I wonder if he ever thought of throwing in the towel.

[Image via boingbboing]

Is it Real? Or is it Photoshopped?

L.C. sent us this, with the comment that Stryder wondered if it was Photoshopped.  I don't think it is. Then I do think it is.   I think the squirrel fits so well among the puppies...then again, I'm not sure it's not.  If you think it is, or isn't, for a particular reason, please set us straight.  Meanwhile, the rescued squirrel is Finnegan, the pregnant Papillon is Mademoiselle Giselle.  Photoshopped or not, it's pretty cute.

 

 

Name Your Poison?

When L.C. asked me if I knew what a Vesper was, I said "Sure, one of those 2-cylinder European cycles that gets 100 miles to a gallon."  She assured me that she didn't have an accent, and wasn't talking about Vespa, but Vesper.

I knew it was a canonical hour, that's about it.  Actually, Vesper refers to the evening, particularly the evening star, Venus.  It also is a bell rung in the evening, an evening service, the sixth canonical hour or its service, held in the evening, or a part of the Roman Catholic office to be said in the evening.

But that's not what she meant either.  She meant Vesper the drink.  Well, I thought I knew my drinks pretty well, but this had me stumped.  It seems a vesper is a drink James Bond had a bartender make him in Casino Royale, described here in Esquire (the whole article's pretty good):

3 ounces London dry gin
1 ounce vodka
1/2 ounce blonde Lillet

Lillet, apparently is a French aperitif wine which is mixed with two strong clear spirits (gag me), and then shaken or stirred, depending if you are pro- or anti- Bond, and then strained into a champagne flute and garnished with a lemon twist.  Sounds pretty girly to me.

L.C. and Stryder had been in Vegas and met a young woman at a bar who was drinking vespers.  And apparently was sober enough to describe what went into them.

[Image from Bond Lifestyle.  Looks like a martini glass to me.  He specifically asked for a champagne flute.  I think he'd send it back, don't you?] 

Superbowl Humor

Dee Ray knows how tone deaf I am when it comes to sports.  He's helping out with this joke.

Three quarterbacks, Peyton Manning, Tony Romo and Tom Brady go to Heaven to visit God and watch a Celtics game.  God decides who will sit next to him by asking the boys a question.

God asks Peyton Manning first:  "What do you believe?"  Manning thinks long and hard, looks God in the eye, and says "I believe in hard work, and in staying true to family and friends.  I believe in giving.  I was lucky, but I've always tried to do right by my fans."  God can't help but see the essential goodness of Manning, and offers him a seat to his left.

Then God turns to Tony Romo and says "What do you believe?"  Tony says "I believe passion, discipline, goodness and honor are the fundamentals of life.  I too have been lucky, but win or lose, I have always tried to be a true sportsman, both on and off the playing fields.  God is moved by Romo's sincere eloquence, and offers him a seat to his right.

Finally God turns to Tom Brady "And you, Tom, what do you believe?" 

Brady replies "I believe you're in my seat."

The Brush-Off

I mentioned that the other day, Sandy and I had pizza.  When she came over, she brought a carton of mushrooms so we could festoon our frozen pizza (Publix brand, self rising...very good) with peppers, onions and mushrooms and extra cheese.  Plus the pepperoni that was already there.

Sandy watched me as I scraped off bits of dirt from the mushrooms before slicing them onto the pizza.

"They're grown in a sterile medium" I said in answer to the question on her face.  I hope I'm right.

I recall the time decades ago in Miami Beach when Texas Bill was at our house for dinner.  Bill often worked as a cook/chef and we'd often cook together.  He was aghast, one time, watching me wash mushrooms, insisting that they should just be brushed off and not washed.  I was equally aghast at the thought of eating dirt.

Since then, I phased through washing them, then letting them dry, to my now blase attitude of getting most of the dirt off and just going ahead with the recipe.

The problem is that mushrooms absorb water, diluting their flavor and texture, as well as that of the dish they are being added to.  A not insignificant problem.

I've been surfing the 'net looking for confirmation that the growth medium is sterile.  I can't imagine all these advocates for eating actual dirty dirt, but I can't seem to find it.

There are plenty of sites telling me where to buy a mushroom brush, though.  Maybe I should make that investment.  Messy Gourmet points out that there are general purpose kitchen tools, that do many things, none well, and then there are specialized tools that do one and only one thing well:  melon ballers, cherry pitters, mushroom brushes.  M.G. adds that the real question is not whether you need a mushroom brush or lemon zester, but how much drawer space you have in your kitchen.  My drawers are jam-packed, but maybe I should get rid of a pizza wheel or garlic press to make room for one of these babies.

[Image through Amazon]

It's a Girl Thing

In a post on gender and language the other day, I shared that the remote was female, because it gives a man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he may not always know which buttons to push, he just keeps on trying.

Deb sent me further proof: