Happy Cinco de Mayo!
We’re celebrating by eating Chicken Enchiladas tonight. YUM.
I think I’ve mentioned before that when I make dog treats for George and Gracie, I cook them for however long the recipe requires, and then I turn off the oven, but leave the dog treats in the oven so that they can dry and harden (since soft, moist treats would start to mold pretty quickly). More often than not, I leave the treats in the oven overnight. Invariably, the next day I forget the treats are there and turn the oven on to preheat for whatever I’m making, and five minutes later I’m saying “What’s that smell… Oh, shit!” I’ve never actually burned the treats, luckily.
You’d think, after doing that ten or fifteen times, it would start to occur to me to check the oven before I turn it on, but so far that hasn’t happened.
So Sunday afternoon I turned the oven on to make my lunch, and then I wandered off to fold clothes and put them away, and when I came back seven minutes later, I was like “What’s that smell…” and then I remembered that that morning I’d put the egg shells on a cookie sheet, put them in the oven for twenty minutes, then turned the oven off. And forgot they were there.
(We collect our egg shells in a bowl until the bowl is full, then I dry them in the oven, crush them up, and feed them back to the chickens. Theoretically, the calcium helps make the eggs they lay stronger.)
Dog treats might not burn when they’re in the oven, with the oven turned to the “broil” setting, but egg shells burn like a motherfucker. And they smell really, really bad. I took the sheet of egg shells out and set them on the stovetop, and they sat there and smoldered and the longer they smoldered, the worse they smelled. I finally had to put the sheet on the back step and asked Fred to take the egg shells over to the compost heap the next time he went outside.
(He thought I should just crush them up and give them to the chickens anyway, but I was all “They won’t eat burned egg shells! They won’t like the taste!” In retrospect, I could have given them the choice, I suppose.)
The house reeked of burnt egg shells for the rest of the day, not just in the kitchen. One of the things about having an old house is that it holds smells in an odd way. There’s a spot in the hallway approaching the front room that always smells like whatever was cooked most recently in the kitchen. It’s not the whole hallway, just this one spot. So every time I’d walk through the Spot o’ Stank, I’d think “What the fuck is that – oh, right.”
Other oddities in the way our house presents smells – if someone pees in the front room (a cat, usually. I’ve mostly broken Fred of that habit. Har!), you might not necessarily smell it in the front room, but you will smell it in the doorway of the guest bedroom. Also, Fred’s bedroom generally smells of whatever was last cooked in the kitchen – though I guess that’s not necessarily an oddity, since there’s a vent in the floor of his room that’s in the ceiling of the dining room, which is right next to the kitchen.
And speaking of our house and smells, whoever thought it would be a good idea to put the air intake vent for the downstairs air/ heating system directly across the hall from the bathroom? Well, let’s just say that they probably should have thought a little harder about that.
Fred sent me the link to this picture yesterday, and it made me laugh out loud.
Beulah and Bessie are making themselves QUITE at home, thank you very much. Sunday night after I put them up for the night, Bessie howled and howled until Fred got up and let them out. They stayed out until about 10:30, when they wouldn’t stop moving around and kept waking me up, so I got up and put them back in their room ’til the next morning. Last night, same thing. I’m sure the time’s coming soon when they won’t be quite so squirmy when I’m trying to sleep, and I suspect that they’ll be out and about, 24 hours a day.
They seem more willing to not be right on top of each other all the time. I mean, they’re usually in the same room, or fairly close to each other most of the time, but yesterday they spent all afternoon in separate cat beds – Bessie was in one of the beds on my desk, and Beulah was in the much cozier bed next to my desk. They snoozed there all afternoon, I guess to store up energy for their wild running-around time in the evening.
(The last of the pictures I took before I took the boys to the pet store on Friday.)
“You. Look at me. You tell me RIGHT NOW who left this branch here. Who would do such a thing? Tell me now, and I will kick their motherfucking ASS.” Sheriff Mama ain’t kiddin’ around.
Previously
2008: If that man cripples me with the sledgehammer, y’all make sure he gets me the LUXURY wheelchair.
2007: No entry.
2006: “Motherfucker say WHAT? You wanna prance?”
2005: Did you know you could use it to relieve muscle soreness, as a plant fertilizer, and as a laxative?
2004: Okay, girlfriend? Just how fucking stupid ARE you?
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: God, please tell me when I was 19 I didn’t sound that much like an airhead…
I can only see about 2/3 of your banner…. is it just me or is like this for everyone?
I’m betting it all depends on what size your monitor is – I checked, and the banner doesn’t get automatically resized to fit the space the way it did with my old theme. I’ll add “fiddle with the banner settings” to my list, hopefully I’ll get to it later this week, or this weekend. 🙂
I hadn’t noticed it but it was like that for me too. I have a widescreen 22″ monitor.
When I full screened my browser it looked fine. Then I tried just making it a tad wider and it looked better too. If that helps 🙂
Add me to the “BP banner doesn’t completely fit on screen” list. Yes, please “fiddle” with it, soon. :>)
I have written it on my list o’ things to fix. 🙂
I didn’t used to check the oven before turning it on either. UNTIL one morning when I turned it on and there came a terrible scurrying sound and a high pitched cry and then silence. I opened the oven door to discover a small dead mouse lying there. ::shudder:::
Oh my GOD. Poor thing! (The mouse *and* you!) Now do you compulsively check the oven 30 times before you turn it on?
I just love your pictures of Sheriff Mama, she’s one bad ass cat.
Hey Robyn, FUP has something to say about the silkies… see my name-link.
That third picture of the kittens is making me LOL. The buff boy looks crosseyed, and Beulah looks like a vampire bat.
Are you the one who turned me on to FUP? Because that site is HILARIOUS!
What is FUP? I will trade a FUP for this hilarious site I just found: http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/. Possibly NSFW.
Paula, click my name to go to FUP. NSFW because the full name of the blog is “Fuck you, penguin.” I chuckle every time I read the comments and realize how many people Do Not Get It.
I found TFLN about a week ago, and have been quietly grateful to be past my Drinking Days ever since. However, I do have a 14 year old, and reading TFLN has made me resolve not to let him out of the house until he’s 35.
I discovered “Ask a Urinal” on the same day as TFLN – hard to say which is my favorite. http://askaurinal.com/
Robyn, I don’t *think* it was me, though it might have been. I don’t think I ever specifically said, “Hey, Robyn, go check out FUP” but you might have come across a link on my blog. I’m usually a day or two behind everyone else, though, so it probably wasn’t me. (c:
Thanks Elayne! I have FUP in my reader. I’ll have to check out Ask A Urinal at home tonight!
“I’ve mostly broken Fred of that habit.” I was pretty glad I was alone at work when I read that….
Totally unrelated to this post (sorry): What is the name of the bra that you liked? I need to combat the Boobs of Doom and all I can think of is Wachovia. And that’s not it.
Oh. Wachoal? Is that it? Do you like them?
Yep, it’s the Wacoal 85567. I like it quite a bit (except for my PMS days when there’s no bra on earth that will do!).
Thanks! I will check that out!
Your house must have been designed by the same idiot who did ours–
intake for the heater/air conditioner is right next to, and at a right angle to, the
bathroom door!! We had the intake rerouted so it’s facing the other way. Still a problem sometimes, but not nearly as bad.
Then there’s the wall oven–at a right angle to, and so close to, the original window that
they had to cut off the corner of the windowsill so you could open the oven door. We replaced
that window with a much nicer looking one and no windowsill.
I love Kara. She’s beautiful and has a dignity about her.
It just now struck me. (I am rather slow!) Isn’t it confusing to have a cat named Bessie? Who comes running when Fred calls out that name? Are you going to name one of the next set Robyn?
Well, strictly speaking, her name is “Bessemer”, with “Bessie” supposedly as her nickname, but we actually refer to her as “the black kitten” and Beulah as “little porky.” Heh.
Those buff boys are KILLING me with their cuteness. I am very glad I am not in the same state. I would have a hell of a time talking myself out of trying to adopt one. They look so much like my first cat Sylvester. Are the buff ones somewhat rare? I feel like I see less of them than other colors.
Before we had this house built we rented a big old house. It was cool but had a lot of problems-too expensive for us to fix.Despite monthly exterminating which the lanlord covered it was the buggiest house on earth. If you left any food out anywhere there would be gigantic ants all over the kitchen. I got bitten on the neck once -left a huge welt. My skin crawls remembering it! To this day I am paranoid about leaving food anywhere. Old houses have all that charm and history but the ones not done over like yours are a nightmare.
I do feel like I see the buff cats less often than other cats, but I’m not sure how rare they are. I know that buff cats tend to be male more often than female, though female buff cats aren’t unheard of.
You are psychic! That was my next question- I seem to know of more buff males. I guess they are not all males like all calicos are females though.
Oh my goodness, mum.
I don’t understand how you can have all these adorable little kittens in the house and not squeeze them all to death. Not to mention, how the hay do you keep their names in order? I’d forget who they all are.
Miss you!
Is there anything better than baby kittens? I think not!
Hey Robyn —
Just put the eggshells in the microwave for 80 seconds or so 🙂 Saves the whole thing of trying to remember them in the oven!