Robyn’s recipe for toasted pecans: put pecans on a baking sheet, spread out. Put in preheated 300º oven. Remind yourself not to forget about the pecans.
Immediately forget about the pecans.
Some time later (possibly 20, but I honestly have no idea), while you’re doing something else in the kitchen think to yourself “Huh. What’s that smell? It kind of smells like… oh, shit!” Open the oven, take out the dark brown pecans.
Let them cool.
They are fucking fabulous.
Y’all are some mouse-hating weirdos. How can you hate things that are SO CUTE? (That’s rhetorical.)
For the record, I’ve lived in this house for two years now and we’ve never had a single mouse wander into the house. I mean, it would have to be a particularly suicidal mouse to wander into the Den o’ Killers. Of course, it’s entirely possible that mice HAVE wandered into the house only to be immediately eaten, but while I don’t particularly endeavor to have a mouse in the house, I probably wouldn’t scream and clutch my pearls, either.
Well, wait. That’s not true. I’m sure I WOULD scream and clutch my pearls when one of the cats pounced upon the mouse and bit its head off. I’d much rather deal with a live rodent than a dead one with a missing head.
That’s just me, though.
Generally speaking, if one of the cats has caught something and I think it can be saved, I save it – whether it’s a mouse, a squirrel, or a bird. If it’s past the point of no return, I chalk it up to the cirrrrrrrrrrcle of life. Joe Bob caught a mourning dove yesterday and ate it in the back yard, but by the time I saw him chomping away, the dove was past the point of being helped.
Damnit. I kinda like doves, too. Stupid Joe Bob.
Speaking of signs of Spring and things that make people shudder, the influx of wasps has begun. Luckily, at the end of Wasp Season last year, I purchased a bug vacuum off eBay.
This bug vacuum not only sucks bugs into it, it also has a “high voltage grid” inside, so it sucks the wasp inside and then electrocutes it.
The wasps that are coming inside are small ones, ones that I would consider to be baby wasps. So far I’ve had to kill about ten of them (and Wasp Season hasn’t really even begun in earnest), and to tell the truth I feel sorry for the poor baby things.
And then I realize that baby wasps grow up to be adult wasps, and I electrocute the shit out of those fuckers.
We’ve had a bluebird hanging around lately – I’m hoping he’s looking for a ladyfriend and will make a home in one of the bird houses, ’cause I think we need some baby blue birds ’round here.
We call this “Somethin’ done killed the dawg!”
We took Spanky to the vet yesterday morning. For the past little while, I’ve been noticing diarrhea in the litter box. Of course, there was no way to know who was leaving it, and we talked about setting up the webcam to see if we couldn’t figure it out. When Nance was here, she happened to walk into the laundry room at just the right time, and reported that Spanky was the diarrhea bandit.
Add to that that he’s been vomiting a little more often lately (he’s always had a sensitive stomach) and Fred thought he’d lost a little weight, and it was clearly time to take him to the vet.
A physical exam turned up nothing obvious, so they had to do bloodwork on him.
As it turns out, he’s having issues with his kidneys – his BUN and creatinine levels are elevated, necessitating some medicine and a change in diet for the next month at least. It won’t hurt him to have a bite or two of the other cats’ food, but we’re going to start giving him some special canned food in the morning and evening (and we’ll have to watch over him while he eats, because Mister Boogers is an ass and more than interested in Spanky’s special food). We gave him some of the food last night, and he’s giving it two paws up, so that’s good.
He’s 12 1/2 years old, so no doubt it’s time for him to start having issues, anyway. He’s hardly ever given us any trouble except for a urinary tract infection several years ago.
He’s a good skittyboo.
Previously
2008: “You realize,” I said to Fred as I watched Tommy diligently lick the top of Miss Stank’s head, “Even if we wanted to, we could never get a divorce.”
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: I’m a total freak.
2003: She’s home!
2002: Of course, my sympathy for him will only last until he poos in the hallway instead of the litter box again.
2001: I am the dumbest dumbass in the whole wide world, I really am.
2000: Sometimes, they lay on the floor and perform for us.