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Our resident red bitch seems to have it in for Lord Dudley Mountcatten.
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Day after day she prances around the deck and perches within sight of our highly frustrated cat.
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He knows he can’t reach her, but it doesn’t stop him from sitting (almost) perfectly still in anticipation.
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A few useless headlines from my news feed, just because.
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Help me out here Florida people. Does this really happen? And if so, why are you not posting pictures! Random lizards falling from the sky should rate a blog now and then.
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It’s official… even the Queen is feeling the pinch of inflation. Keep your eye on eBay, there might be some nice jewelry up for bid soon.
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Most excellent. Here’s hoping they let Willow roam the halls of Congress and poop in Ted Cruz’s briefcase.
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Are we?
I’m not, but if you are … please share. I’ve heard it’s called the God molecule and people experience death when tripping. That doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time, but to each their own.
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Sonoran desert toad is not impressed.
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Lord Dudley Mountcatten has been missing his outdoor excursions, so my husband bundled up against the chill and took him for a stroll.
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I still can’t get over how ridiculous it looks to “walk” a cat, but I refuse to lose another to the road… so the harness it is.
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At first His Lordship was thrilled and happily pranced hither and fro.
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But after a mere 4 minutes the wind chill had him shivering….
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And (literally) high tailing it back to the house.
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Where it’s warm..
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And mice aren’t so hard to catch.
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Because you’re equally and fascinated and repulsed, admit it.
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I wouldn’t think so, but in the early 1900’s Horace Fletcher sought to prove it. His premise was this… if we chewed our food more thoroughly we would eat (and defecate) less. And by chew I don’t mean the 32 times rule, no. Old Horace believed one bite of shallot required 722 mastications. At that rate… by the time you finished breakfast, it would time for lunch.
And who has time for that?
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Horace was a trifle obsessed with reducing human waste and believed by chewing our food into liquid, we could poop one tenth the normal amount.
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And if you think Horace was the only researcher interested in how food was processed back in the day, let me introduce you to William Beaumont.
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This surgeon left an open wound in his patient so he could shove food straight into the stomach and observe the process of digestion. He even removed and sold the poor man’s gastric juices.
Mary Roach devotes an entire chapter to this horrible long term relationship, but I’ll just leave a link if you care to read more about it.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/grisly-story-human-guinea-pig-alexis-st-martin-180963520/
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I woke up this morning to an old fashioned winter temperature.
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We haven’t seen this for a while so I can’t say it bothers me. And if it was a little colder like the northern part of our state, I might try this…
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Crazy cold doesn’t begin to describe northern Maine.
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Judging from the weather forecast, things are going to get interesting here on Saturday as well with an old fashioned N’or Easter.
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I say bring it!
I love the big snow dumps and we’re in the 10-20” zone so… yay!
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There’s only one answer to the following question for me.
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Calves liver with onions.
I hated it then, I hate it now. I’m nothing if not consistent.
I was an only child of older parents and it would be fair to say I was a trifle spoiled. I didn’t have to do chores, help with the housework or babysit the neighbors kids for money. I was also never forced to clean my plate at the dinner table… until one night when my mother decided to draw the line at my finicky eating habits.
Unfortunately for me it was liver and onions night. Of all the meals in all the world, my mother decided to make a stand on that hill.
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Did I mention I was a stubborn child? If I didn’t eat the liver and onions when it was fresh and warm, the chances of me eating it 2 hours later when it was cold and congealed were positively nil. But she forbade me to get up from the table until I ate at least half, so I sat.
And sat.
And sat…. until my father took pity on me and let Hiram, our beloved ancient beagle, into the dining room.
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Hiram loved liver! And happily devoured half my portion.
Thank you Hiram. If it wasn’t for you… I might still be sitting there.
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I’m going to keep doing these as long as I have to make myself laugh.
It may be a while…
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At this point, it can’t hurt.
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As long as you don’t take me with you, but that’s the problem isn’t it?
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I feel like that’s where I am right now. All our well laid plans for retirement out the window.
WTF sums it up perfectly.
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With thanks to the ever charming Kenny Nines at https://theterribleidealist.wordpress.com/ who alerted me to the existence of sequels, I bring you Gulp.
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Another masterpiece by the delightfully quirky and sometimes bizarre author Mary Roach.
When Kenny told me there were other books like Stiff? I was all in! And ordered four from Amazon knowing I would blog the highlights here.
So let’s dive into the wacky and wonderful world of the human digestive tract shall we?
This book comes with a bit of a warning…
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Poopreport.com
If ever there was a website to avoid at all costs? That would be it .
While this book focuses on the digestive tract, it goes delightfully off course on tangents of smell, taste, flatulence, food culture and the occasional substitute.
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Hair is kosher.
You heard it here first.
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Human hairballs?
Damn, I love these books!
Much attention is paid to food. How we eat, why we eat, and what we eat. Food is cultural and while roasted bat may not be on your dinner table tonight, rest assured it’s on someone’s somewhere.
In Mary’s travels while researching this book, she met an Innuit man who served her Muktuk.
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Raw chunks of Narwahl flesh and skin. She assures us it was delicious and very nutritious, but I think I’d almost prefer the bat.
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Pig balls, coming to a restaurant near you!
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I didn’t, but now I do.
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And damn, judging from my very first attempt?
I rock!
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Considering I had no earthly idea what I was doing, I am proud of myself.
In case you don’t already know Wordle is the new game that’s taken over the internet. It’s web based, not an app… and you can only play once a day. So while I think it’s going to be addicting, there’s no danger of wasting countless hours staring at a screen.
The premise is simple. The daily puzzle is one 5 letter word and you have six chances to guess it. Everyone gets the same word so it’s become something of a world wide competition.
Sound simple? Trust me, it’s not.
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While I lucked out on my first puzzle and guessed it in three, the next day I didn’t guess it all and was extremely frustrated. (I will henceforth hate the word knoll and it’s dastardly kn consonant combination.)
So Google “Wordle… A Daily Word Game” and give it a go.
And let us know how you did.
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My husband started working from home in March of 2020, you know… the year when life as we knew it ended. This means he took over my (always neat, clean and organized) office.
The husband?
Not so neat, clean and organized.
In case you didn’t know, he is the King of Post Its.
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Files? Who needs ‘em when you have open wall space.
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The overflow covered my printer…
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And the top of my A through F collection of vinyl.
Yes, my old record albums are crated alphabetically.
I told you I was organized.
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River's world..... 