All Is Forgiven

Last night, Thisbe joined us in the living room in front of the fireplace and indicated that "all is forgiven." I went into the kitchen, prepared the syringe, brought it into the living room, swabbed her fur, and gave her the injection, which she appeared not to notice. These are small, fine needles, and that went rather well. She was unfortunately under the bed having "private" time this evening, and I had to wait rather longer than proper timing indicated, but when we got back from my writing group she was waiting for food and I swabbed and jabbed while she was scarfing down moist food.

We're back to moist food, as the web sites dealing with feline diabetes indicate this is the way to go. Far too many carbs in the dry stuff. I'll see. The dry stuff from our vet (available only thru a vet) is for diabetic cats. Right now Thisbe is eating both kinds, and Annie, also porcine, prefers the dry. Annie takes heart medication twice a day. We live in cat sitter hell, that's what.

At the supermarket this morning, the produce truck was LATE. Supposed to be there at 9:00, and not in sight at 11:00. No lemons. No Brussels sprouts. We waited around and waited around and kept accosting the produce people. "They are late because of the holiday."

Grrr. Like the produce people didn't know it was Thanksgiving and might put some extra help on. Finally the truck showed up. I swear to god the Brussels sprouts were unloaded last. We had been hanging out and cooling our heels for a half an hour with entreaties and pleading looks.

Finally, finally the B.S. were brought out and we took four packages, because not only were we doing a side dish for Thanksgiving, but S.O. had it in his head they would be good with the stuffed pork tenderloin tomorrow.

The store didn't charge us for them. Have you ever heard of such a thing? I felt kinda bad, as they were not exactly cheap, and while we seem to be in a financial free fall, we can still buy groceries. They insisted there was no charge. Argued a bit but they were adamant. So thank you for the Brussels Sprouts. We'll enjoy them in good health and and are indeed thankful for your generosity and making us feel the time hanging around and looking at the produce was not time wasted.

Mostly I am thankful that we don't have to eat American Chop Suey one more night. Some wag defined eternity as a ham and two people. I have to say a pound of pasta starts to seem that way by the third night. My oldest kid could, at one time, eat a pound at a sitting. And he stayed skinny. Oh for a metabolism like that in my current years. Yowza! I could eat all the stuff I stay away from. Or try to stay away from.

Yesterday I made oatmeal raisin cookies, a kind of generic cookie from childhood. The recipe made a big batch and there are two bags in the freezer, which is always like manna from heaven. Got the recipe off the Internet. I am getting a good feel for recipes from strange sources. You can look at the seasoning and the fat and get a pretty fair idea if it will be fit to eat.

All recipes calling for margarine are ignored. If all ingredients are "non-fat," that recipe is also disregarded. Low-fat may be all right. We don't object to low, just non. You can always substititute. Healthy salads and veggies are cool. I don't make a lot of desserts, except we like a cookie daily. Seems like one should be able to eat one. Or two. Fresh fruit desserts--yum! Hard to beat fresh fruit. I'm especially fond of Cafloutis.

So I jumped from cat food to people food. Our cats won't eat people food. Won't touch. Won't sniff. It's wonderful. I've had cats that would snake a piece of chicken from a plate with their paws. Cats who ate a half a roast beef. Cats would enjoyed pizza and broccoli and green beans. Cats who want to lick the cereal bowl. Thisbe and Annie are not like those cats.

I am reading a Carl Hiassen book and he showed me how to do a great short flashback. I love his books, which are over the top but in a good, fun way. Great characters, especially the weird bad guys. This book is about bass fishing. I had a bass fishing scene in Promiscuous Mode, but the characters didn't catch any bass. Now I know that bass boats can go fast. You always learn something.

Do you think there are any mysteries where the diabetic cat and the cat with heart trouble solve the crime? I thought not.

Onward,


Grapeshot

Year of the Rat

Horrible forecast for this evening's weather, and we were supposed to go to the New England Mystery Writer's meeting. The scheduled speaker was a PI, so it disappointing when stuff is cancelled.

I moved up our Chinese New Year dinner. Orange chicken, I think it's called. Every Chinese New Year we celebrate with a home-cooked feast. Always something yummy. I'm also sauteing pea pods and making a salad with the orange that will be left after the rind is used. And rice of course. Basmati, not Chinese, but who cares?

Sometimes we eat with chopsticks. When my kids were little, they would ask what the writing on the chop sticks meant. We always told them, "it says 'shut up and eat,'" which they believed. I suspect that I was not the kind of mother that will ever go down in history as the greatest. Hated car pools, and didn't much like birthday parties, after a bunch of 7 year old boys spent the greater part of the party on the floor wrestling. Having little kids is stressful, and it's 24/7, plus you can't turn off the beeper. Nope.

Back to Chinese food. Article in NY Times (I think) this week about how none of it is authentic, and I have known people to return from China and say the food was awful, so it's hard to know what' to believe, but the best Chinese meal I ever ate was in New York's Chinatown with someone who knows his Asian food and it was totally wonderful.

We have noticed that in Boston you can't get decent egg rolls, whereas every store front in Chicago had them. The worst I ever ate were homemade. One of life's mysteries. But I'm hoping the orange chicken, which I suspect is not authentic will be tasty. Tastes good and not too many calories and doesn't take all day to make is ideal. My aims are modest.

Since I first went to school and ate the school lunches that were usually yucko, I've liked a macaroni casserole made with ground beef, tomatoes and elbow pasta. When we came to Boston, I discovered they called it "American Chop Suey," which I had never heard of, but now it has a name. A pound of ground beef feeds us for 3 nights, and it's tasty with parmesan cheese and some red pepper flakes for zing. Comfort food.

Enough rambling. Time to do some writing. And then it's off to feed the cows before the storm hits. I think they are starting to accept the new young bull that appeared in place of the sweet faced young bull who sired all the current babies. So far he has kind of been taurus-non-grata with them. Cow culture is hard to understand. But isn't that also the case with our own culture?

Alors,

Grapeshot