Leftover Turkey Nummy

I couldn't face making another turkey soup today, but I didn't want to waste the bird, so here is what I did...
Mix equal amounts of cream cheese and cranberry/horseradish sauce (you can take your cranberry relish and add prepared horseradish til the sting pleases you, if you have no sauce in the pantry.  You might want to add a bit of sugar, too).  Smear this on a cracker. (I used Pecan Nut-Thins because they are gluten-free).  Finely chop (1/4" cubes is good enough) leftover roast turkey.   Drop this on the stuff on the cracker.  Munch.
The Princess had seconds.  The Pirate wouldn't try it because she doesn't do horseradish.  I'll have to make more before El Jefe gets home, because someone else ate the rest.

Tooth Is a Pig, not a Snake; too bad he is not a Deer in my Freezer

okay, so someone decided the snake looked hungry or something, and tossed two hoppers in his cage, and apparently they were the gourmet size, because he ate them both in less than ten minutes.  S'up with that?  He lets one live in his cage for a week, then snarfs two in just minutes? 

And speaking of food, I still haven't gotten a deer this season.  I had to watch a big ten-point trot away from me yesterday at 8AM, and didn't see anything else that day, then this morning I had to watch one tear through through the field going west, then five minutes later watch six does come tearing back the same way going east, while I sat unmoving (except for shivering) in my tree.

I'm not going out at all tomorrow, but will cut kickboxing class on Tuesday morning in one last ditch effort to get some meat in the freezer.  I hope it works.  I wonder how mad the family would be if I skipped Thanksgiving Day in favor of hanging out in my tree...

Tooth is spoiled by the Pirate

Okay, so I get back from my massage (yea!) and then the kids get back from the movie and ice cream and the pet store.  Yes, they stopped at the pet store and the Pirate bought a mouse less than half the size of the behemoth living in Tooth's cage.  She puts him in with Tooth, and five minutes and a short chase around the cage later and the mini-mouse is gone.  The Pirate was none too happy about this, because mini-mouse was "so cute."  The very fact that the snake found and snarfed mini-mouse so quickly is evidence of his hunger.  It also explains why he was so cranky.  I get like that when my blood sugar drops, too.  El Jefe will be dealing with the behemoth tonight.  Yuck.   I'm not hungry now.

Picky Snake Will Not Get Dessert

Tooth, like the Pirate Princess, is apparently a picky eater.  He has let the latest mouse live in his cage unmolested since Monday.  I do not like this, Sam-I-Am.  I cannot rescue this mouse, because Despereaux is a boy mouse, and will fight with any other boy mouse I put in his cage.  Also, rescuing any more mice sets a bad precedent;  I didn't want the pets we have, and don't want any more.  So nameless boy mouse #2 must be dinner for Tooth no matter how long it takes.  The problem is nameless boy mouse #2 is growing (I did have to feed him, lest he die of starvation) faster than Tooth, and I am wondering just how wide Tooth can unhinge his jaws to snarf up a mouse now rather larger than any hopper has a right to be.  I wish Tooth would stop chasing his food and just eat it, because it is making his cage smell of mouse, and honestly, eau de serpent is better.  I think I will go eat another gluten free pumpkin chocolate chip cookie, because I am not so picky.

To drill or not to drill? Not another ANWAR rant

Having just heard about the non-existent gunman at Glenn Research Center, I have a few thoughts with which I will likely annoy you.  The alert was caused by a misdirected phone message from a different NASA facility, which was conducting a known drill yesterday.  Everyone at the other facility where the drill was supposed to take place apparently knew that it was a drill.  So please, rethink the "How COULD they scare us like that?" reaction.  It wasn't done intentionally.  NASA has duly apologized for your "trauma."  You weren't hurt. 

In fact, be grateful.  Maybe you just received a message from God...  If you are living your life in a fashion that would not allow you to leave this life without regrets, then you need to fix that.  If you left your house this morning without hugging your family and telling them you love them, then you are an idiot.  You have no way of knowing, ANY DAY, if you will ever see your loved ones again. 

It's so much more likely that you (or they) will be killed in a car accident than by a gunman, that you have learned to ignore the greater likelihood of a traffic fatality, and instead focus irrationally on the far rarer armed lunatic. Do you hate vehicles because drunk drivers use them to commit vehicular homicide?  Does that sound irrational and a bit silly?  Now apply that same logic to hating guns because armed lunatics use them to commit homicide (far, far less often, I must add). 

Please don't tell me I don't understand how you feel about this incident, since the robber shot the Brinks guy fifteen yards from my bookstore door.  That was not a drill.  It was a wakeup call that said that I have employees who need to know what to do if this happens again, and the company has no guidelines for this.

Let's recognize that drills are a mostly minor inconvenience.  We have fire and tornado drills for a reason...  because the Gov't knows that very few people show both the sense and the self-discipline to look for the nearest exit or safest room in every building they enter, nor do they bother to read those handy "Where To Go" signs, if they can even figure out the maps.  How many of you enter a public room and sit with your back to a wall where you can see the door?  How many of you look around that room/building to find ALL the emergency exits?  How many of you look for the bathrooms unless you are going there?  You need that info in cases of fire, tornado, and lunatic.  Since the Government thinks you are too stupid to get that info yourself, it makes laws requiring you to drill.  And when drills aren't done and a dreaded disaster inevitably occurs, people (having been taught that they are not personally responsible for their own safety) sue and lay the blame for casualties on anyone but themselves: the company for not doing (enough) drills,  the Gov't for not requiring drills for that particular situation,  God for allowing it to happen.  Rare is the person who recognizes his responsibility for his own safety.


Imagine... if everyone took responsibility for his/her own safety...  the Gov't could stop wasting our hard earned money and resources on drills and silly emergency preparedness pamphlets full of what ought to be common sense...  and spend it on actually PREVENTING these problems in the first place... with the end result of a safer environment for everyone...   So sayeth the Queen of Efficiency in a utopian daydream...

Despereaux Moves Up

to a bigger, more secure home... he now inhabits a 10 gallon aquarium, with all his toys and stuff from the old cage.  Danged expensive rodent.  I do need to post some pics...

I VOTED...

because, as I explained to my children on the way out of the polls, it is one of the duties and responsibilities of being a citizen of this nation.  They thought I did it for the sticker.

Just KIDDING!  And aren't you glad we get the rest of the day off from political ads, before they start up again tomorrow for the 2012 elections...


 and we all WISH I was kidding about that, don't we?

Air Rifle scores for the day...

The Princess is highly pleased to announce that her scores for the day (in order) were 88, 90 (2x), and 92(3x).  These are her best yet.  She needs scores consistently in the nineties in order to move up to the competition size targets.  She is almost there!

The Pirate is excited (of course, being extremely excitable) that she got a perfect 50 on one of her targets.  And she got to shoot the bird (target, people, don't get excited too), and knocked him off his line with all four shots.  In between targets, she sneaked out of class (twice) to look at her book about milk snakes.  Now if I could get her to READ it, instead of looking at all the pretty pictures...

Snakesssssskin

Tooth shed his skin last night, all in one impressively long piece.  Miss Pirate is thrilled.  She has a collection of them (there are lots of snakes in our backyard) and is glad to now have her own personal supplier.  What does one DO with a shed snakeskin, aside from tossing them on every bookshelf one owns?  Suggestions are welcome...

American Jane Quilt Kit Arrived

My quilt kit arrived on Saturday, while I was Appleseeding, and no one thought to mention it - I discovered it this morning.  The fabric is a richer color than the little pic online shows.  I want to figure out how to import the pic into this blog, but it isn't working at the moment.   Also, it came in a big tin, which will make a great giftwrap for someone this Christmas!  I like the pattern, but I may screw with it anyway, just because.  I mess with recipes, too.  There is no sense in making anything the same way twice. 

Quote for the Day
"Life is too short to make the same quilt more than once..."

Have a happy, healthy week!

Tooth Gets Hungry

Yesterday, we finally got a hopper for the picky snake.  He ate it this morning for breakfast.  It was an interesting visual to go with my morning tea.  He used his coils  and the cage walls to push the mouse into his mouth.  This took  a minute.  Then it took about 10 seconds for the mouse to get halfway down the snake's body, where it made a small bulge.  I didn't expect that to happen so fast.  Then Tooth gave a GREAT yawn (I'm assuming to get his jaws relocated?) - then he crawled back into his water dish, because moving his 3' long body all of 3" to catch a mouse is apparently all the work he is doing today.

Despereaux Escapes...

but fortunately El Jefe captures him at 8AM eating pumpkin seeds on the countertop.  Sigh.  I knew the little runt was going to be trouble.