Our Independence Day was pretty relaxed and low-key. We hung out at the house in the morning, Nance used my homemade laundry soap to do a load of laundry (and gave two thumbs up to the homemade laundry soap!) and hung it out to dry. Trey helped Fred with his work on the old chicken coop (it wasn’t up to Fred’s exacting standards and needed to be torn down to the frame and rebuilt) and then Nance and Trey and I abandoned Fred to his working-outside-in-the-unbearable-heat ways and went out for a late breakfast at Cracker Barrel. We swung by Publix, picked up a few things, and then headed home for the rest of the day.
I made the Fourth of July cake – the cake part – and let it cool.
By the way, the making of the cake took longer than it should have – I’d wanted to make it first thing in the morning – because it went like this “Okay, this butter has to be at room temperature, so I’m going to set it out now, and then it should be ready to go by 9:00.”
At 9:00 “Okay, I should be able to… (looking at the recipe) Well, shit! The sour cream is supposed to be at room temperature too!”
At 10:00 “Okay, this should be quick… (looking at the recipe) Well, shit! The eggs have to be at room temperature TOO!”
I didn’t end up baking the cake ’til we got back from breakfast and Publix, and it’s a good thing I glanced at the frosting recipe when I was making the cake, because the damn cream cheese needed to be at room temperature TOO.
A word of advice – read the entire recipe closely before you begin. DUH. You’d think I’d KNOW that by now.
Once the cake was out of the oven, we all kind of scattered. Nance said she was going off to read, and I claimed I was going off to read as well, but – as I told Trey – “Saying I’m going to go read means I’m going to read for about ten minutes and then take a nap.” While I was reading, it started to rain, and then I watched it rain for a few minutes and started to doze off. Then the kittens did something to wake me up. Then I’d doze again and they’d do something to wake me up. Repeat 10,000 times until I figured it was about time to get my ass up and make the frosting for the cake.
The frosting was especially easy, so once it was made and the cake was frosted, I thought about just sprinkling the blueberries and raspberries on the cake in a random pattern – I was NOT getting the damn pastry bag out and piping stripes and stars on the damn thing. But in the end, I did use the blueberries to mark off a blue square in the upper left corner and the raspberries to mark off stripes.
I took a picture, of course. But I couldn’t get a good picture with the pan on the stove, so I put the pan on the floor, and when Nance walked into the kitchen, there I was bent over the cake trying to get a good picture.
Here’s a tip: if someone teases you about being a Housewife of Doom and a perfectionist, it is difficult to refute that assertion if you’re caught in a compromising position. Just so you know.
So for dinner, we were going to grill out steaks, but due to the weather I ended up having to make them inside. Nance and Trey also got to experience the green beans I’ve made several times since I “discovered” it (did I ever mention that I leave out the red peppers and it’s perfectly fantastic anyway?) and oven-fried summer squash and zucchini.
Later, we cut the cake and Nance and Trey and I each had a piece, and we all pronounced it fabulous. I couldn’t finish the piece I took, and neither could Trey and for that matter neither could Nance (word of advice: take half as much cake as you think you’ll want. You can always go back for more!) and we later fed it to the pigs. Fred didn’t try a piece until sometime Saturday morning, and he was distinctly underwhelmed. Which is fine with me – it’s not like I was planning to ever make it again, I just wanted to give it a try. (We froze about half of what was left and fed the rest to the pigs and chickens.)
Fred and Trey went off to watch movies, and Nance and I hung out, then put the chickens up and fed the pigs their nightly snack and hung out some more. Nance was packing and we were hanging out, and she called me into the guest bedroom to see that Sugarbutt had burrowed up under the comforter and was napping there, and we laughed.
Not ten minutes later, Mister Boogers came over to me, looking for a pet and acting generally guilty, and a minute later Nance discovered that someone had peed on the guest bed.
GODDAMN CATS.
So we stripped the bed and remade it, and I told all the cats that I hated them – I mean, Nance completely understood, she has cats herself, but GODDAMN the little fuckers. Why must they be such assholes, I ask you?
Saturday morning we planned to leave the house at 7:00 so we’d get to the airport around 7:30, which would give Nance and Trey an hour and a half to get through the ticketing process and security and all that. I figured I’d wake up around 5:15, as I’ve been doing most days, so when I woke up and glanced toward the window and saw that it was light I assumed it was 5:15ish. I lay in bed and petted Miz Poo and let my mind wander, and then I wondered if I should get up, and so I looked to see what time it was.
I am so blind without my glasses and the bedside table is far enough away that to see what time it is, I have to squint very very hard and then lean off the side of the bed a little, in the direction of the clock on the table. Imagine my surprise when I realized it was 6:21!
I managed to shower, scoop the litter boxes and let the kittens out of the foster room, and still had time to sit and talk with Nance and Trey before we left the house.
At the airport, we headed for the Delta counter and were told that Nance had to check in at the kiosk, she couldn’t just go and stand in line. Further, there were at least two Delta employees circulating, helping people check in, and it was RAWTHER a great big clusterfuck and I’m not sure why those two employees couldn’t just stand behind the counter and print out tickets to make things go faster, but I’m not in charge of that sort of thing so WHATEVS.
I talked Nance through checking herself and Trey in at the kiosk – well, actually I started to talk her through it, then I elbowed her out of the way and did most of it myself because I’m a bossy bitch. She had their tickets, checked their luggage, we stopped and looked at the gift shop, and then we were at Security.
I waited ’til they got through Security, waved goodbye to them, then left the airport. I stopped at Publix to get groceries, then went home.
I get the idea that Nance never ever ever EVER wants to fly again, but I could be wrong, she’s kind of vague about it. Heh. Hopefully we didn’t bore Trey too much – that kid cracked me up. He got a hockey jersey at Hot Topic and he was way excited about it. He checked out the gym in the garage, and we had several talks about weight-lifting, his jersey, his friends, the cats, and… the jersey. He loves that jersey and I hope for his sake that it lives a long life. He loved it so much I was starting to wish I’d bought myself a damn jersey. He was making me jealous! Over a hockey jersey for a band I don’t even know! He’s a good kid and funny and he is welcome back any time!
Miz Poo, especially, took a shine to him. I mean, all the cats liked him but Miz Poo was all “This my boyfriend, y’all back OFF.” I do believe that all the cats approached him (and Nance!) for love and allowed themselves to be petted except for Stinkerbelle.
Nance texted me to let me know when they’d arrived home, and I suggested she just turn around and come back because I was bored, but oddly enough she wasn’t up for that. Hmph.
Because the cucumbers have started coming in with a vengeance, I spent most of Saturday morning and afternoon making pickles. I made a batch of dill pickles for Fred, a batch of faux-Wickles that a reader sent (only the recipe called for thai chilis, and since I couldn’t find any of those I ended up using cayenne peppers instead; we’ll see how that turns out), and a batch of Aunt Teh’s Bread and Butter Pickles. I have a few more pickle recipes to try, and then we’ll probably end up feeding the rest of the cukes to the chickens. We can only eat so many pickles in a year!
Sunday morning I got up around 6:30 (slacker!) and started right in doing the fun stuff – laundry, vacuuming the house, taking the recyclables to the recycling center, stopping at the grocery store, stopping at Lowe’s. I spent most of the day puttering around the house, getting little things done. We decided to have an all-veggie meal for dinner, so I prepared stuff like the oven-fried squash and sauteed vegetables ahead of time to lessen the amount of work that would need to be done in the hour before dinner.
The menu ended up being: corn on the cob; oven-fried pattypan squash, eggplant, and okra; black-eyed peas (from the freezer, left over from last summer), cherry tomatoes and mozzarella; cucumbers; and cubed summer squash, pattypan squash, eggplant, onions, and roma tomatoes sauteed together in a pan. For dessert: peach cobbler made with Splenda. Of that, the only things we didn’t grow ourselves: the coating on the oven-fried vegetables, the mozzarella, and the bisquick in the cobbler. And the Splenda, of course.
This farming thing is a pain in the ass sometimes, but when we can have an entire meal made of stuff that grew in our own garden, that’s pretty freakin’ cool.
Kara and the babies are doing well. I let them out pretty much as soon as I get up in the morning, and they stay out all day until bedtime, when I give them a plate of baby food and then lock them in the foster room for the night. When I open the door in the morning, they about knock me over in their eagerness to get out, but when they realize I’ve got a plate of baby food they run right back in (except for Kaylee, who could not be less interested).
Every now and then the babies will try to nurse, but Kara shuts that down IMMEDIATELY.
I spend as much time with them as I can, and Zoe likes to snuggle up against me and let me pet her. I know their days are numbered and they’ll be going to the pet store when there’s room, and I think that if I can smother them with as much love as I can, it’ll carry them through those scary days until someone falls in love with them and takes them home.
Letting these guys go is going to be HARD.
More kitten pics over at Flickr.
I think this damn collar is breaking his spirit. All he does is lay around and sleep; no running around like his ass is on fire, no hanging out on top of the cupboards. It’s for the best, I know he needs to heal, but it’s hard to see.
Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: Damn freaky cats.
2005: “It’s cancer,” Fred said. “That’s a tumorous lip if I’ve ever seen one!”
2004: I didn’t tell her that I think scars are badass and it can scar up all it wants.
2003: God, I hate people.
2002: No entry.
2001: So the house situation, oh what a story it is.
2000: This week, the devil won.