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      Friday, July 03, 2009

what's cookin'?
12:16 PM - 07/03/2009
The topic: Black Angus

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We went to Black Angus the other night for the first time in ages.

I do the MyPoints thing and had earned enough points to get fifty dollars in gift cards. Earlier this week, the mail brought junk mail and one piece had a coupon for $13.00 off of their twofer special.  We figured we’d take advantage of it. 

Since the filet mignon was not one of the pieces of meat offered with the coupon (it was with the twofer, but not using the coupon) I went with the chicken. I chose “teriyaki”.

I remember when I first started dating, my first true love would take me to a nice restaurant by the name of Hungry Hunter (not too many of those around). One of his good friends managed one of the local restaurants.  And I would have the teriyaki steak.  It was tender, it was tasteful and it was really good.  The meat was marinated in a teriyaki sauce for at least twenty-four hours before serving.  It was cooked to perfection.

Well, that chicken I got at Black Angus? What a disappointment.  They cooked the chicken, slapped the sauce on it after, and called it “teriyaki chicken”.  I guess they’d do the same if you ordered “barbeque chicken”.  Cook it, then slap some barbeque sauce on it. 

We had the big mountain fudge cake for dessert.  We split it.  It’s a large piece of chocolate cake, with a scoop of ice cream on top and a container of hot fudge to pour over it.  The cake was dry, the fudge wasn’t hot (didn’t pour worth squat). 

I might as well have eaten at Carl’s Jrs.  At least the dinner only ended up costing us seven bucks, what we left for a tip (not real impressed with our server).  There’s still $6.85 on the card.

Won’t go back there for a long, long, long time. I wonder if it used to be so good because we’d had a few alcoholic beverages beforehand. Booze has been known to impair judgement, you know.


catstuff
07:59 AM - 07/03/2009
The topic: Daggum cats

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They sure try my patience. You’ll never hear me threaten to find them different homes, that’s not gonna happen as long as I’m healthy, but sometimes I think about me running away for some peace and quiet.  A story from last night.

I had finished my dinner and we heard much chirping and squawking from on the patio. I ran out to see what was going on. One of the cats had a bird (it all happened so quickly, which cat didn’t register) and the mate or parent bird was going after this cat. The cat let loose of the bird when double teamed by the other bird and me and started to fly away.

Opie grabbed it before it had a chance to get very far up in the air. This fat woman (me) was chasing Opie, yelling “no! no! no! no!” (I had no idea I could move that fast.) He ran into the garage via the cat door. If that bird got loose in there, it would have been a nightmare with the rafters and all.

He ran behind a cat tree, I gave chase, was on my knees and this worried him more than keeping the bird in his mouth and he dropped the bird and ran inside. I reached in and got the bird, which, thank God, was none the worse for wear. I took it outside, it giving me hell and trying to bite me and I put it through one of the spaces between the wire on the fence modification. I took care to not hurt the wings. It flew away. Then it flew back into the tree. My hands flew in the air “go away until the cats cool down!” flew out of my mouth.

Brian says “those birds are teasing the cats!” You know, I really don’t care who’s teasing whom, there will be no dead birds in my yard because of my cats if I can help it.

I have no idea why it’s so bad this year. Maybe Skipper and Spot are excellent hunters, can leap ten feet straight into the air or something. But I’m not liking it at all.


      Wednesday, July 01, 2009

otherstuff
11:59 AM - 07/01/2009
The topic: Last month at hypnotherapy

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A very heavy, older man joined. His first group session was on the day we’d gone to Disneyland.

When I met him, he had taken Holly’s chair (Holly has lost quite a bit of weight, she’s doing great) and she took another woman’s who is taking the summer off. I seriously don’t think she’ll be back. She had a considerable drive to get to the office.

Anyway, the set up is there is a room for most of us, then there’s a separate room for snorers. This new guy turned out to be a snorer. He’s right next to me and it’s very bothersome. The first week he was next to me, it was annoying. Last week, he was fine.

Yesterday, it was like a stinking freight train. One of the woman, across the room, farthest from him, was the first to speak up after the session was over. She pointed at him and said “he snored the entire time!”. He seemed very surprised. He didn’t think he snored. I said “yes, it was awful today”. We’ve all got headphones on and he came through loud and clear. I kept wanting to kick him.

He’s being banished to the snorer’s room. His feelings are hurt. He’s taking it personally, like we don’t like him. That has nothing to do with it, we’ve paid money for these sessions and his snoring disrupts it.

Even Nikki could hear him in the outer office, with her radio on and on the phone.

I wonder what his wife tells him. “Oh, no, honey, you don’t snore, I’ve never heard you snore….”

I bet they have separate bedrooms.


otherstuff
09:11 AM - 07/01/2009
The topic: We bought meat

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at CostCo last Friday night and Monday I started dividing it up and packaging for freezing.  Monday night I made Spanish rice. There are leftovers, I need to get some green bell peppers for stuffing and cooking in the crockpot.

Yesterday, I divided up the round steak and roasts.  We had beef stroganoff, which I make with round,  for dinner last night.  I’d like to put mushrooms in it, but Brian doesn’t care for them. It sure turned out good.  When I put the sour cream in, I thought “I could eat sour cream with a spoon”.  And then I realized I had this gigundo (CostCo) tub of sour cream, a spoon, what was I waiting for?  I had a spoonful.  It was yummy.

In my opinion, dishes made with round steak cannot be cooked quickly.  The lower the heat and the longer the cooking time, the more tender the meat. 

Since it cooked for over two hours, the stroganoff was really good.


      Tuesday, June 30, 2009


06:09 PM - 06/30/2009
The topic: It’s TUMMY TUESDAY #142!

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Better late than never and I got the perfect opportunity for a great tummy picture this afternoon.  After much “come on, Skippy, roll over, you can do it ” (I knew he could do it because he was doing it before I ran into the house to grab the camera), hd finally did it.

And here we have today’s tummy!


click for a larger pic

Nice belly, eh?

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If you’ve got a Tummy Tuesday blog entry, feel free to post the link in the comment section or trackback to this entry. And if you put a link back to this page, then more kitties will get to show off their tummies!

 


otherstuff
07:14 AM - 06/30/2009
The topic: Ponderance: Thoughts about Michael Jackson

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Okay, so Michael Jackson was, at one time, a very talented artist.  There’s no denying that.  He was a very talented artist for many years.

But then, for whatever reason, too much money, too many fans, too much pressure….too much of everything, I’d venture to guess, he cracked. Something snapped.  He bleached his skin (I never fell for the medical explanation), he ruined his good looks with too much plastic surgery (there’s that “too much” phrase again).  He used his money to change who he was and it backfired.  His life became something of a freak show. He moved to the planet Pop and declared himself king.  From his child molestation charges, his children (who can forget him dangling the baby over the balcony?), just his entire life became one big “ewww, how creepy”.

Then he died.  Did he die young?  I don’t know, it certainly seems to me that he lived more in his life, freaky or not, than I ever will, even if I lived to be five hundred years old.  Celebs are coming out of the woodwork about what a great guy he was, how he’ll be so very, very missed.  I saw interviews with people on the street “where were you when you heard the news?” type of questions.  My reaction to this was “WTF?” The radio stations have his music back in rotation now.  And I wonder a couple of things.

Before his death, when was the last time you heard any of his music on the radio?

And if you’ve got albums or CDs of his, before his death, when was the last time you listened to them?

I’ve got a couple of his CDs and I have no idea how long it’s been. 

I won’t miss him. For me, his candle blew out a long time ago. He lived a life of excess and now it’s done.  There is no more.  His music will live on, his videos will live on, but they’ve been around for a while now. There has been nothing new for years.

I only hope his children can now live a “normal” life.  I hope they don’t become the center of a new media driven freak show.

Goodbye, Michael.  I pray you finally find the peace in death that you spent a good part of your life searching for.


      Tuesday, June 23, 2009


08:53 AM - 06/23/2009
The topic: It’s TUMMY TUESDAY #141!

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Sunday evening, some kitty puked on the middle of the bed. Well, not quite middle, it was over to my side.  Since we didn’t get to bed until eleven, I didn’t feel like stripping the sheets and changing the covers. It was in a spot that I could easily avoid (the solids were easily removed, but there was a lot of watery type stuff that went through the fabric).  I put a big heavy towel between the sheets so it could soak up the mess and keep my legs from that area.  Icky, I know, but when you’ve had as many cats as long as we have, some things just don’t bother you as much as they used to. If it had been pee, it would have been a different story.  I would have slept on the sofa.  *lol*

Then yesterday morning, before we got up, Mystie full on peed against the headboard on Brian’s side of the bed, soaking the top corner of his pillow. Obviously, yesterday turned out to be a bed clothing laundry day. I stripped the bed of everything but the mattress pad and washed it.

Bart and Spot didn’t care.  Spot didn’t mind at all, as you can see by his stretched out, snoozing body.


click for a larger pic

 

 

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If you’ve got a Tummy Tuesday blog entry, feel free to post the link in the comment section or trackback to this entry. And if you put a link back to this page, then more kitties will get to show off their tummies!

 


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lisaviolet is fifty something, married with no kids, takes care of lots of cats, likes taking photographs, loves Southern California weather and spends altogether too much time avoiding her responsibilities.

In her spare time, she makes pretty things to sell in her store.

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