It was September 28, 1998. We were living in Long Beach, Mississippi - a few miles west of Biloxi - about 100 yards off the beach itself. Hurricane Georges was nearly upon us and we had brought the motorcycles into the living room, filled up the bathtub with fresh water, and battened down the hatches.
My husband and I were playing Scrabble by candlelight, listening to the fury of the storm when I heard the strangest sound. It was a kind of "chittering" noise and it worried me because I couldn't identify it.
I looked out the front window and saw the funniest thing EVER. We had a persimmon tree in the yard. The wind was whipping that 10-foot-tall tree so hard it was touching the ground before it sprang back up and blew over to touch the ground on the other side. Clinging tightly to the branches were not one, not two, but THREE adult raccoons - and they were squabbling over the persimmons as well as enjoying the wildest ride of their lives! We watched them for at least ten minutes before they tired of the game (or had eaten enough of our persimmons).
We were lucky. The storm surge didn't hit us, and the Category 2 storm didn't do much damage. And we will never forget those nutty raccoons!
July 12, 2010
Those Crazy Raccoons!
April 17, 2010
That's MY Seat!
So, every time I get up from my spot on the couch something or somethings furry immediately occupies it.
Me: That's MY seat! Move over.
Dog: But I'm cold and I've already curled up under my blankie!
Me: That's MY blankie you dummy. Now move!
Cat: You tell her, Mom. Stupid dog! (licks his privates)
Me: You stay out of it. And by the way, you're going to have to move, too!
Dog: Shut up, Cat, or I'll bite your tail. Mom, I'm COLD.
Me: I don't care! Move over or I'm going to call Animal Control.
Cat: Oh, lighten up. It's just a couch. You can sit in the middle, see? (As he curls up on top of the dog under the blanket in MY SEAT.)
Me: Dammit, I said MOVE!
Cat: No.
Dog: Cat, get off me!
Cat: No.
Me: THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE. I will give you both to the Asian restaurant down the street, I swear I will!
Cat: (licking his privates again) Well, at least then you won't eat there any more. You don't need to sit on the couch. You need to get some exercise - you're fat, y'know.
Dog: (laughing)
Husband: (laughing)
Me: OK, husband, get up. YOU fight with them for a change!
Husband: No. This is my seat!
Some days I just can't win.
October 17, 2009
The Escapee
Ella, my dumbest hen, had shot out of the chicken pen and taken off across the yard at a dead run, clucking like a deranged mental patient. Her feathered bottom rocked dangerously from side to side, threatening to topple her at any moment. She looked like a fat woman running, one with one leg shorter than the other.
God dammit. I was late for work already, dressed in my work clothes and did NOT want to chase down a stupid chicken through our septic waste-infested yard. (Gotta get that septic system looked after.) But I did it anyway because my chickens had recently had to be penned up due to a neighbor's complaint.
It was bad enough that I was going to show up at work with chicken shit from the pen stuck to the bottoms of my loafers - no matter how I scrubbed them in the grass, some would stick and I'd carry "Eau de Chicken Poop" into the office. Now add "Eau de Human Poop" to the shoes and my co-workers would surely be very happy with me. I couldn't change shoes 'cuz they're the only ones I have decent enough for work in an office.
All I had wanted to do was throw hay to the mini horse, feed the chickens, get in the car and haul ass for work. But nooooooo. Ella had to choose that moment to make a break for it.
We played ring-around-the-rosy with my horse's favorite tree. He thought it was a fine game and joined in, terrifying Ella who shot off under the electric fence into the very neighbor's yard who had complained. Shit, fuck, hell, damn. I cursed that hen with every dirty word I knew, including some phrases in other languages that were too disgusting to translate into English. At the top of my lungs. The neighbors, who already thought I might be white trash just for keeping chickens, are now convinced.
I'd lunge left, she'd run right. And vice versa. Never mind that her rooster was calling to her to get her ass home; she has a stubborn streak a mile wide. Never mind that she HAD to be hungry, she HAD to know that I was coming into the pen to feed them. It took me ten minutes to corner her and when I grabbed her you'd have thought I was killing her. She was still screeching at the top of her lungs when I got her back in the pen, which prompted Edwin the rooster to attack me in order to protect the dumbest of his harem. (Edwin isn't the brightest bulb of the bunch either.)
I made it to work and quickly slipped past the wrinkled noses and raised eyebrows to wash off my shoes in the sink in the ladies' (ewww). I couldn't do anything about my formerly creased pants which were now a mass of wrinkles from the knees down, thanks to the dew in the grass, and bearing oddly shaped stripes of dirt from Edwin's eight toes.
Oh well, I thought, shit happens when you have animals. But I really think Ella's deranged. If she keeps it up she won't be my star layer anymore; she'll be dinner.
August 24, 2009
The Difference Between Scottish Cooking and Food (Guest Post)
Today's post is lifted in its entirety from W. Bruce Cameron's column. I subscribe to him via www.arcamax.com. The guy is hilarious! Here's today's offering:
W. Bruce Cameron
Monday August 24, 2009
The Difference between Scottish Cooking and Food
Take the very worst of Scottish cooking, and what do you have?
English cooking.
That is the conclusion of a food historian named Cathryn Brown, whose research indicates that the Scottish dish haggis isn't Scottish at all, but was invented by the English, who apparently hate people.
To define terms: "Haggis" refers to what happens when you take inedible animal parts, mix them with horse feed and cook it in a sheep's stomach. Nobody likes it, especially the sheep. "Scotland" is a country where it rains a lot. "England," same thing. A "food historian" is a person who talks about meals of the past, whereas a person who dwells on meals of the future is "my father." A Scotsman himself, my father will view tonight's dinner and, without taking a bite, ask, "What's for dinner tomorrow?"
Why a person who studies food would be interested in haggis is anyone's guess.
Food historians will tell you that before the invention of food, people were remarkably hungry. What Cathryn Brown will tell you is that the first recorded mention of haggis is in a 1615 English cookbook, describing the dish as "very popular throughout England," so it must have been eaten in that-time-before-food that we were just talking out.
The first mention of Scottish haggis doesn't appear until 1747, though in my opinion this proves nothing -- maybe it just took that long for the Scots to get up the nerve to eat it.
The Scots are very proud of haggis, which was written about by Robert Burns, the Scottish national hero, "renegade poet" and creator of the song "Auld Lang Syne," whose lyrics go like this:
"Should old acquaintance be forgot,
"And la la, la la, la la,
"Should old, um ... hmm hmm hmmm
"La la la, in old lang syne!"
A Scottish friend of mine gave me a tin of haggis as a gift, which I accidentally left sitting out on a table at a restaurant when I left. When I realized my mistake, I rushed back to the restaurant, but I was too late: Someone had already been to the table and left two more tins of haggis.
At any rate, Brown's research has stirred up the Scots, who have rallied their numbers by chanting the stanzas from Robert Burns' "Address to a Haggis":
"Trenching your gushing entrails bright
"Like onie ditch;
"And then, O what a glorious sight. ..."
It goes on from there. I think the last line is "La la la, in old lang syne."
Picture going to a restaurant and saying, "I want the thing described as gushing in a ditch."
"Good idea," my dad would say. "What's for dinner tomorrow?"
Scottish cooks will advise you that the best way to enjoy haggis is to picture your mother-in-law eating it. Otherwise, you're advised to have a bottle of good Scottish whiskey nearby. Take a forkful of haggis with one hand, grab the bottle of whiskey with the other, raise the haggis toward your mouth, and then quickly lift the bottle of whiskey and hit yourself in the head with it.
"Good job," my dad would say. "What are you going to hit yourself with tomorrow?"
A slab of haggis on a plate is very attractive if you've never before seen food. Otherwise, you get an urgent message from your stomach saying something like, "You are NOT swallowing that!" followed by strong agreement from your throat and mouth, who advise you that if you ignore their warnings you're probably going to spend an hour or so gushing onie ditch.
So some claim the Scottish deserve the credit for inventing haggis, while others disagree, saying the Scottish deserve the blame. Meanwhile, in England, people are quoted as saying: "Wait, you're going to do what to a sheep? And then eat it? Why can't we just have a traditional English dinner at McDonald's?"
A lot of people who are descended from Scots will find this whole column offensive and will vigorously defend haggis because they've never tasted it. Yet my father, though proud of his Scottish heritage, won't care if you take his haggis away.
He can always have it for dinner tomorrow.
To write Bruce Cameron, visit his Website at www.wbrucecameron.com. To find out more about Bruce Cameron and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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Read more about W. Bruce Cameron at ArcaMax.com.