The Creepy Day ... and Night

Alex had just snitched the last piece of my bacon that I'd cooked for my breakfast, and was munching it while looking out at the back patio off the kitchen. I was in the front room, fiddling with my computer.

I heard Alex squawk, and she came back-pedaling into the front room, talking around the bacon in her mouth. "A BEHEADED RAT JUST FELL OUT OF THE SKY!!!"

Everybody leaped up and ran to see if she had lost her mind at last.

"Is it an omen, like the wolf pup being dropped into Claudius' lap in I, Claudius?" she asked, a grimace of horror on her face.

No, not likely, but since I've found bird feathers scattered at the exact same spot as the toes-up headless rodent, it seems likely that the little hawk I'd seen being chased by crows earlier in the day had sloppily dropped his lunch.

"Is that our rat?" I asked Bernie. ('Our rat' lives in the neighbor's roof and comes into our yard to steal bird seed and I haven't been able to kill the bastard yet.)

"That's a mouse," he said, disappointed as I was that Rat had not met his demise.

Just then, a scrub jay began to hop down from the tree, purposefully and strangely possessively.

Speculating on whether or not the jay wanted the dead mouse, or could successfully carry it away even if he did want it, we all withdrew to the house and watched from the windows. Sure enough, the jay pounced, grabbed the mouse, and flew off into the neighbor's yard with it.

"Good job on clean up, Jay."

But although a decapitated mouse falling from the sky was creepy enough on its own, that same night brought a troubling incident.

Allergies are really bad here this year, and Bernie and I take turns sleeping on the couch when our sinuses are bothering us. He was on the couch, I'd had a pretty sneezeless day, so I was back on the futon with Kermit. It was a warmish night, so the door to the outside was open.

At some point I felt Kermit roll up from his sprawl, and I turned over to see what looked like a dog sitting outside our sliding screen door. At first I thought that someone had found a black dog and shoved him in our gate, thinking it was Kermit on the loose. But then I remembered locking the gate before bedtime. I disentangled myself from the covers and got up to have a look.

Nothing was there.

I'd have thought I was dreaming, but Kermit was still staring intently at the door. And whatever it was that I saw was sitting, while Kermit was still lying down, so it wasn't a reflection from the glass part of the door.

I shut the door for the rest of the night.

The next day Bernie told me he'd heard something on the fence that woke him up, there being an open window beside the couch.

Makes me kind of nervous now to sleep with the door open.

Dog Toy

The toy I got Kermit for Christmas went right into the trash twenty minutes after he unwrapped it. The packaging said that it was made for aggressive-playing dogs, made from firehose material, made to hold up under rough play.

Plainly they had never tested the toy on Kermit's jaws. I threw it for him once, and then he systematically sawed it into pieces and gutted it.

So I don't buy him cute doggie toys like I used to with Howie, Babe, or Desi (a border collie/collie mix who took excellent care of all his toys) -- there's no point, I might as well throw a ten dollar bill at him and let him shred it.

However, after I filled the salt shakers in the kitchen, I had a sturdy salt box to put in the recycle bag. Had I been wearing shoes, I'd have stomped on it to flatten it and break it down a little, but I had sandals on.

...Oh, wait, I know who can help me with deconstruction. I showed it to Kermit, who was keeping me company as he always does, and then tossed it into the front room. He leaped after it, scooped it up.

The salt box fit in his jaws perfectly, and he began to gallop from the kitchen back door to the front door in eight-foot leaps, growling around his new toy. He tossed it in the air, chased it across the floor, chomped it, capered while shaking it, ran back and forth over and over again.

When he was done scampering and had settled down to eat the box, I traded him a big dog cookie for the container, and took a picture of it to remind me that there is one dog toy I can get for him on a regular basis.

Makes me feel a lot better about being able to give him a new thing to play with. Next time I'll take the label off before I give it to him -- he'll be able to play with it a few minutes longer.

Cucumbers Ahoy!

The other cucumber is not missing, it was transformed. John and I made it into a tzatziki sauce to go with the previously mentioned leg of lamb.

The past two years, I haven't planted cucumbers; I'm pretty much the only one who eats them, and the pot I used to plant them in has been taken over by a dwarf plum tree, and the vines always got buggy anyway. But this year, I had a hankering for fresh cucumber, and the stuff I get in the store tastes like it's crossed with zucchini.

These taste fabulous, and I'm so glad I planted them this year.

So let's talk about the leg of lamb again. I roasted it at 350 degrees in an open pan until the interior temp was 115 (about an hour and a half), then brought it out, wrapped it in foil to let it rest for 15 minutes. The exterior was seasoned with salt, garlic powder and cumin; inside the hole left by the removed bone I had stuffed several split cloves of garlic. It tasted great, and what's more, it was the most tender lamb I have ever cooked.

I was going to use the leftover lamb to make a batch of black bean chili, but with cucumbers like these, forget it. More tzatziki for me!

More New Tricks

Coincidentally, I was watching a Food Network show last night that had a quick feature involving mushrooms sauteed in butter. The feature showcased a bunch of different kind of mushrooms and made me hungry. Then this morning, when we turned on the TV to keep the dogs calm while we were out shopping, there was another show on -- with mushrooms.

While we were out shopping I bought ... mushrooms.

Go figure.

So I chopped five or six white button mushrooms thinly, and grated a fat clove of garlic. I sauteed them both in a pat of butter, then splashed them with white wine -- a tasty Italian pinot grigio -- and continued to cook the browny mushrooms until the liquid was gone. I added a couple splashes of cream, and got a yummy mushroom sauce thereby.

I also cooked up a bag of Crystal Bay frozen mussels with white wine and seasonings. And although SOME PEOPLE say cheese and seafood don't go together, I grated a little bit of fontina cheese, added a couple shakes of parmesan,  and romano, and a few dabs of goat cheese. When the 3 ounces of angel hair pasta were done, I folded them into the creamy mushrooms, added the cheeses and tossed it all together. Put the mussels on top.

Lil and I ate the whole batch.

Never did that before, but I will be doing it again.