Sunday Updatia (completely out of sequence!) with a Tuesday Footnote for elionwyr

Much thanks to pete_wisdom - I was selected to receive a brand new copy of Glass Hammer's Inconsolable Secret, and it arrived Saturday morning. Wasn't intended for the purpose, but it works out excellently as a pre-birthday birthday¹ present, at least in my book! =)

This post will actually sit around for a bit, as it's done on the newer laptop, which won't be able to connect until Tuesday at work. I expect I posted yesterday (my tomorrow) on how the cookout went. If not, I wrote something else Monday night on this laptop, and erased this sentence, so You're not actually reading it now. One of the two, or something else, anyway.

A lot went on this afternoon and evening (that would be Sunday.) I roasted the poblanos and a clove of garlic as well. Whipped up a batch of Hair o' the Cow What Bit You, using the brand-new marinade container to flip them and soak 'em good. Reminder to me: the frozen burger *used* to be easy to cut when you were in your youth. For some reason, it's near impossible. Half-thawed is worse - it crushes and gets all messy on the outer inch or so, while the core requires tons of force, most of which is absorbed by the distortions of the outer layer. In other words, thaw it completely, then cut it.

After spending gobs of time on the burger, it was nice to easily put together a rigatoni dinner. I am officially a convert to roasting the garlic prior to putting it in the sauce. A world of difference in taste, although Justin wasn't convinced it was that much better (although he did say it was better,) and Deb said it was good but didn't stand out, while Rachel thought it was "okay." You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him get excited about whether it's pure, icy cold spring water or chlorinated rusty-piped city water out of a garden hose.

After supper, Justin finished trimming around the foundation plantings, and I sprayed Plantskydd on the deer favorites. Discovered that whatever non-deer rodent that has been munching newly planted trees from the roots up made the silver maple on Bank Island its next victim. I looked for it to spray it - as the other silver gets hit regularly by the deer - and it was on its side, the vestigial leaves just gathering strength after a deer attack a few weeks ago were already shrivelling, and the "tree" ended just below the dirt, a mere stick stuck in the ground with nary a root in sight.

Came in and cooked up the bacon for the frasadillas, then did some cleanup.

Much excitement!

¹: Speaking of which (or typing thereof, which is slightly more apropos): elionwyr, what do you plan to do for our birthday? =)

Me, I'll be heading down to dinner at the Outback, and possibly visiting the Canalabration.

Happy Birthday wyvernfriend!

Many happy returns of the day!

By way of taniwhanui...

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Joe and Lola

It has been determined as fact by a long-standing highly scientific investigation that all squirrels are named Charlie. In other words, my brother decided that the fat little rodent-with-good-PR in the yard was named Charlie, thus it followed conclusively that all such creatures were Charlie. I agreed, seconding the opinion, and so it was.

Now, Rachel decided the squirrel in our yard - that terrorized the bird feeders until the bear came along and mangled the squirrel-proof one - was named Peter Tom. I informed her yesterday that this was, in fact, an alias he had given her, for his real name is Charlie, but he is working deep under cover as an agent of the bears (who aren't bright enough to realize he's just in it for the bird seed he can embezzle before the bears claim it as their own.)

Of course, Joe and Lola are not squirrels. They are houseguests, and you'd have to be extremely gullible or on a frozen and canned food diet before you invited Charlie into your house.

Joe and Lola - named by Brandon, or in association with Brandon - are dimorphic jumping spiders. There's at least one cute couple - a Joe and a Lola - in nearly every room.

Well, at least they're not rabid wolf spiders. Or even wolf spiders. Those guys prowl around outside, knocking at the door... I can almost hear Joe saying "Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin..."