My House is a Zoo

...and the newest family member is A MONKEY.

You guys have met Maxx:

Well, that was Maxx a few weeks ago.  This is Maxx now:

So yeah...he's grown some.  He has also gotten exponentially more rotten.  I was on a business trip last week.  I left on a red-eye Monday morning...Monday afternoon, the hubby came home to this:

That's about half a box of Puffs (with lotion) strewn about my kitchen.  Eviscerating facial tissues is obviously a very happy, fun time...

Unfortunately, it wasn't a happy, fun time that lasted, so Maxx moved on to other things.  Such as:

Knocking the junk-bowl off the counter and going through its contents.  I hope I'm not the only one out there with a junk bowl...it's a location that we keep all sorts of flotsam around the house in...hair ties, chapstick, handcream, approximately 78-zillion bobby pins, lip gloss, etc.
Usually, the household inhabitants wait a full 24-hours when I'm out of town to go completely feral.  Maxx set a new record for under 12 hours.

Jeff cleaned up his mess, and tried to kitten-proof the kitchen to keep the chaos at bay.  However, Maxx made one last bid for anarchy by jimmying open the door to the pantry and helping himself to some 12-grain baked goodness:

This cat may be the end of him.

I had barely posted this when I heard  a suspicious noise in the foyer...I walked in there and saw:

That's an old-fashioned pencil sharpener that I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW we owned...complete with pencil shavings.  I don't know where the little turd found it.
In his defense, though, the stinker is as sweet as pie:

"I helps you blog."

Genetics

This year, I have perhaps over-shared my daughter’s cheering season on Facebook a tich too much…but I figure, “Hey, it’s not like holding a gun to anyone’s head & making them look.”  I mean, no one has rolled their eyes at me and TOLD me to cut it out with all the pom-poms already, but I’m not oblivious to the fact that every week I post a good 20-30 pictures of her…doing basically the same things (jumping, clapping, kicking) in a rotation of about 5 different uniforms.  But in much the same way as I was when she was a baby…I find myself UNABLE to not show her off. (She was the prettiest baby EVER, and I have the pictures to prove it.)

Luckily, I have wonderful friends who put up with me & patiently look at all eleventy billion photos.  I even have some who seem to enjoy them, and will occasionally comment.  One comment that I’ve heard A LOT this year, and that really surprised me was, “She looks so much like you!”  Because, really, her whole life, I thought she took after Jeff.   I have illustrative proof of this as well:

That’s Jeff on the left & his mini-me on the right…both at around age 5 or 6.

However the other week, even my mother…who ALWAYS used to comment on how much the kiddo looked like my husband (she used to joke, “Who knew Jeff would look so cute in a dress!”) told me that she’s been looking more & more like me as she’s gotten older.  Some of this can be attributed to the fact that her coloring has darkened, I’m sure.



But the whole thing does remind me of an article I read years and years ago about how children resembled their fathers more when they are babies…so they wouldn’t eat them or something.  I mean, biologically, if you just pushed the little pot-roast out of your veryown body, you KNOW you’re the mom…and you’re certain that you’re genetically invested.  The father, on the other hand, needs some reassurance when the little monkey has been up 23 hours straight with colic.

So I guess I’m just wondering if this shift in “resemblance” is another survival mechanism as she’s well into her teen years?  Now that the whole “carried-her-around-in-my-body-for-9-months” thing threatens to be overwhelmed by the “if-I-have-to-tell-her-one-more-time-to-clean-her-room-so-help-me-GOD!” thing…am I needing a reminder (evolutionarily-speaking) that she’s my genetic legacy?

Oh! My epiglottis!

I stayed home from work today to go to the doctor.  I had what I thought was strep throat.  I started having a sore throat Tuesday…by Wednesday evening; I had gross, oozy looking ulcer things on the back of my throat and my uvula.  Very un-cool.  I went to the local doc-in-a-box, had a blood draw and strep swab.  The doctor declared strep-negative & said it was a viral infection.  He gave me a steroid shot, an antibiotic (afraid that the oozy pustules might get a bacterial infection) and prescription for “Magic Mouthwash.” True story.

My lovely daughter, home for fall break, offered to drop the prescription off for me.  I was a little jazzed about getting something that was forreal called “Magic Mouthwash” to be honest with you.  I was thinking it was probably made from rainbows and fairy dust or something.  Last month, I went to a managers’ meeting in Kentucky and this pub we went to had a drink called a “Pixie Stick.” It was purple and awesome and could kick your butt in record time (haven’t had Everclear in 25 years, probably, but funny how you can still pick up the taste of it in anything.) I was hoping that “Magic Mouthwash” was going to be something like that…powerful, yet whimsical (and might stain my tongue an unholy color).

The first pharmacy the child went to said that they didn’t have all of the “ingredients” for my concoction, but directed her to a nearby store that did.  She dropped off the Rx and was told to come back in about an hour and a half to pick it up.  She got way-laid at her orthodontist appointment, so I headed over to pick up my “Magic Mouthwash” myself.

“Magic Mouthwash” does not taste magical.  At all.  It tastes like a combination of Cepastat, Maalox, and monkey spit (I assume.)  And that’s because IT IS.  Wikipedia states that “The most popular formulation of magic mouthwash contains viscous lidocaine as a topical anestetic, diphenhydramine as an anti-inflammatory and Maalox (no lie) to help coat the tissues in the mouth.”  I’m guessing that “diphenhydramine” is the Latin word for “monkey spit.”  It does numb the mouth though…AFTER you get a full 5 seconds of wanting to rip your own tongue out and then rinse your mouth with bleach.  The numbing lasts for quite awhile too.  I’m afraid that nothing is going to taste right for the next week, though.  Can someone please bring me some Everclear?

Pretty Fly for a White Girl

So, the other day, the child and I are out and about, goofing off…and something happens (don’t remember…it could have been anything) that causes Daughter to roll her eyes at me in a way indicating that I am perhaps the LAMEST person on the planet. To which I replied…”Nu-uh, honey…I am SO fly.”

She just looked at me and said, “You’re what?”

“I’m FLY.”

“Do you mean fie?  Because that’s what people say, Mom.  Not fly, fie.”

“No they don’t. The saying is “fly,” as in the Fly Girls.”

“Who?”

“The Fly Girls? From In Living Color? Jennifer Lopez?  J-Lo? You don’t know who the Fly Girls are?”

“Must’ve been some old show…”

I’m thinking that she is somehow tragically mistaken…like how she thought that her Papaw saying “10-4” as an affirmative was kind of code that the two of them had and was not known by the rest of the world.  So, I go to my old stand-by Urbandictionary.com.

And although “fly” is there as “cool, in style,” “fie” is also in there…apparently it is a shortened version of “fine.”

This public service announcement was brought to you by Mothers Who Are Old and Lame.

Scratch my itch...or not

Every year about this time, Jeff gets this flaky patch on his back.  It’s like seasonal-related-super-duper-localized eczema.  I’ve known him since he was 16, and it’s been the same thing every year…the spot is about the size of a quarter and it’s on his left scapula (shoulder blade). (God, why did I say scapula if I was just going to put shoulder blade in parenthesis?) It appears in the fall, and he battles it all winter.  Over the course of the cooler seasons, he will ask me to scratch his flaky-itchy-spot eleventy-jillion times. His itchy scapula-rot made its annual appearance yesterday, and it reminded me of an amusing Jeff-story…

So Jeff has a best friend, Brad.  Back in the days before Brad settled down & got married & had kids, he used to hang around the house quite a bit, particularly on the weekends.  He’d come over, watch TV or play video games with Jeff…and then inevitably, he’d call for a Wal-mart run.  Brad didn’t like to do his weekly dog food/shampoo/detergent/whatever-stocking when it was crowded…but he also didn’t like doing it alone.  It wasn’t unusual on your average Saturday night at 11:17 p.m. to see the two of them pulling into the local Wally-World parking lot.  If I caught them before they left the house, I’d send Jeff with a list of whatever I needed too, so I didn’t mind in the least.  Did I mention that the two of them could bicker like an old married couple?  They’d come home from a Wal-mart trip, and Jeff would joke that he was sure everyone working 3^rd shift there thought he & Brad were a “couple.” (To quote the Seinfeld episode…”not that there’s anything wrong with that.”)

Well, it so happened one year when Jeff’s eczema (or whatever it is) flared up…he was having an AWFUL time with it, and decided to resort to actually treating it.  Unfortunately, for two weeks running, every time I was in Wal-mart, they were out of Cortizone cream, and nothing else seemed to be helping.  Cue the weekly boys-night-out to the store…

Jeff decided since he was already in the store, he’d see if they’d gotten any more Cortizone in…and as he rounded the corner into the Health and Beauty section, he saw a nice, middle-aged woman stocking the shelves.  As a matter-of-fact, in her hand was the red box with the very visible yellow “10% Cort…” on it.  Jeff, being the theatrical guy he his…runs up to her, takes both her hands, looks into her eyes and said fervently, “Oh, thank GOD!!! You have no idea how much I need this!” while Brad waits patiently at the end of the aisle.  With a bewildered look on her face, the nice stocking-room lady slowly and carefully handed Jeff the cream and told him to “Have a good night.”  The guys finished up their shopping and headed to the register.  It wasn’t until Jeff handed his purchase to the cashier that he stopped to fully read the box:

Yes, that says exactly what you think it does.

Short, but horrible

Once upon a time, the world was new and the words "chemise" and "mossy oak" existed far, far away from one another.  Sadly, that age of innocence and purity has passed.  Now we have this unholy union:

What the hell, people?  Is there really a market for camo lingerie?  WHY?  I don't even get it.

Adventures with Jelly

Any kitchen experiment that ends with me having to 409 my shoes to stop myself from making sticky sounds when I walk should probably be considered a failure.

Last year I was introduced to a wonderful substance…fruit pepper jelly.  My friend, Janet Tyson Prosser owns a little wine store and she gets in neat little gifts and gourmet snack-y things.  You can check her out at: https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Tyson-Fine-Wines-and-Things/110813115687199.  She has a wine tasting event every Thursday from 5:30-7:30, and I try to go as often as I can.  It’s a great opportunity to sample wines I’d never have the guts to buy for myself and she always has some of her gourmet treats out for us to snack on.  Last year, she started carrying a line of pepper jellies: pineapple pepper jelly, apple-walnut pepper jelly, blueberry pepper jelly…and my all-time favorite, scuppernong pepper jelly.  For those of you who don’t know what a scuppernong is, it’s a type of domesticated muscadine.  For those of you who don’t know what a muscadine is…it’s a subspecies of grape found in the Southeast.  Here’s a picture:

The golden/green ones are scuppernongs.  The purple are muscadines.  ANYWAY, after sampling some of the pepper jellies at Janet’s store, I bought some of the scuppernong.  For $8.99 a half-pint.  It was DELICIOUS…but it seemed to me to be one of those things that I could just make myself.  After all, my Dad has a cultivated scuppernong vine in his back yard (he makes some kick-ass scuppernong wine that is always in high demand in the community.)  I figured that when fall got close and the scuppernongs got ripe, I’d make my own.  So I called my Daddy (he’s still Daddy when I want something) and asked if I could have some scuppernongs…he went a step further and told me that as long as he was juicing for his wine…he’d just set me aside some of the juice.  “Woohoo!!!  This is looking easier and easier!” I thought to myself.

Yeah.

Back in the day, I remember my Granny and Me-maw and Aunts preparing to make jelly with a grim determination of an army unit preparing to go off to war.  I remember them strategizing who was to do what, who was buying or bringing what, who was manning which station.  And they made jelly in an all-out, all-day campaign. In my ignorance, I assumed it was because of the sheer quantities of jelly they prepared.  Now I know that if you’re going to make jelly, you need to make a BUNCH just to make it worth your while.

I went by my dad’s this week and picked up my juice.  He had it in a white, opaque orange juice gallon jug.  Not even bothering to look at it, I brought it home & stuck it in the refrigerator to await the weekend when I could make my jelly.  I went to the store & got jelly jars, lids and rings ($15 for a dozen).  I also picked up a jelly making equipment kit at my friend Leslie’s insistence that the jar-picker-upper was a must-have (kit=$16). Then I got some Sure Jell ($3) and some sugar ($2).  The peppers were free, as a co-worker had brought some to work from his garden.  I had a variety of jalapenos, pablano and banana peppers to work with.

Okie-dokie, then.  All set for jelly-makin time!  I had my recipe…I had my equipment…I had my juice.  Oh, wait.  I open the container of “juice” to find that it was really sort of pulp.  No matter!  I’d just go back to the Sure Jell recipe and use the grape jelly recommendations of cooking it off & then straining it through cheesecloth.  Wait, no cheesecloth.  I send Jeff to the store for cheesecloth (two packets, $9/each=$18).  By this time, I have my scuppernong/pepper pulp simmering nicely and I look through the recipe again.  Crap.  I need some lemon juice and vinegar (lemons are 3/$1…so add another dollar to the running total, plus another buck for the vinegar.)  I’ve now spent $56 ($61.60 after tax).

I start to strain my pulp into my really big Pampered Chef mixing/measuring bowl, and some of the (scalding hot) juice gets all over the counter because slow-pouring it from my pan makes it go all down the side.  Fine.  I get a ladle and (slowly) ladle it into the strainer that I’ve lined with cheesecloth.  I finally get it all strained but it still looks really cloudy, so I get out a bowl, open the second packet of cheesecloth and re-strain.  I had thought that since the Pampered Chef mixing bowl had a handle and spout, I could just pour it back through the strainer and skip the ladling.  I’m still pouring too fast or too slow or something and hot liquid flows onto the counter and into the floor as I’m getting it in the strainer.  Also onto my flip-flop clad foot.  Shit!  That’s hot!  But the juice looks much clearer.  So okay!  I discard the steamy, drippy, gross cheesecloth/pulp mass and move on to the next step…putting the sugar and Sure Jell (this is just fruit pectin) into my scuppernong/pepper juice.  I get the juice up to a rolling boil and take a portion of the sugar and mix it in with the pectin in a bowl and add it to the juice.  It immediately forms into gooey clumps.  I don’t know if I had the juice too hot or too cold or what…but I stir and stir and stir and mash the clumps to the side of the pot with my spoon until I get all of the clumps worked out.  I get it back up to a boil and add the rest of the sugar.  More stirring.  It needs to get to a rolling boil & stay that way for EXACTLY one minute.  I get the mixture boiling and start moving my jars close.  Oh, and I need to rinse my sticky ladle.  I turn my back for ONE SECOND and everything is boiling out everywhere.  Crap, crap, crap.  I get it back under control, but the stovetop is a disaster area.  I remove the pot of liquid magma from the heat and start ladling it into jars.  I can’t decide if I’m filling the jars too full, or not full enough…so I go back to the Sure Jell instructions…and knock a half-full jar of hot jelly-crap over.  It runs down the cabinet facing, onto the floor and into the floor vent.  I can’t stop to do anything about it because the instructions stressed that successful jelly-setting and jar-sealing depended on getting this last part done QUICKLY.  I throw some paper-towels down to hopefully contain the spread and continue to fill jelly jars.  I have enough for eight.

I hurriedly put lids and rings on, screw down tight and transfer the jars to the hot, almost-boiling water bath I have prepared.  I consult the directions again. “…should have one to two inches of water covering the tops of the jars…” Shit.  My water barely covers the jars and I’m out of room in the pan I’ve chosen.  I go to my pan cabinet, and start slinging things out of it to get to my big stock-pot waaaaaayyy in the back.  I lift the jars out of their bath (Leslie’s right, this would have been a bitch without the jar-lifting-thingy), transfer the water into my stockpot and start running hot water to add to it momentarily.  I put the jars back in, add scalding hot water from the sink (I get my right hand this time) and check the instructions for time in the bath.  “Bring to a gentle boil for 5 minutes.”  Whew.  I can start cleaning up the spreading jelly catastrophe on the cabinet/floor while it’s doing that.  I get the bulk of the congealed mass in the floor up with paper towels, and head for the garage for my Wet-Jet Swiffer.  “Smooch, smooch, smoosh….” That’s the sound I’m making with every footstep.  I stop, take my flip-flops off & get the Swiffer.  I start over by the juice-spill counter when I realize that nothing is coming out of my Wet-Jet and I’m basically just pushing juice around. Crap again!  The Swiffer is out of cleaner!  I go back to the garage, get a refill and clean that area.  I change out the Swiffer pad and start on the area of the jelly spill…not gonna work.  This mess is too much for a Swiffer, so I get a roll of paper towels, 409 and get on my hands and knees to start to clean that up.  I’ve about got that done when the timer goes off.  “Jeff!!!! Will you throw me down a towel???” Because, you know, I wouldn’t want to drip water anywhere when I pull the jars out of the water bath.  I get the jars out, set them on the towel and turn off the stove.  I finally get a chance to spray and clean the bottom of my shoes and put them back on (I’ve been barefoot for the last half-hour).  I get all of the pots, pans, dishes, cutting board, chopper, measuring cups, mixing bowls and utensils into the dish washer and begin to wipe down the counters and cabinet fronts, where they’ve been polluted with juice, pulp and/or jelly.

Here’s what I’ve got to show for it:

And I don’t even know if they are all gonna seal correctly.  I’ll have to wait ‘til they cool to see if the tops still “pop” when you push on them.  I ended up with eight jars of pepper jelly (I hope…if they all set and if they all seal). I spent $61.60 (which, BTW, is $7.70 a jar) and three hours of my life getting to this point.  This had better be some damn good jelly.  Otherwise, Janet is gonna have a heyday teasing me everytime I come crawling back to buy pepper jelly at her store. (Word of advice...just go see Janet for pepper jelly.  Mine doesn't even have labels.)

P.S. My daughter just came through the kitchen to see what I was typing and asked, “Why’s the whole floor in there sticky?” So I guess I’m going to need to revisit with another Swiffer pass.