Bunny Has Left The Building

Well, the bunny has just left the building. I swear he grew an inch taller overnight even though he didn't touch the carrot and lettuce we left out for him right next to the piano before we went to bed.

I slept on the couch last night in the hope that I'd wake up and catch the little fellow trying to get out where he came in, but no such luck.

I woke up about 2:45 this morning and evidently while I slept bunny had decided to leave the confines of the piano and drop some turds in the dining room and pee in the corner. The cats came up from the basement about 5 and went out, but not before Pal's nose clued me in to the present on the tile in the corner. So even though I was awake and heard some clunks in the piano around 4 I was disappointed in my silent watch. Just as well. They are almost impossible to catch with three sets of bare hands, let alone one.

So after making some inquiries this morning I had resolved to line the bottom of the piano with fresh cut onions by removing the access panel above the pedals, but when my son decided to begin his piano practice he discovered that bunny had already come out of his own accord, and was behind it again. I guess enduring one more practice session was just too much to ask of bunny, and no, my son is not practicing Prokofiev at present. 

We prodded him with a long stick once again and bunny decided to head to the breakfast nook, by-passing once again (!) the wide open front door. But eventually we coaxed him back there, and though he stopped short of exiting, a gentle push with a shirt had him tumbling out and finally off the stairs to ground.

Just another day in paradise.

Good luck little bunny. You are a hail fellow well met, or something.

The Day of the Bunny

Pal Kitty showed up at the patio door this morning about 8:30 carrying one of these in his mouth. I think it's his first real bunny. He's kind of lazy about hunting, letting his sister do all the work, so it was kind of a surprise.

Well, on examination through the glass I could see he hadn't really hurt it, and as I cracked the door open he put it down in front of me, all proud like, when the bunny took off across the deck looking to escape.

Just one problem. There is no stair to the deck, just a couple of narrow boards for cat ramps in two different places. As I tried to separate bunny and kitty, who had decided the chase was on again, bunny decided . . . to head into the house through the patio door, which I had, of course, absent-mindedly left open.

And off bunny went, behind the couch toward the stairs to the second floor, then out of the corner of my eye back out again on the other side and . . . where? Down the basement stair, or into the dining room?

Having searched the latter I concluded bunny must have headed to ground, as they say. And I've spent the better part of the day looking for bunny in the nether regions of my basement, cleaning up some boxes and packing material for the recyclers tomorrow while I'm at it, doing some vacuuming and discovering that bunny could be just about anywhere in view of all the boxes with stuff in them still piled everywhere after moving into this place over five years ago. I eventually took a break for a late lunch around 2:00 and had a coffee and a quiet sit down on the couch to read for a while, when out of the corner of my eye I caught the sight of bunny. It was being quiet which did the trick.

Bunny decided to head for the patio door, which I managed to open for her, moving ever so slowly behind her and to her left, but she wouldn't go for the opening. Instead, she headed . . . back for the dining room.

But where? Well, a look behind the piano showed she was back there between it and the wall. So, this is where she had been all day.

Well, we opened all the doors, to the front (nearest the piano) with a clear line of sight to the open patio door to the deck in the back the other direction, and also the service door to the garage, in case she'd want to leave that way. Well, to make a long story short, bunny avoided front door, ran toward service door and hid behind the washer, and finally escaped through the arms and legs of the three of us back to the safety of . . . the piano. But this time, she's crawled up inside the frame just out of reach, where she must have gone the first time in the morning where I couldn't see her.

I've been waiting quietly for bunny to come out now for about an hour and a half, but there's nothing happening . . . kind of like the whole day, the day of the bunny.

You are here :)

Earth from Saturn as viewed by Cassini

"Hot Child In The City" (1978)

See him sing it, here.

"Yes. Yes, this is a better arrangement, comrades . . . more just."

Comrade Kaprugina to Yuri:

"There was living space for thirteen families in this one house." 

Yuri:

"Yes. Yes, this is a better arrangement, comrades . . . more just."

See him say it, here.

"Doctor Zhivago" (1965)

The Girls Sing "Curly's A Dope" But These Days All I Hear Is "Obama's A Jerk"

See them sing it, here, from "Violent Is The Word For Curly" (1938).

I was under the impression, Herr Obama, that the contents of telegrams in Austria are private! At least, the Austria I know.

Herr Zeller:

"You never answered the telegram . . . from the Admiral of the Navy of the Third Reich." 

Captain von Trapp:

"I was under the impression, Herr Zeller . . . that the contents of telegrams in Austria are private!  At least, the Austria I know."

(The Sound of Music, 1965) 

Italian Tomato Press Still Available From Williams-Sonoma

You can still get a press just like I use from Williams-Sonoma.

The price is higher now than when I bought one years ago. I think I paid $25 on sale. So I'm guessing it used to be $29.95 instead of $39.95 now.

I can't recommend one enough if you like fresh tomato sauce as much as I do.

This tool just makes it so easy, as long as you have a large smooth counter top to work on and which you can dampen to make the suction cup grip properly.

You'll also need a large, flat and shallow-rimmed plate-like bowl or server to catch the sauce on the left side, and something like a big latte bowl to catch the pulp in the front.

Wear an apron!  

Easiest Way Ever To Make Fresh Tomato Sauce From Romas

This is the easiest way ever to make fresh tomato sauce from Roma tomatoes:

• Harvest your tomatoes when ripe, wash them carefully and dry them thoroughly.
• Drop the Romas into gallon-size freezer bags, whole. Believe me, you don't have to process your harvest any more than this. And when you have bushels and bushels of Romas to deal with, you'll understand what I'm talking about. You'll keep more of your harvest this way when you can't keep up using the traditional ways of making sauce and freezing, or canning.
• Freeze the tomatoes until you are ready to make sauce. I'm down to my last bag from last year:(
• Freezing naturally "cooks" the tomatoes so that skins and seeds easily separate in the press.
• Thaw a bag of Romas in a large roasting pan on the counter, starting in the morning.
• When thawed after lunch, slice each with a serrated knife and allow the water to drain out during the afternoon.
• Make the sauce before dinner, lifting the tomatoes out of the pan where their water has drained out and placing them into the tomato press.
• After making the sauce from the press, simmer the sauce on the stove in a large sauce pan until heated through while you make the pasta and sausages.
• Reserve any unused sauce in freezable containers.
• Drink the tomato water after straining, over ice with vodka, or add it to your next soup.

h/t Dorothy

We Are Never Happy

"Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse. If we attempt to steal a glimpse of its features it disappears. It is a gleam of unreckoned gold. From the nature of the case, our happiness, such as in its degree it has been, lives in memory. We have not the voice itself; we have only its echo. We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once."

-- Alexander Smith, "Of Death and the Fear of Dying" in Dreamthorp: A Book of Essays Written in the Country (Edinburgh, 1888), p. 60.

Homemakers Are Still Basically Worth $60K

scrubbin' for the very first time, like a . . .

Yeah right. Tell that to the banker on the mortgage refi application and see how far you get.

Story here, if you can believe it.

In Competent Hands: An American Tradition Since At Least 1936

Curly: Soitently! We're all incompetent.

See him say it here.

"Don't Forget To Feed The Chickens, Huh?"

-- Telly Savalas to Pier Angeli in "The Battle of the Bulge" (1965)

See him say it, here. (Fixed the link 4/21/19).

Down the mountain slick as glass . . .

Ogden Nash, of the Nash-ville family

As remembered by me from P. Allen:

"Down the mountain

slick as glass

came the billy-goat

ridin' on his overcoat."

And as attributed to Ogden Nash:

"Spring has newly sprung

the hills are full of grass

and along comes a billy-goat

sliding on his overcoat

down the summer pass".

Happiness is Telly Savalas As Pontius Pilate: Get Out!

Roman soldier: And that isn't all.

Pilate: And what else?

Roman soldier: He . . . walked . . . on water.

Pilate: Get out!

"The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965)

T-Bone Tuesday

It's cold and blustery outside, but I fired up the charcoal anyway and grilled a single 1.3 pound Angus T-Bone. Wind has been in the 25mph range most of the day, and temps in the low to mid 20s. Just like Wisconsin when I was a boy.

I picked up three of these T-Bones for about $8.50 each last week and put two in the freezer. You defrost one all day in the frig until grilling time, and grill over hot coals in a covered grill about 6 minutes on a side for medium rare. It served three of us, with some Jasmine rice and steamed green beans on the side, for well less than $4 per person. The bone will simmer on the stove tomorrow to make some beef stock for soup. Maybe beef and barley with mushroom.

Steak. It's what's for dinner during Protestant Lent.

"No! Not Like That You Namby-Pamby!"

-- Roderick Spode, "Trouble At Totleigh Towers", Jeeves and Wooster,  video here, transcript here.

Happiness is The Missouri Boat Ride from The Outlaw Josey Wales

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jamie: They comin'. 

Carpetbagger: Do you really think you can shoot all those men down before they shoot you? No, no, Mr. Josey Wales; there is such a thing in this country called justice!

Josey Wales: Well, Mr. Carpetbagger. We got somethin' in this territory called the Missouri boat ride. 

The Meaning of Life, From a Movie

"And when I run I feel His pleasure."

-- Eric Liddell, Chariots of Fire, 1981

Yo Quiero Horsey Taco?

Uh oh. There's somethin' funny goin' on here, Lucy.

Story here.