Preparations

In these last few days before Christmas, I've found myself making tangerine marmalade, dog biscuits, horse cookies and Sweet Daughter has been making catnip toys for her favorite cats. (BTW, taking dog treats to the dogs at the new local gun store earns big points.)

Speaking of local gun store, they told me they'd done 14K of business on Wednesday before 5:00 p.m. This is a small store, open less than two months that still doesn't have a functional web site.

We have company coming for the holidays this year, and today will find me trying to get the house in some sort of order. And probably baking more dog biscuits.

Dog Biscuits

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cups cornmeal
1 1/4 cups rolled oats
1/2 toasted wheat germ
1/2 brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) cold butter, cut into pieces
1 cup water
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint leaves

I didn't have parsley, so I just used mint, which I chopped in the food processor.  Since I have a tiny little Oscar food processor (yes, from 1985, why do you ask?), I ran the everything through in batches and then dumped it in a big bowl and combined it there. They I rolled it out 1/3" thick and cut it into squares. Sorry, but I don't have time to fiddle with fancy cookie cutters.

I put them on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and put them in a 350 degree oven. Two minutes later, I remembered that I forgot the egg wash, so I pulled them out and brushed them with:

1 egg plus 1 tablespoon water

and put them back in the over for about 35 minutes until they were brown. Then I turned the oven off and left them in overnight. Then turned out very dry and crunchy, and the gun store dogs loved them.

This made two jelly-roll pans full of biscuits.


Horse Cookies

1 cup dry oatmeal
1 cup flour
1 cup shredded carrots or apples
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Mix the ingredients in a bowl, and then drizzle in molasses while you stir until the dough just sticks together - probably about a quarter cup. Form into balls, and flatten with with the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar. Press crushed peppermints or candy canes into the top and
bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

This only makes about a dozen cookies. I'd double or triple it next time.

 

Squirrel Report

If you don’t already listen, I don’t suggest you start now. But if you do, I get to co-host again tonight.

Yay!

Is it just me?

A delivery driver asked me for my "John Henry" this evening. I said "John Henry was a steel-drivin' man. You want my John Hancock." I got a look that indicated I had sprouted another head or some such.

Later I was at the Y while Sweet Daughter took her swim lesson, and woman came over and watched me knit on circular needles. She said she was a knitter, but she stared as though I was some sort of alchemist. She just stood there for a good ten minutes as I knit one, purled one, ad infinitum.

I really need to work on my deathstare.

And the answer is ...

* Wrote personalized sweepstakes copy for a mail-order catalog company.

I worked for Fingerhut first as a temp, hauling the boards around, then as a copy clerk, then wrote for their sweepstakes department. “Congratulations, Title Lastname! You may have already won $100,000 (if we draw your winning number blah blah blah blah blah.)”

* Cocktail waitress in a college bar.

Weekend drink specials were 3-for-1 and cost $1.90. Sometimes I’d get tipped the 10 cents. On a good night, I’d make $2. Popcorn and soda were free for the employees, but the hotdogs were still 50 cents.

* Mapped and transcribed county cemeteries.

Paid summer internship which utilized my double major of Geography and Historic Preservation.

* Sold hats out of trunks at home parties.

Got laid off, and had to make money somehow. Oddly enough, I was their best salesman. Go figure.

* Costumed walking tour guide in a capital city.

When asked when the 2:00 tour started, I replied “In the afternoon.”

* Cartographer: made analog maps for cruise missiles.

First job out of college. Back in the dark ages before AutoCAD. We took the brown (land) and blue (water) plates from the topo sheet and shot a new image. By hand, we scribed what the missile needed to “see”, shot a new positive, digitized it (with a VAX!), and then assigned numbers to the elevation lines with a touch pen on a monochrome computer screen.

* Worked retail in a well-known fabric store.

Nope. This is the one I’ve never done.

* Nightclub disc jockey in the days of vinyl.

This was where I waitressed. The hours were shorter, but the aggravation was less. And I had a horrible case of mic fright.

* Provided admin support for an industry association which developed a set of audio algorithms.

Here. 

* Managed a handful of historic properties.

These belonged to a family partnership that was rather laid back. I learned all sorts of interesting things here … like patching roofs, and everything I ever wanted to know about toilets.

One of these things ...

… is not like the other.

In lieu of actual content, I’ve held all of these paying jobs except one. You get to guess which one.

* Wrote personalized sweepstakes copy for a mail-order catalog company.

* Cocktail waitress in a college bar.

* Mapped and transcribed county cemeteries.

* Sold hats out of trunks at home parties.

* Costumed walking tour guide in a capital city.

* Cartographer: made analog maps for cruise missiles.

* Worked retail in a well-known fabric store.

* Nightclub disc jockey in the days of vinyl.

* Provided admin support for an industry association which developed a set of audio algorithms.

* Managed a handful of historic properties.

Vote, dammit.

So, I just got my 6^th election-related call in the last 3 ½ hours. This one had a real human on the other end and she told me she was calling to remind me to vote tomorrow.

“Really?” I said. “You’re the 6^th call I’ve had since 4:30. Do you think I live under a rock? Do you really think I’m dumb enough to NOT know it’s election day tomorrow?”

“Umm …”

“And seriously.  If I was stupid enough to NOT know tomorrow was election day, would you really want me voting?”

“Whatever.”

:::Click:::

Hurricane Prep

So what do you do before a hurricane? You play proctologist with the storm drain in your driveway so the garage doesn’t flood, and you practice shooting zombies.

Sweet Daughter and I stopped in our new gun (and only!) gun store in town  last week. They're still ramping up, but we bought some ammo and SD picked out some targets as we had planned on meeting up with Shorter Half over the weekend to do some shooting.

That is a black cat on her forehead from a "Harvest Party" at school.

Unbeknownst to SD, SH is, um, a bit put off by roaches. The target she chose for him was a giant zombie roach. When all was said and done, I think SH put every round he had with him through that target.

 

I was given a pretty standard issue zombie. SH wanted me to try his AR -- that thing has so much stuff dripping off of it, it took me a minute to figure out where the magazine went. It was the first time I’d shot anything with a scope – and wow. That was easy. I put the crosshairs in the center of his forehead and let fly. Since we were rather close, the first shot was a little low. I walked it up to what looked like the center of his forehead and went to town. I tried to get my sights back on target as quickly as possible, and kept firing. I’d estimate I was getting a round off every two seconds.

 Here’s what I find interesting – I was aiming for “center of mass” as it related to his skull, not realizing I was high and over to the left. This is because I didn’t notice the “hair”, and I subconsciously saw the mask as good guy, and avoided it.

 

Sweet Daughter had her Crickett and decided not to use the bi-pod this time, firing it from the shoulder. When all was said and done, all 40 shots ended up on the paper. She was tickled. At one point she was a bit frustrated by the chest shots. SH explained how the heart shot would have killed him, and how the shoulder shot would have disabled him. “But Daddy!” she said, “That won’t work. Everybody knows you have to shoot a zombie in the head to kill it!”

Sweet Daughter with her war face.

 Smart girl.