Happy Birthday, Rebecca

Three years ago there was a dark and mysterious visitor to my apartment. Not really thinking about the consequences, I invited this strange visitor into my home and fell in love.

It was three years ago this month that I adopted Rebecca Anne -- the silly stray who somehow knew that I was just the right sap to turn those big green eyes on and guarantee a plush living for the rest of her days. As she lays curled into my side while I play on the computer, I'm reminded of some of her funnier quirks.

First of all, as most know, Rebecca isn't much of a cat. Oh, she looks like a cat. All black fur and twitchy tail and ever-alert ears. But in temperament and behavior she more often resembles either a dog or chicken.

Rebecca is easily frightened and runs for cover whenever things aren't as they should be in her home. Strange visitors will have her hiding in the basement ceiling for hours sometimes. She's warmed up to most of my friends and only takes a few moments to warm to their presence now -- but there are some who don't even believe that I have a cat as they've yet to make her acquaintance.

When she does warm up to you, however, Beccer's canine qualities come out to play. She's quite demanding in her bids for attention -- butting your hand with her head in attempts to get some petting. She tends to follow me around the house in dog fashion. I'm usually greeted at the door whenever I come home. She comes when called. She sleeps at the foot of the bed (unless it's particularly cold and then she likes to cuddle). When I return from a significant amount of time away she seems to forget that cats are supposed to play hard to get and doesn't leave my side for at least a day for fear that I'll leave again all-too-soon. And, lately, she's taken to this weird habit with her water dish of moving it from one side of the kitchen to another throughout the day -- an action I've only seen previously from my niece when she visits. And, when given the chance, she likes to drink out of the toilet.

Despite Rebecca's animal uncertainties I can't help but love her. At times, I'll admit, I'm not as appreciative of her attentive and loyal ways as I should be (if I wanted to be followed around all the time I'd have gotten a dog), but she's an important part of our family and I don't know what I'd do without her little black presence in my life.

Baby Got Baked

Up until pretty recently, I’ve been pretty much useless in the kitchen. Not completely useless, mind, as I can wash dishes and fix a bowl of cereal with the best of them. It’s only been within the last two years that I’ve taken to more complicated tasks.

It all started in my efforts to eat better to lose weight. As convenient as TV-dinners and Ramen Noodles are, they’re not so much with the healthy and definitely contribute to the padding on my mid-section. So I’ve learned to do creative things with a chicken breast (heh heh heh), made various plays on the vegetable soup theme, prepared fishy dishes that don’t taste fishy and figured out ways to make eggs fun even after three weeks of Fat Flushing.

Having tackled the preliminary culinary skills of basic dinner preparation, it was time to move on to baking.

LeAnn, a wonderful woman and a fantastic baker, offered to teach me one of her favorite cookie recipes so that I could master the elemental process of baking nummy treats for friends, family and coworkers. Under her watchful eye, my first foray into the world of baked goods was a tasty success.

And then I tried it on my own.

I was first quite pleased with myself by how many basic ingredients I already had in my kitchen. Vanilla, sugar, brown sugar and the like. I even had baking soda, eggs and baking powder. Of course, I didn’t realize these three were all expired until after I got home with the rest of my groceries. Once I had all of my ingredients ready, I pulled up LeAnn’s recipe to have a go on my own — completely unsupervised.

First of all, I should have printed the recipe off or written it down rather than running back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room to review Scooby’s screen. The kitchen is no place for my beloved MacBook and I think if the recipe had been in front of me I wouldn’t have messed up the mixing order which would have, perhaps, made things a bit easier. Then, of course, there is the small issue of me not having a mixer. I know, I know. But I don’t bake — or, at least, I didn’t — so what was the point of having a mixer? Plus, there’s something kind of therapeutic about “creaming the butter and sugars” with your bare hands and then mashing in the rest of the ingredients.

As a result of my man-handling the dough, the consistency was probably not as it should have been. And I balled the dough too big thus cooking the cookies too long to compensate. And I didn’t realize the cookies should be a little soft when you take them out of the oven. And I didn’t know about this whole trick of removing the cookies from the rack while they’re still warm so they don’t stick so heartily to the pan. Otherwise, though, they turned out alright and were well-received by my friends. I still have half the dough in the ’frigerator that I can play with tomorrow. We’ll see if smaller balls bake better.

Sometimes...that's just life

Believe it or not, I try hard to be a pretty upbeat and positive person. I have my dark and sardonic moments, sure, but even when life throw's curves at me I still try to see the challenges as something I'm meant to learn from or overcome in this grand journey we're all on.

And then, sometimes, even I let the rough stuff get to me.

The other night, on my way for a night of shopping with a friend, I discovered that my beloved Hedwig had been sick all over the driveway. Hedwig is my loyal and beautiful Ford Taurus, a faithful companion for more than six years. She's had a lot of issues over the past months and all of them have been costly. Despite this, she is still my beautiful and loyal driving companion. We've only recently hit 100,000 miles and I fully expect that with proper care she'll go at least another 100,000 miles. Her recent issues have been things that every car experiences -- we just happen to be experiencing them all at once.

But, as per usual, I digress.

At first, I was unsure of what it was that Hedwig had, frankly, spewed all over the driveway. It smelled like coolant -- in fact, it was the smell that first caught my attention 'else I may not have noticed the darkened pavement beneath her front end -- but it really didn't look like coolant. I'm used to car fluid's being color-coded for ease of identification. Oil is brown, transmission fluid is red, washer fluid is blue and coolant is green. Apparently, coolant doesn't stay green after 100,000 miles (or at least the 70,000 miles I've had Hedwig for -- in which time we've never had a radiator flush).

I will admit that I had a very distressful evening trying to ascertain what was wrong with Hedwig, wondering if she was safe to drive and, if not, what was I supposed to do as a lone female with only a passing knowledge of auto mechanics. I'm very lucky that one of my neighbors was able to stop over and confirm my diagnosis of coolant being the culprit and his estimation that, considering the size of the puddle, it'd be best not to drive.

So, disheartened, I called my friend to say that I wouldn't make it shopping and went inside to feel sorry for myself. Actually, I was still looking for something to throw to vent some of my frustration. I got over both dark feelings pretty quickly and tackeled my filing -- a task I've put off since May, if not before, and desperately needed to be done.

The next morning, when Hedwig was towed (woo hoo AAA!) to O'Donnell's "On-The-Spot" Repair, it was definitely coolant all over the driveway as there was none in the radiator when they took a look.The mechanic working on Hedwig was "mystified" because he could not find any hoses that were cracked/disconnected and there didn't seem to be any leaks in the radiator. When I left the O'Donnell's, they were giving Hedwig a stress test (something about pressure to get the engine hot so they could observe the process through cool-down). During this they discovered that there's a crack in the reservoir and that's where the coolant is spewing from once everything gets all nice and hot and pressurized. Replacing the reservoir was a little more expensive than a busted hose (which is what I was hoping for based on alternatives) but a heck of a lot less than a new radiator.

So, Hedwig and I are back together and things are well. We've got a short road trip planned this weekend that I'm looking forward to. I love a good drive and it's always nice when the two of us can bond on the open road. It gives me time to relax from the things life throws at us. Sometimes, that's just life and we have to deal with it the best we can.

American Football, Sparty Style

My plans to do very little of anything today (except maybe laundry and some filing) was waylaid by an invitation to attend the MSU-Northwestern game at Spartan Stadium (followed by a round of really bad golf) with my brother.

It's not secret I'm not a very good Spartan. Having graduated from Michigan State, it is expected that I should have working knowledge of current Spartan athletics. The truth is that I don't know the names of any of the key players, have only a vague idea of how the Spartans have performed thus far in the football season and, really, don't care as a general rule. But that doesn't mean that I'm not going to jump at the chance to spend an afternoon with my brother.

Even if I was his last choice for the spare ticket.

And discovered that, despite how many college t-shirts I have, I don't have a single MSU ones. Sweatshirts, yes. A long-sleeved tee, sure. But no Spartan t-shirt. I've got shirts from Oklahoma State, Central Michigan, Colorado State, Western Michigan, Ohio State, University of Michigan -- all part of my collection of shirts from schools I didn't go to -- and not a single MSU t-shirt.

At least I've got a green tank to wear. It was expected to be 86 degrees and sunny. I may be cold but even I get warm sometimes.

The weather during the game was just as hot as expected -- for the first half, anyway. Then there was a freak monsoon during half-time that cooled things down nicely for the second half. Seriously. It was a monsoon. Okay, maybe it wasn't a monsoon but it was definitely freakish and it rained hard for about twenty minutes -- soaking me quite throughly while my brother was off getting Melting Moments ice cream sandwiches. We actually had a similar freak rain storm yesterday, which I informed the family next to me of because I like striking up random conversations with complete strangers.

Speaking of, my brother and I made friends! It's doubtful we'll exchange holiday cards but I did enjoy chatting with the father and son seated behind us.

There were things going on down on the field that I enjoyed as well.

I witnessed probably one of the best fakes in the history of football (or at least in the history of games Joy has ever watched). There was a pass-off and I'm totally intent on watching this guy run with the ball -- only to see the ball go flying out of the quarterback's hands behind him. Maybe this particular Spartan has a future in acting because I really believed that he was cradling the football to his chest as he ran toward the field goal. The fact that the QB never let go of the ball still floors me. It was bloody amazing.

Tackles are something else that amaze me. The way these big burly bodies collide with one another and knock each other to the ground is nothing short of astonishing. Or when a player gets thrown back several yards by the colliding of other players. Or, a particular favorite, is when two guys -- the tackler and the tacklee -- go down and bounce off the turf. Is it wrong that I love that?

Though the Spartans lost in overtime, I enjoyed the game. I've been pretty fortunate that I've found something exciting about all three matches I've attended at Spartan Stadium. Does that make me a better Spartan -- or, at least, less bad?

Here come the drums

Look what I found!

How fun!!

I love YouTube.



Doctor Who: The Sound of Drums - Voodoo Child