Saturday morning playtime

No digestive upheaval last night!  'Tis a miracle!

Remember this photo tomorrow...

...I say to myself.  Izzy went to the vet today for annual shots.  Remember last year after shots?  I didn't remember--until it was too late.  I was supposed to tell the vet what happened last time so she could see if there were other options, and I forgot.  I've never had a dog react with diarrhea and throw-up after shots before.

(Not) anxiously awaiting tomorrow.

Here's Old Bat Ears again

She's dying to know what I'm up to--but scared to venture off the porch.  Some violation of etiquette, or something, in her caged up mind.

Later that afternoon she made it down, so that's okay.

Sunday cooking recap

 

Sunday's dinner experiments were stuffed flounder
 from the Better Homes cookbook










and roasted Brussel's sprouts from allrecipes.com.




 The flounder (actually, Swai) were good but of course Callie wouldn't touch them.  The Brussels sprouts...well...I wish I'd looked at the reviews before I started.
I had a gut feeling that 45 minutes at 400 degrees wasn't the way to go, and I was right.  They were dried out on the outside.  One reviewer suggested 30 at 425--my gut feeling would have said 20 at 450.  I might try again.  But I'll follow the gut, not the recipe.

But first...

Kittens.



Will report the semi-failure of my cooking escapades later.  Just to say, as usual, I liked it; everyone else tolerated it.

Pots of dirt to you--living memory of a precious gift to me.

Years ago, my dad went out and dug up a patch of daffodil bulbs and gave them to me in a tub of dirt.  I don't remember where he got them from--either a vacant lot or the old house on Monroe Street.
I do remember that I left the bucket out in the front yard too long and it filled up with water--I was scared I'd killed them.  But they finally got planted under the bird bath and have bloomed sweetly every year since.  To me, they'll always be Dad's.

This spring we had to dig out a water leak under the birdbath.  We only dug as much as we had to, at the time, and I saved out a big bag of the bulbs.  The hole exposing the water leak is still there (think, eyesore).  But I saved the bulbs over the summer and just now filled up these pots with them.  The ones still in the yard will probably survive but I'm not sure about these.  I'll do my best.

 Book #7 and 8 are by Kaori Yuki-- The Cain Saga: Kafka






and The Cain Saga: The seal of the Red Ram Part 1.

Somehow I missed part 2 but I'm not screaming for it right now.  If I find it, great, but I'm not going to special order it.  They're a prequel to her Godchild series.  Technically I should go re-read that series but I think I've had enough for now.  The next manga I'm going to attempt will be Reborn!  

What to say?  Highly recommended if (a) you're a teenage girl into (b) manga and (c) creepy Victorian murders, poison, body-snatching, incest and revenge.  Compared to--for example--the Twilight series, these books seem almost wholesome.  There is redeeming love, loyalty, and goodness to counterbalance all the evil.   Plus, Cain and Riff are a whole lot hotter than dopey Edward and growly Jacob.

Kaori Yuki is a genius, albeit an evil genius.  Her drawings are pretty amazing, too.  It took me a long time to learn how to read manga and I'm still not too good and picking up the action not told in words--and that's a shame, because that's the unique charm of manga.  The "flinch", the "shove", the "fist in air"...I wouldn't have even realized that Riff punched Oscar if she hadn't said so in the author's notes.

Fence fit for a zoo

Ed's new fence.  It may not be elephant-proof but I bet it's bull proof.