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Jun. 8th, 2007 10:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunchofgrapesI'm supposed to be working from home but it's very slow right now and all this randomness popped into my head.
One thing I love about having to stay hidden away at home for 7 days is the food. I make sure I have all the good stuff. Last night it was Chicken Farfalle with spinach and asparagus. I love Maggiano's Chicken Farfalle so I googled it and sure enough, the recipe is posted. It's just so light and yummy and the recipe makes enough for lots of leftovers. I also bought fresh blueberries so this morning I had blueberry pancakes. I found a recipe in a magazine a long time ago and it's really good. Since I'm not getting home around 8pm right now, I can spend more time cooking in the evening. I love to cook. Probably because when I was a kid my mom hated to cook so everything she fixed either came out of the freezer (TV dinners) or out of a box. Sad but true story: I was in college before I realized mashed potatoes didn't come from a box. Um, yeah.
New kitten has a name. I'm a little embarrassed to say that even though I was certain it was either going to be Taddeo or Simon, he went through about a dozen names before I finally found the one that I was completely happy with. If I'd had children, I fear they would still be called new child 1 and new child 2. Anyway, I tried out Taddeo but it just didn't work. It wasn't comfortable and I kept thinking I was calling him Today-o. Then I tried out Simon and after a few times, I just didn't like it either. He was Toby and Finn and Cyrano before I finally looked at this little tuckered out guy sleeping in my lap and decided Tucker was a good name. I can call him Tuck, Tucker or even Tuckabee, which has become his nickname. And he already knows all of them! Plus my best friend approves and that's important.
So, Tucker is settling in with the other two cats very nicely. He and my other male, Harry, quit hissing and growling at each other by late in day 2. Harry's such a sweet cat that I didn't expect him to be a problem. They probably would have gotten along right from the start if Tucker hadn't been the one growling and hissing. Tucker now head butts Harry and Harry will mostly relent and give him a little bath. They eat together, call each other and just this morning, they were chasing each other around the living room. I really hoped that would happen. Harry's a very sleek cat and has a lot of energy so a kitten is good for him.
Sophie, my other cat, still looks at Tucker like he's a little trollkin and she growls a bit but she's starting to come around. Fortunately, all anyone's done is growl and hiss. There have been no fights or even paw swats. Actually, my older cats are both ginormous wimps and I think Tucker came right in and established himself as beta (me being the alpha of course). He'd hiss and growl and both Sophie and Harry would back away. Harry even lets Tucker eat first.
But Tucker is an absolute sweetheart. He's a very good kitten, laid back, playful but not obnoxious, and boy does he like to cuddle, especially in the morning. He went to the Vet on Tuesday and of course they all loved him. His hair is silky soft and he loves to be held so several of the techs and the vets had to coo over him. He goes back in next Thursday for his "big boy" surgery. I got him at a place called Neuter Now only he wasn't neutered. Huh. Oh, and the vet is fairly positive he's a Norwegian Forest Cat because of his ear hair. After looking up Norwegian Forest Cats on the internet, I realized that's probably what Sophie is as well. She's the spitting image of several of the pics on the website.
I signed up for the Jim Brass vacation ficathon over on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
brasslove and got the bestest prompt ever! World's Largest Ball of Twine. I had to google it to figure out where it was exactly and found that several places claim to have the largest so I'm going with Kansas. I can get Jim to Kansas. Alcohol will be involved though. No one goes to Kansas without alcohol being involved. It's not an interesting state--well, except for the twine, of course. Apologies if any of you are from Kansas but it's true. I'm from Oklahoma and Oklahomans even find Kansas boring. Anyway, I have this Brass/Sofia fic that really just needs a title and a couple of tweaks and it will be ready to post and I had planned to start working on the sequel to "Open Ends", my Brass/Annie fic but that poor thing will once again get shoved to the back burner. Oh well. It's so worth it for a Brass ficathon. Brass needs a vacation and look at all those lovely Brass fics I'll get to read while I'm home after my next treatment! It'll be like Christmas!
One thing I love about having to stay hidden away at home for 7 days is the food. I make sure I have all the good stuff. Last night it was Chicken Farfalle with spinach and asparagus. I love Maggiano's Chicken Farfalle so I googled it and sure enough, the recipe is posted. It's just so light and yummy and the recipe makes enough for lots of leftovers. I also bought fresh blueberries so this morning I had blueberry pancakes. I found a recipe in a magazine a long time ago and it's really good. Since I'm not getting home around 8pm right now, I can spend more time cooking in the evening. I love to cook. Probably because when I was a kid my mom hated to cook so everything she fixed either came out of the freezer (TV dinners) or out of a box. Sad but true story: I was in college before I realized mashed potatoes didn't come from a box. Um, yeah.
New kitten has a name. I'm a little embarrassed to say that even though I was certain it was either going to be Taddeo or Simon, he went through about a dozen names before I finally found the one that I was completely happy with. If I'd had children, I fear they would still be called new child 1 and new child 2. Anyway, I tried out Taddeo but it just didn't work. It wasn't comfortable and I kept thinking I was calling him Today-o. Then I tried out Simon and after a few times, I just didn't like it either. He was Toby and Finn and Cyrano before I finally looked at this little tuckered out guy sleeping in my lap and decided Tucker was a good name. I can call him Tuck, Tucker or even Tuckabee, which has become his nickname. And he already knows all of them! Plus my best friend approves and that's important.
So, Tucker is settling in with the other two cats very nicely. He and my other male, Harry, quit hissing and growling at each other by late in day 2. Harry's such a sweet cat that I didn't expect him to be a problem. They probably would have gotten along right from the start if Tucker hadn't been the one growling and hissing. Tucker now head butts Harry and Harry will mostly relent and give him a little bath. They eat together, call each other and just this morning, they were chasing each other around the living room. I really hoped that would happen. Harry's a very sleek cat and has a lot of energy so a kitten is good for him.
Sophie, my other cat, still looks at Tucker like he's a little trollkin and she growls a bit but she's starting to come around. Fortunately, all anyone's done is growl and hiss. There have been no fights or even paw swats. Actually, my older cats are both ginormous wimps and I think Tucker came right in and established himself as beta (me being the alpha of course). He'd hiss and growl and both Sophie and Harry would back away. Harry even lets Tucker eat first.
But Tucker is an absolute sweetheart. He's a very good kitten, laid back, playful but not obnoxious, and boy does he like to cuddle, especially in the morning. He went to the Vet on Tuesday and of course they all loved him. His hair is silky soft and he loves to be held so several of the techs and the vets had to coo over him. He goes back in next Thursday for his "big boy" surgery. I got him at a place called Neuter Now only he wasn't neutered. Huh. Oh, and the vet is fairly positive he's a Norwegian Forest Cat because of his ear hair. After looking up Norwegian Forest Cats on the internet, I realized that's probably what Sophie is as well. She's the spitting image of several of the pics on the website.
I signed up for the Jim Brass vacation ficathon over on
brasslove and got the bestest prompt ever! World's Largest Ball of Twine. I had to google it to figure out where it was exactly and found that several places claim to have the largest so I'm going with Kansas. I can get Jim to Kansas. Alcohol will be involved though. No one goes to Kansas without alcohol being involved. It's not an interesting state--well, except for the twine, of course. Apologies if any of you are from Kansas but it's true. I'm from Oklahoma and Oklahomans even find Kansas boring. Anyway, I have this Brass/Sofia fic that really just needs a title and a couple of tweaks and it will be ready to post and I had planned to start working on the sequel to "Open Ends", my Brass/Annie fic but that poor thing will once again get shoved to the back burner. Oh well. It's so worth it for a Brass ficathon. Brass needs a vacation and look at all those lovely Brass fics I'll get to read while I'm home after my next treatment! It'll be like Christmas!
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-08 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-08 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-08 04:22 pm (UTC)Bri's mom brought him up on TV dinners and canned spaghetti-Os, and therefore he won't go near any of that stuff now, which sometimes is a bummer because there are times when I can just kill for a can of Chef Boyardee Ravioli. I know, ew. Cooking is one of my favorite things to do, especially when the farmer's markets start gearing back up like they are now. A few weekends back we finally got a cabinet for the kitchen nook and dragged all my cookbooks in from their boxes in the garage. If I had the time I'd just stand in front of them all day looking at and touching the pretties. Yeah, that's a good definition of sad.
I'm really glad you got the largest ball of twine prompt. Jen came up with it and added it in at the last minute. It's probably my favorite one of the lot. The motorcycle trip one was prompted by one of your posts about PG and bikes. I can't wait to see what
I'm going to pimp the ficathon over at the fansite and a couple of the lists later today, too.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-08 04:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-08 04:54 pm (UTC)You know, I don't think I ever had spaghetti that wasn't in a box (it came with a can of sauce and a packet of cheese) or a can when I was a kid. But I know what you mean about getting a craving every now and then. I still get mine for Swanson's Chicken Pot Pies. They are so full of sodium that I'm drinking a gallon of water later and I swear they're a quarter of the size they used to be but every so often...
And I have a ton of cookbooks but the two I use the most are one for diabetics (the recipes are low fat and low sugar and really good) and the other is this binder than has all the recipes I've collected from websites or magazines or friends. I love it! I think my real love of cooking got jump-started after my first trip to Italy. My Italian friend in Milan introduced us to some excellent Italian food--the really fresh, light stuff, not the lasagna's or heavy tomato sauce stuff--and I've been enjoying cooking ever since.
I just hope I can do that ball of twine prompt justice. I really liked that motorcycle trip prompt too and I also can't wait to see what
no subject
Date: 2007-06-08 05:18 pm (UTC)This made me smile. I have the exact same thing sitting on the counter. In fact I'm staring at it now wondering to cook up for tonight. I've even got those index thingies and have it broken down by snacks, quick meals, brekkie...you get the point. It's the best thing ever and I think I probably use it at least as much as a couple of my fav books.
And you're right about