Moving Right Along

And just how much longer did you think I would be able to go...

...without posting a picture of Sam the cat, hm?

As it happens, tonight we have a short film.

When I was too sick to come up with my own material last week, you may recall that on one occasion I referred you over to Ms. Kitsa's Kitty Boutique on Etsy.  Meanwhile, I visited there myself and bought Sam some Christmas presents.

Naturally, my plan was to photograph for you the lovely and adorable way Ms. Kitsa packaged the gifts, show you Sam waiting for us to open it for him, and then show you him playing with at least one of his new toys, all on Christmas morning.

Plans go awry.

What happened instead was that my true love brought in the mail yesterday while I was resting on the couch.  As delighted and amused as I was by Ms. Kitsa's packaging, I set it aside on the coffee table 'til later.  I was, after all, resting.  And when I was done resting, I went off to do some chore or other in the kitchen, and left the package resting itself on top of a wireless keyboard on top of a stack of DVDs next to a glass of water.  At this time, Sam was resting in the bed.

Objects at rest do not tend to remain at rest in my house.  From the kitchen I heard a large crash and some crazed meowing.  I rolled quickly into the living room, fearing the kitty had injured himself, only to find the lovely pink tissue paper wrapped around the package completely soaked with water and Sam pretty much smurgling everything within three feet.

Regretfully I tore into the wet, pink tissue paper and removed one smurglebag, with which my true love lured Sam away so that I could clean up.  I put the other smurglebag into the not exactly smoothly opening top drawer of a rather formidable marble-topped Victorian hardwood chest of drawers we own, cleaned up the mess, and then rolled into the bedroom to see how Sam was enjoying his erstwhile Christmas present.

Now we all know how he was enjoying it, as documented above.  Please remember that this footage was recorded at the end of a rather long smurgling session, so its brevity is not indicative of Sam's level of sustained interest.  At one point, my true love had him dancing on his hind legs to get to it.  Sadly, I did not have my camera handy for that.

Thank you, Ms. Kitsa's Kitty Boutique, for a well received gift, albeit a trifle too well received.

OMG, what was that stuff? (Heh -- wouldn't you like to know?)

Before I say another word, let me just take a moment to humbly and sincerely thank each and every person who submitted an entry in my Third Annual NaBloPoMo Midway Contest.  You are all very, very creative, talented, amusing and/or charming, and possessed of unusual powers of attraction and persuasion.  Yes, all of you.

Please remember I said that.

To refresh your memory and also clue in people just tuning in at home, the question posed to contestants was, "OMG! What Is That Stuff?"  And here was the stuff.  (Click to enlarge.)

The answer?  Ah.  Well.  That stuff was (and still is, actually) this stuff:

Yep, it's Mount Hagen brand decaffeinated, organically grown, freeze dried, instant coffee.  To photograph a sample for the purpose of this contest, I poured an unknown quantity -- probably less than five tablespoons -- into one of the slightly larger than palm-sized white porcelain prep dishes I use to pulverize Sam's daily quarter of a Paxil caplet with a big soup spoon, and then shot it digitally with a flash, and then cropped it to remove all sense of scale.  (And yes, this is one of those times when I hope the dishwasher really is as good as I think it is, because I did pour the sample back into the bottle, and I am going to make that coffee pecan bundt cake again soon.)

Here are some things I believe it is not:

• edible by cats or dogs (unless you hate them)
• kitty litter (unless you hate yourself)
• gravel
• previously used (though I guess it is now)
  
• leftover brown charcoal pastel pieces (as submitted by e-mail)
  
• suitable for use as anything other than a flavoring, a beverage base, an emergency food supplement for acid-loving plants only, or an artistic medium
• available at farmer's markets anywhere

The largest piece I can see in the jar is no more than 6mm in any given dimension.

By now you have guessed the sad truth.  Not one of our lovely contestants answered correctly.

It could be argued that the lovely and talented (and optimistic, since she STILL hasn't gotten her prize from 2006) Bethieee came closest with her guess of "a pile of chipped chocolate eagerly awaiting its turn to be baked into something yummy."  It is an edible (by humans) substance, and it certainly is awaiting its turn to be baked into something yummy, specifically the next incarnation of that bundt cake.  But absolutely none of you, not even she, had a score above 0.

So, who wins?

Without meaning to cause offense to others who bothered to enter, I think we can all agree that, in the end, there were really only two contestants with entries worthy of special notice, the aforementioned lovely and talented (and optimistic, and patient) Bethieee with that good solid 0, and the lovely and talented Scriptor Senex, who had a score of -2½, but who clearly made the greatest effort to be amusing, and who should also be applauded for taking the greatest risk by offering the largest pile of details, however ridiculous.

So here is the decision of the Official Contest Judge (me).

The winner is...

Bethieee!  Again!  Amazing!  Mazeltov!  (Toot horn and throw confetti here.)

Bethieee, if you send me your current mailing address at my e-mail address (sara at saraarts dot com), I shall very happily spend an afternoon this month putting together your prize, a Super Special Surprise Souvenir Pack with contents hand selected by me just for you!  Wheee!

However, because of extraordinary effort and bravery, I'm also going to award ten house points to Gryffindor, as it were.  Therefore, dear, amusing Scriptor Senex, if you will also be so kind as to drop me an e-mail at the above-noted address, I shall be very pleased to send you a lesser but hopefully still fun Super Secret Runner Up Prize.

Huzzah!

Again, I want to sincerely thank everyone who played this year, and I hope to see you all here again next year.  Now go enjoy your Saturday night like the rock stars you are.

Passion Poppers

Remember when I said that I might not be able to do better this month than simply show you a different piece of produce from my kitchen every day?  While I have striven so far to keep my worthless and possibly nonsensical entries fairly diverse in topic, today is going to be a fruit day.

"Passion Poppers" are a type of fuzz-free, miniature, kiwi fruit to which I was recently introduced at Debra's.  These are organically grown in Pennsylvania at a place called "Kiwi Korners Farms."

In case you can't read it for yourself, the box says that these are "[b]est to eat when soft & slightly wrinkled."  I think the particular ones I'm about to show you are ever so slightly past perfection, because we are unable to follow the instruction on the box advising us to ripen the berries at room temperature, because if we did that the immediate presence of many many mice would obviate our goal.  So I just put 'em in the fridge when I get home, and this is how they look a few days later.  (Click to enlarge.)

Each one is about the size of a kumquat.  I imagine they are called "poppers" because you eat them by popping them in your mouth whole.  There is a stem and sometimes something that resembles a seed to spit out, but for personal delectation, it's not worth the effort to go through and cut them off/out before eating.

As I've mentioned, I am suffering from a great deal of digestive agitation.  I can comfortably digest almost no raw produce anymore at all.  Since raw produce has been for a long time one of my greatest pleasures in life, I continue to search for varieties in season or frozen that I can keep down or push through without excessive drama.  So far, small amounts of these little kiwi berries have worked very well for me.  They are not particularly acidic, their skins are as tender as your average commercial grape skin, and because they can be eaten whole, beyond washing them there is no intrinsic labor or fuss involved in preparation.

I must confess that I think the marketing name is kind of a disaster.  I snicker like Beavis and Butthead every time I see it. This is probably because my development was permanently arrested around age 14, but also because of where, when, and with whom I spent a certain amount of my youth after that.  Regardless, I cannot now read the words "passion" and "poppers" together without thinking of substances and behaviors which tend not to be anywhere near as wholesome as these completely innocent little fruits -- which taste like kiwi, by the way, not passion fruit.

The name certainly doesn't put me off of them, of course, and they are delicious, so I will keep eating them as long and as often as I can.  When they have reached my preferred level of ripeness, the flavor and the small gush of cool juice when I pop one with my teeth or tongue makes me think of that song by Peter, Paul and Mary with the lyric "kisses sweeter than wine."

So of course I recommend them with my whole mouth and many parts of my ill-favored digestive tract, and hope you enjoy them, too.

_____

Don't forget!  You only have three more days to enter my Third Annual NaBloPoMo Midway Contest!

Some Scamper on Sundays

(Sorry 'bout the lurching camerawork.)

This was just one of three fat grey squirrels farming in the deep, rich, treasure-colored leaf cover with which the season has adorned our front yard.  Recognize any of those leaves personally?  You've seen quite a number of them before, though they are not where you last saw them.

Why was I filming squirrels from my studio window today?  Why yes, I was indeed out of clean underwear and therefore unable to leave the house.  And no, my reluctance to leave the house without clean or, alternatively, any underwear at all is not the result of some fear of ending up in the emergency room and making a bad impression on medical personnel, in spite of everything our mothers may have said.  It's for me, okay?  Underwear, particularly clean underwear, is a gift I give myself.

It is nonetheless quite gratifying that others can get something out of my little present to myself, too, though.  There's the whole thing about not smelling, of course.  And, look, sometimes there's also free squirrel footage.

_____

Don't forget!  You only have four more days to enter my Third Annual NaBloPoMo Midway Contest!

Third Annual NaBloPoMo Midway Contest!

It is that time again!  Once more, my friends, we find ourselves halfway through NaBloPoMo, and once again it's time for me to throw a contest!

(And this year, like last year, you really will get a prize if you win.  Still working on the prize for 2006.  This is because I suck.  See notes on personal failure supplied prefatory to this year's NaBloPoMo exercise.)

This year, if you are lucky and/or clever enough to win, you will receive a Super Special Surprise Souvenir Pack, a grab bag of goodies hand-selected by me just for you from the wonderful West Concord 5 & 10 in West Concord, Massachusetts (total value no more than US$20, but not less than US$15).  Longtime readers of this blog know that this is the source of all sorts of wacky goodness, from clearly labeled jumbo rubber rats to Hallowe'en jokes that just won't quit.  Here are just some of the other items shoppers routinely discover for five or ten dollars -- or less! usually less! -- at the West Concord 5 & 10:

• all kinds of art and crafting supplies
• cheesy but inoffensive local interest postcards
• hardware you can actually use
• office supplies
• cheap and wonderful plastic toys
• ribbons, notions, and yarn
• cookie cutters and other kitchen gadgetry
• sunglasses both chic and not so much, and of course
• holiday decorations you won't find at Macy's

As you might surmise, US$15-20 is a whole lot of Super Special Surprise at the West Concord 5 & 10.  However, be advised that no item in your Super Special Surprise Souvenir Pack is guaranteed to be of any practical use to you whatsoever.

So, now that you know what you can win, let's talk about how you can win it!

The name of this year's game is...

...drumroll please...

...OMG! What Is That Stuff?  (Click to enlarge, if you think it will help.)

Well?   What do you think?

Just as with last year's contest, the rules are simple:

1.  Submit your best, most descriptive guess by way of a comment on this post sometime before midnight at the International Date Line on Thursday, November 20, 2008 (GMT-12).

3.  The person who most completely and accurately answers this question in the comments attached to this post before midnight at the International Date Line on Thursday, November 20, 2008 (GMT-12) will be the winner.

4.  In the event of a tie, I shall personally write each of the tying entrants' names on a tiny piece of paper, crumple it up, and throw it with all the others into a big bowl.  I will then close my eyes, mix them up, and draw one.  If your name is on the piece I draw, you will be the winner!

5.  It pays to be partly right!  However, it also costs to be partly wrong.  If you look at how I chose a winner in years previous, you will see that I assigned points to each entry based on the number of correct details offered, and negative points based on the number of incorrect ones.

6.  Also, if no one guesses correctly, I will simply choose the answer which most amuses me.  So even if you don't have the faintest clue, it is still in your interest to enter if you wish oh wish you could only get someone to send you a Super Special Surprise Souvenir Pack from the West Concord 5 & 10.

7.  Finally, I don't care where you live!  If you think you want to post a guess and you live anywhere the U. S. Postal Service will send a package (and that's a lot of places), please go for it!  Also, you do not have to be a NaBloPoMo '08 participant yourself to play this game.

Barring catastrophe, the complete answer and the name of the lucky winner will be posted on this blog sometime on Saturday, November 22, 2008.

Good luck, and may the person who will have the most fun with this win!