Crap that irritates me

Ok, so it's Monday again. Whoopadeedoo. Actually the day is going rather well so far, but it is Monday, so why not complain anyhow? :D

Here's a short list of crap that irritates me.

• Apostrophe's in word's that are plural's, not possessive.


• Ignored/unacknowledged instant messages- dude, if you're busy, set your damn self to "away" and I won't write to you! Gah!


• The apparently unlearnable-by-many phenomena of "your" being possessive and "you're" being a contraction of "you are."


• The fact that many native-born Americans' English grammar is shitty in comparison with my Mexican-born friend who has only been here for a dozen years. If she can learn it as a second language in a decade-plus, how come in your twenty or thirty years, you can't get the concepts?? You only have the one language to worry about! (I'll have to borrow Boortz's theory on this one...gub'mint schools.)


• Pregnant chicks who smoke, willfully disregarding their unborn child's health, not to mention their own.


• People who do not wash their mitts after using the restroom. One word- ew.


• When I hear a new song I actually like on the radio, but the DJ does not identify it, and when I call to ask, they don't answer the damn phone.

I remain...

~Skwerly

Disposition of a situation

You may remember that a little over a week ago, on my birthday, I found a stray dog.

Last Thursday, I called our city shelter and left a voice mail inquiring about her- if she had been adopted, euthanized, whatever. I tried not to keep my hopes too high, because the shelter is very full this time of year, and a dog's chances can be slim for getting adopted. I knew that her "owners" were not the type to go looking for their pet at the shelter, either. (On a side note, if I ever find out what waste of space claimed her as a pet, I'd shoot them and bury them in my front yard. They wouldn't be missed.)

While running some errands yesterday, I got a phone call from the shelter with the fabulous news that lil' Biscuit has found a forever home! ****Yay!****

This incident reminded me of a post I did last February, quoting an essay by Jim Willis called "I Stole Your Dog." Give it another read.

Tiny feets!!!!

A couple of images from my ultrasound this morning:






I'm almost 19 weeks pregnant. It's still too early to tell boy or girl for sure, but the tech thought it might be a girl. We shall see. I'll have other ultrasounds at my regular doctor appointments.

Neat, huh? There's a person growing inside me!

New recipe, new words

'Tis the season for wonderful fresh produce. Summer is my least favorite time of year, but it can't be beat when it comes to all the great fruits and vegetables that are available. You probably know someone whose garden has given them too many tomatoes. Snag some for yourself and make some yummy pasta sauce!

I made some yesterday, and it was not half bad. Amazingly, I had no recipe. I just had a bag of tomatoes that needed to be used, and a good idea of how to make them into a lovely spaghetti sauce. And whattaya know, it worked. It's easy, it tastes good, and it doesn't require much time, aside from the oven part. Here's the recipe!

Skwerly's Roasted Tomato Pasta Sauce
serves 2-3

7-8 medium vine ripe tomatoes
7-8 cloves garlic, peeled and stem ends trimmed off
1 oz. jarred roasted bell pepper (about 1/2 medium pepper if you want to roast it yourself), diced
1 ½ tsp. basil
1 ½ tsp. oregano
1 ½ tbsp. minced white onion
¼ tsp. hot pepper flakes, more or less to taste
kosher salt
fresh black pepper
olive oil
1 tsp. balsamic vinegar

Core and de-seed the tomatoes, leaving them whole. Place in a roasting dish. Put one clove of garlic in each tomato. Sprinkle the tomato tops (cut portion) liberally with basil and oregano, and drizzle with olive oil. Roast uncovered in a 350° oven for about 40-45 minutes, or until tomatoes are wrinkled and saggy looking. Remove from oven and cover with foil. Let rest until slightly cooled.

When tomatoes are cool enough to handle, remove the skins (they should slip off easily). Dump the tomatoes, garlic, and all juices into a medium saucepan. Stir with a fork to break up large pieces. Remove any brown pieces of garlic or stray tomato skin. Bring to a simmer. Season with kosher salt and black pepper. Add pepper flakes, roasted pepper, minced onion, and balsamic vinegar.

Simmer until liquid is reduced and sauce is thickened, stirring occasionally. Serve over hot fettucine or spaghetti with plenty of fresh Parmagiano Reggiano.

(Chef's note: Next time I make this, I will probably add some tomato paste to thicken it more and make it a little richer.)

~Enjoy!~


New words! I love new words. Reading Dean Koontz always leaves me with plenty of vocabulary that I was previously not familiar with. Ginormous nerd that I am, I write them down and look them up. Here are a few I've recently defined:

Antediluvian- in or from the time before the biblical flood; extremely old-fashioned or out-of-date; prehistoric

Cabal- a group of conspirators or plotters, particularly one formed for political purposes; a secret plot or conspiracy, especially a political one

Ersatz- imitating or presented as a substitute for something of superior quality

A moissanite is an artificial diamond, Lincoln. It's Mickey Mouse, man. Spurious. Not genuine. And it's worth... Fuck-all.

(Ok, so I didn't exactly use "ersatz" in a sentence, but that quote demonstrates the definition perfectly!) *g*

Jejune- uninteresting and intellectually undemanding; lacking maturity or sophistication

Vestigial- remaining after nearly all the rest has disappeared or dwindled; having become degenerate or functionless in the course of time

Feliz Cumpleaños a mi

Ok, yeah, so today's my 30th birthday. But that's beside the point. I have a story to tell that has inspired me to finally break my blog-silence.

As a pregnant chick, I'm destined to get hungry. Today, I hadn't eaten any breakfast, and by 10:00 I was ready to gnaw on my own left hand. (Being a righty, and all.)

So I set out for the nearest McDonald's, about a mile down the road, for a biscuit or two and some OJ. Gotta keep up that folic acid intake!

Anyhoo, no sooner did I pull into the parking lot, that I spotted a stray dog in said lot. I jumped out of the truck and tried to coax her to get in, since she was wandering about and the corner we were standing on is a busy intersection. It was also already over 90 degrees out, and it is forecasted to be 104 today.

She didn't understand "Get in the truck, sweetie!" so I tried another tactic. A weird lady came out of the McD's, shoeless and mumbling. (Don't ask me, folks...I just relay the story, I don't make this shit up.) This lady had a case of The Crazy, and started telling me she didn't know where the dog came from, although not exactly in complete sentences.

So I asked Crazy Lady to keep an eye on PupDawg, and I went inside and got a cup of water and a plain biscuit.

When I came out, all of a sudden Crazy Lady's story changed. She began mumbling something about dogsitting her friend's dog, how she had gotten out of her collar, blah blah blah.

She then proceeded to grab two handfuls of PupDawg's scruff and DRAGGED her across the parking lot toward the intersection. I very sternly said, "Ma'am, do not drag her by the neck like that. She needs a collar and a leash. Do not drag her."

Crazy mumbled something back about the dog getting out of her collar, and continued to drag the poor dog toward the busy street. I told her again to stop, and that I was going to call the cops.

Crazy Lady let go of the dog lickety split, mumbled something about kicking my ass, and kept walking. She didn't come back.

PupDawg then came back to me. I fed her several pieces of biscuit and she drank water from the cup. She was very gentle with the food and seemed really sweet. She wagged her tail and stayed next to me.

She had short white hair with black ticking, black ears and cheeks, and a white and black-ticked stripe on her nose and forehead. I'd describe her as a "cow dog," very similar to the Aussie type Shepherds used by ranchers in my part of the country. She was obviously not taken care of- dirty coat full of burrs, ears filthy, at least one small tick on her face, and thin. No collar or tags, of course. By the looks of her, she is full grown but not very old- her teeth were in good shape, and her belly was taut, so she had not likely had any puppies before.

A guy who had been eating in McD's came out when he saw me coaxing the dog to get into the cab of the truck. He offered to pick her up and put her in, and I was grateful. I'd have done it myself, but with strays, you never know how the dog will react.

She was just fine with him picking her up. We drove around for almost half an hour, with me on my cell phone calling every place my husband could get a phone number for. He was exasperated with me- he knows my softness for dogs of any kind, especially strays, and the last stray I found became Lucy, our youngest dog.

I promised him that I was not going to bring this dog home, that I would call every rescue I could think of before taking her to the city shelter.

With him feeding me numbers out of the phonebook, I called five or six places with no luck. Everyone is full. So I reluctantly drove out north to the city shelter. PupDawg did very well on the drive, sitting and looking out the windows, and eventually laying down on the bench seat and resting her wee dirty head on my thigh. *melt* I petted her head and rubbed her ears as we drove, and promised her she was going to be OK and that I'd try to get her rescued from the shelter before it was too late.

Tomorrow is my day to volunteer with the animal rescue group I've been working with for about 9 months. I'm going to tell them about this sweet and cute doggie, and see if they can get her from the shelter and find her a forever home.

My hopes are high that she will not be euthanized, but will be adopted. She's very cute, sweet natured, medium size, young enough to be trained, and in my opinion, very adoptable. At least she is not wandering near a busy intersection in 100 degree heat!

On the way back to work after leaving her at the shelter, I told my husband on the phone that I have decided to call her "Biscuit."

*sigh*

What a birthday it has been so far.