Owls and Critters: Fly on the Wall

  

Welcome to our monthly Fly on the Wall, a blog post written in snippets. Marcia, Diane, and I invite you to catch a glimpse of what you’d see if you were a fly on the wall in our homes, at our writing desks, and in our worlds. Come on in, buzz around, see what we've been up to. Bet you laugh! 

I was on FB early in the morning, wearing neither my contacts or glasses, never having had a problem with that before.

But this time I got a little nudge that I may need to start using my glasses for reading from now on.

I was reading a recipe that someone had posted the ingredients for, and it looked interesting, worth checking out.

But I spent a good 5 minutes trying to figure out what an ingredient was, who'd ever heard of whale milk.

So that was 5 minutes of my life I'll never get back. And wouldn't have wasted if I had my glasses.

 

Nudge, nudge.

Whole milk. Yup, I know exactly what that is.

I mention, pretty regularly, commercials that make me laugh. 

I recently saw a commercial for an injectable medication for arthritis pain in dogs. Apparently, with a doctor's prescription, the pet owner injects the dog themselves once a month, at home. 

As with all commercials, they quickly name some of the side effects to watch for. For this particular medication, that list ended with "take extreme care to avoid self-injection."

And oh, how I'd like to hear the story behind the need to list that warning.

I am extremely neat. When I'm done with something, I put it away. Everything is always in its place. Always. Yeah, extreme.

My boys are the total and complete opposite. Nothing is ever put away. When PurDude moved to his first apartment (you can read the story and see the pictures here: Home with an H), I completely designed and furnished it. The second day he lived there, the table in the living room was covered. All the drawers in the table empty. When he sent me a picture of where his TV sat in his room, there on his dresser, next to the TV, was a banana peel. Ugh.

Anyway, PurDude, living in Boulder and having friends who ski and snowboard, has visitors over the winter months. He mentioned to me that he has a few friends from high school coming soon. 

Me: Well, since you live in a 1 bedroom condo, it's a good thing I gave you those 2 air beds.

PurDude: One air bed.

Me: No, we had 2, I sent both air beds and the pump out to Boulder with you when you moved.

PurDude: I think I only have one.

Me: Do you ever look at what's in your closet? Or do you throw things in there, piling new stuff on top of the old.

PurDude: Yeah, that second thing.

I had steaks on the grill and asked Hubs to go out onto the deck and flip the steaks over.

 

Hubs: There's an owl out back.

Me: I'm not surprised, that's nothing new. 

Hubs: He seems to be pretty mad at me.

Me: What makes you say that.

Hubs: He was angry hooting at me from the time I went out onto the deck.

Me: Angry hooting?

Hubs: Yes.

Me: Well, he was probably afraid you were going to steal from his selection of critters.

Hubs: Steal his selection critters?
Me: Yeah, his dinner.

 

Hubs goes out onto the deck and comes back in a few minutes later.

 

Me: What were you doing out there?
Hubs: Having a "come to Jesus" moment with the owl.

Me: What?
Hubs: I let him know that if he didn't go after our steaks, we'd refrain from eating any gophers and moles.

 

I can live with that.

 

Another in my ever increasing repertoire of old age antics.

I was heading into the library to sit in my chair by the window and read. I was thirsty, so before settling in I went to the kitchen to grab a water bottle.

I was already back in the library before I looked down and saw that although I had successfully opened the fridge (yay, me), it was somehow a bowl of raw cauliflower I had grabbed.

Cauliflower? I mean, I could make a case for a subliminal grab of an Orange Strawberry Cupcake, but cauliflower? Really?

Orange Strawberry Cupcakes

And, just a couple of days later:

 

I'd finished my coffee and gone up to take a shower. Along with my toiletries, I put some clothes for the day onto the bathroom counter, and showered.

 

I got out of the shower and got ready for the day. On the way out of the bathroom I threw my clothes from the day before down the laundry chute.

 

It was hours before I looked down and realized that I was wearing the same clothes as the day before.

 

And, apparently, had sent the clean clothes down the laundry chute.

 

 

 

We have a fairly new dishwasher. I loved the last one (if you can love a dishwasher), this one won't let me load it the way I want. But I wasn't spending any more money for a dishwasher that these days are deliberately made not to last. I've tried so many brands and they're all basically disposable. So I complain about it. Pretty regularly.

Anyway, I went to turn it on the other day, pressed the buttons and closed it, but a few minutes later I realized that I didn't hear it start.

When I looked up, I noticed that the lighted section that, when the dishwasher is on, counts down the time until it's done, doesn't have a number. Instead it says HI.

Me: Ummm, we have a problem with the dishwasher.

Hubs: What is it?

Me: Well . . . it's either telling me that it knows I've been complaining about it. Or it's coming on to me.

So, apparently, when a pan is sitting up too high on the top shelf, the dishwasher lets you know by saying HI. And although I don't like that I can't load it the way I want, I guess that reason for the "HI" is better than what I was thinking.

And now for this month's episode of autocorrect making a fool of me:

Hubs and I watch most of the Red Sox games thanks to beeing able to stream the games via the full season MLB channel app PurDude bought me for Mother's Day years ago and renews every year.

For whatever reason, between innings they show the same 5 or 6 commercials over and over again. Drives us crazy.

So, PurDude mentioned the parents of a friend of his from high school. He knew and liked them, having spent time at their house. The parents are realtors and PurDude was talking about getting permission to use them to look at houses.

Me: Which friend is this? Dad's friend owns a realty office, I wonder if they know each other.

PurDude: Their name is Ritter.

O M G. One of those endlessly shown commercials was one of a realtor couple. The Ritters.

Me: You have to be kidding, I know the Ritters.

Only, you know, that isn't what I sent. My text actually read: 

Me: You have to be kidding, I know the Critters.

PurDude: Well that's kinda mean.

And another one:

We were dealing with a new internet provider and were considering changing our service. We were discussing, via text, the list of questions for Hubs to ask them before we decided what we were going to do. In the past, if we used auto pay, they took some money off the monthly bill.

Me: Ask them how long the price is good for.

Hubs: OK.

Me: And ask if we need to have the equipment changed out.

Hubs: OK.

Me: Oh, and ask if it costs less with auto pay.

Except auto correct changed that text. What I actually sent:

Me: Oh, and ask if it costs less with autopsy.

Hubs: Ahhh, I think you actually have to be dead for that.

I'm sure you're aware that April Fools Day was at the beginning of this month. I really don't keep track of it any more, no longer playing tricks on my kids (and them on me).

But this year, I punked myself.

The back story: I have these pretty coffee mugs that go with my dishes. I also have much bigger mugs that I bought because the ones that go with my dishes are tiny. And I'm a big coffee drinker.

So I use the bigger mugs for coffee, and it turns out that the smaller ones are good for things like melting butter or reheating sauces in the microwave.

I was finishing up my coffee, and knew Hubs would fix a plate of the leftover Chinese food for lunch. I pulled out one of those small mugs took the leftover sweet and sour sauce out of the fridge, poured some into the mug and heated it up. In an hour when Hubs eats, it'll be around room temp.

I put the rest of the sauce into the fridge and, wanting to put my coffee mug into the dishwasher before heading for the shower, took one last big gulp of . . . sweet and sour sauce.

April Fools. 

 

 

 

Now click on the links below and see what my friends have to share:

Menopausal Mother 

On the Border

Orange Strawberry Cupcakes

                                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

4 strawberries

1 box (15.25 oz) white cake mix

1 1/4 cups milk

1/2 cup oil

4 egg whites

1/4 cup strawberry yogurt

OPT: 2 drops red food coloring

1 box (3 oz) orange jello, mix, divided

1 tsp orange zest

1 can (12 oz) whipped strawberry frosting

OPT: mandarin orange slices and/or sliced strawberries for garnish

Directions:
*Hull and finely chop the strawberries and set aside.

*Preheast oven to 350 degrees. Place 18 paper cupcake liners into cupcake pans.

*Beat the cake mix, milk, oil, and egg whites for 2 minutes. Move about half of the batter (about 2 1/4 cups) to a bowl and set aside. To the batter still in the original bowl, beat in the yogurt, chopped strawberries, and food coloring (if desired).

*To the other half of the batter, whisk in half (4 TBSP) of the orange jello mix and the orange zest.

*Fill the cupcake cups with the batter, alternating colors for each cupcake, 1 rounded TBSP at a time. Start some with the orange and others with the strawberry so there is some of each batter color in each cupcake.

*Bake for 18 - 22 minutes, just until the enter springs back to the touch. Cool completely.

*Whisk the remaining orange jello mix into the strawberry frosting. Pipe or spread onto the cupcaket. OPT: top with mandarin orange slices and/or sliced strawberries.

Six Red Roses: Poetry Monday

 

 

Poetry Monday's once a week.

I bet you know which day.

I don't participate every time,

But today I've come out to play.

My friends assign each week a theme,

Red Roses is what they chose.

Now it's up to all of us,

to put our thoughts into prose.

 

 

Six Red Roses

Young and inexperienced,

as nervous as could be,

he entered the town flower shop,

to plan his delivery. 

Has a date with someone special,

he's wanting to impress.

The sweets? His mama bakes, you see,

but flowers? Couldn't even guess.

Raspberry Mascarpone Cupcakes

 

He'd ask the woman in the shop,

which roses he should send.

He wanted to get it all just right,

no matter what he'd spend.

"Pink's for admiration,

and yellow's joy," she said.

"Orange speaks to your desire,

green is strength for what's ahead."

"Purple means enchantment,

and mystery is blue.

Red comes from the heart, it means

romance, a love that's true."

Perplexed is what he felt,

as he gave it all some thought.

Then came to a decision,

and this is what he bought:

A pink, yellow, and orange,

a green, purple, one blue.

And six more, for a dozen.

all red, so his love shines through.

 

 

 

Wait!

Read more poetry, 

you're not through.

Some talented writers

are in this crew:

 

On the Border

Messymimi's Meanderings 

Mother Owl 

 

Raspberry Mascarpone Cupcakes         

                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

1 box white cake mix

1/2 cup oil

1 1/4 cups milk

4 egg whites

3 oz fresh raspberries, quartered

1 cup mascarpone

1/4 cup raspberry preserves

1 can cream cheese frosting

3 TBSP raspberry preserves

OPT: 2 drops red food coloring

Directions:

*Gently whisk together the mascarpone and 1/4 cup of the raspberry preserves. Cover and refrigerate for 1/2 hour.

*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place cupcake liners into 18 cupcake pan wells.

*Beat the cake mix, oil, milk, and egg whites for 2 minutes. Gently mix in the quartered raspberries. Divide into the cupcake liners.

*Bake for about 20 minutes, or until completely cooked and the tops spring back to the touch. Cool completely.

*Whisk together the mascarpone and 1/4 cup of the raspberry preserves. Using an apple corer, core out the center of each cupcake (not all the way to the bottom). Pipe the mascarpone mixture into the hole made by the apple corer.

*Whisk together the cream cheese frosting, 3 TBSP raspberry preserves, and food coloring. Pipe or dollop onto the cupcakes.

Alzheimer's, Reality and Hope

 

 June is Alzheimer's and Brain Awareness month. I'm recognizing this month in memory of two people I've lost. Not both of them to the Alzheimer's.

We lost my dad in 2015. Yes, to Alzheimer's. We lost Rena just a few months ago. Not to the disease. Both, to me, personify the struggles on both sides of the Alzheimer's fence. Both had to navigate daily life with the condition, even though both did not have it.

I write to process. And then to vent. It's a coping mechanism for me, a catharsis of sorts. In cases like this, not so much to get over it, but to take the first step, actively acknowledging the reality of it. Although we lost dad in December of 2015, it took me 4 months to be able to write about it, to make it real through words of my own. It was a raw, emotional piece, not about the disease itself, but the aftermath, facing the reality.

I call that first piece Daddy's Girl, and I hope you'll click over and read it. A piece of my heart sits on that page. 

We lost Rena this past March. And yet again, it took months to write about it. Just a month ago, I wrote Rena: Mourning to Missing. The reason Rena is part of this post is because she saw this disease from the other side. She was a caregiver. Not only a caregiver, but a fierce, tireless, vocal advocate for Alzheimer's awareness, for caregiver support, and an endless source of information. Her site, The Diary of An Alzheimer's Caregiver remains available, and if you're looking for facts, and hope, Rena left that behind as a gift to us all. 

In fact, it was at Rena's urging that I finally, in 2020, wrote a broader piece about the disease called Alzheimer's, the Battle and the War. For that piece, as I always do, I created a graphic. To my surprise, this graphic has been re-pinned on Pinterest more times than I ever could imagine. Making me both happy that people are interested, and sad, knowing how many people are affected.

I want to end on an up-note, with a few sweet thoughts. Reality intertwined with hope.

Strawberry Brownie Cupcakes

 

First, I wrote in my piece about the individual battles of the Alzheimer's war, that I had hope that I lived to see the day that the disease is eradicated. That hasn't yet happened, but there has been progress. Scientists now made some progress in identifying a cause of the disease, and there is an approved drug that could slow its progression. And with progress, there is hope.

And second, I want to leave you with Rena's words, those she lived by every day as she dealt with Alzheimer's in one way or another:

"Appreciate the good, laugh with the crazy, and deal with the rest."

Strawberry Brownie Cupcakes       

                                                                                      ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 box (18.3 oz) fudge brownie mix

1/4 cup water

2/3 cup oil

3 eggs

1 box (15.25 oz) strawberry cake mix

3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup oil

3 eggs

1/4 cup strawberry jam

OPT: powdered sugar, chocolate frosting, strawberry frosting and/or fresh strawberries for garnish 

Directions:

*Grease 18 cupcake wells. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
*In a bowl, whisk together the brownie mix, water, 2/3 cup of oil, and three eggs. Set aside about 1/3 cup of the mix and divide the rest fairly evenly into the 18 greased wells. It doesn't have to be exact.

*Beat the strawberry cake mix, milk, remaining 1/2 cup of oil, remaining 3 eggs, and strawberry jam for 2 minutes. Fill the wells the rest of the way with the cake batter. Drizzle the reserved brownie batter over the top.

*Bake for 20 - 30 minutes, until the centers spring back to the touch. Allow to sit in the cupcake pans for 5 minutes before running a knife around the edges and removing. Cool completely.

*OPT: once completely cool, sprinkle with powdered sugar or top with chocolate or strawberry frosting and/or top with strawberries.

Smart Like a Spider?

 

 

Outsmarted. By a spider.

 

Forget spidey sense, spidey sense may or may not be real, but spidey smarts is definitely a thing. A bad, scary, frustrating thing. 

 

But then I guess it is October, after all. 

Let me start by saying that the family who built this house did a few things I just don't understand. For instance, the master bathroom (which is upstairs) is large, and there's a window up over the bathtub. It's the only window in the bathroom and it doesn't open. The master bathroom also has no main door (there is a door to the separate room for the toilet within the bathroom). I put up curtains to at least block the light, but still, no door and no window that opens. In a bathroom. You pickin' up what I'm puttin' down here?

 

Same thing in the stairways, both up and down, there are windows there too. Letting in light is a good thing in my book, but they don't open. Now I do understand the one in the stairway to the basement not opening, it's just above ground level outside and could be an issue if someone wanted to break in. But the one upstairs would provide a lovely cross breeze on a spring or fall day.

 

We had a little bad luck, good luck situation a few years ago. 

 

We had hired a company to work on the siding on our house (thank you, woodpeckers). I was in the kitchen trying out a new recipe when I heard the doorbell ring. 

 

 

Ginger Snap Cupcakes with Fireball Frosting

 

 

The man working on the house was there and he was upset. While working on the siding, he'd accidentally cracked our window. The one in the upstairs stairway. They'd replace it at no cost, of course. But I had another idea and had them source a window the same size that could slide open, and had a screen. For just $100 over what they would be paying, I could have what I wanted there. I'm in!

 

You may be thinking my back story seems to be longer than my actual point. You'd be right, but stick with me, I'm finally getting there.

 

I had loved, I can't tell you how much I had loved, having a window in that stairway that opens. Had. Until the battle of wits began.

 

 

I went to open that window one beautiful fall day when I saw that a spider had gotten in between the screen and the glass and was building a web. Hubs got the spider out and puttied where he thought it may have come in. 

 

A few days later, I went to open the window and a spider had gotten inside. Hubs got it out and puttied some more. Spider, putty, spider, putty . . . my husband puttied the living daylights out of that window, but the cunning spider prevailed.

 

How can this be? How smart are spiders anyway? I mean, they're small insects, there's barely any room in there for a brain, right?

 

 

IDK, but Google did, and here's everything you (never) needed to know about spiders. They're smart. In fact, the smaller the spider, the bigger the brain. Tiny spiders' brains are so big that their organs can be forced down into their bodies. I'd be fascinated if I wasn't so busy cringing, and shuddering, and gagging, and probably gathering fodder for some major league nightmares.

 

Just to prove their intelligence as compared to at least some of our species, Google had a few suggestions for me of popular spider questions frequently asked. The first one: Do spiders fart? Asked, I assume, but some deep thinkers? Taking time out of their busy day doing brain surgery to gather important spider information?

 

Bet the spiders aren't wasting their time wondering about our digestion.

My initial query did go on to let me know that there are recent studies that have found that spiders do actually display cognition. Perhaps those lucky researchers are the people who needed to know about spiders' gaseous releases? 

 

Whatever the situation, it has become apparent, both through my research and my unfortunate real-life experiences, that spiders are capable of plotting window stealing strategy (and farting too, btw).

 

So at least I can tell Hubs that he's being outsmarted by a smart opponent. I bet that spider would even stick his tongue out at Hubs. If he had a tongue, that is.

Meanwhile, though the war of wits may go on, for right now the spider owns that window. And I, once again, have a window in the stairway that doesn't open.

Clearly Muhammad Ali didn't finish his thought. I can do that for him: float like a butterfly, sting like a bee . . . smart like a spider.

 

Ginger Snap Cupcakes with Fireball Frosting

                                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients (makes 18 large or 24 average sized cupcakes):
10 ginger snap cookies

3 TBSP cinnamon baking chips

1 box yellow cake mix

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1 cup milk 

1/3 cup orange juice

1/2 cup oil

1/4 cup sour cream

4 eggs

 

1 stick butter, softened

1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

3 - 4 TBSP Fireball Whiskey

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

 

NOTE: to make the frosting alcohol free, substitute milk for the Fireball Whiskey and add another 1/2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice

 

Directions: 

*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place 18 (or 24) paper cupcake baking cups into the wells of cupcake pans.

*In a food processor, crush the cookies and the baking chips to crumbs.

*Beat the cake mix, 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice, milk, orange juice, sour cream, eggs, and 1/2 cup of the crushed cookies for 2 minutes. Set the rest of the crushed cookies aside for garnish.

*Divide the batter evenly into the 18 baking cups. Bake for about 20 minutes (start checking at about 18 minutes if you're making 24 smaller cupcakes), until the center of the cupcakes spring back to the touch. Cool completely.

*Cream the butter with the remaining 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice and 3 TBSP Fireball. Carefully beat in the powdered sugar. If needed, add more Fireball 1 tsp at a time until the frosting is of spreadable consistency.

*Spread or pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes. Sprinkle with the remaining crushed cookie crumbs.