It's like Duffy was saying

Slow down

Jack gets a little intense. Small dogs are like that sometimes. Don't get too worked up about bringing home any bacon. I'm sure whatever you bring home will be just fine.



Thanks.

**This message brought to you by Duffy, the official lovable mutt of Sprawling Ramshackle Compound.

Answers to Monday's multiple choice quiz

d) A dog with low-self esteem who'll do anything to make people happy



c) MizBubs' hand after cleaning and sorting an entire case of black raspberries



b) A closeup from a makeup test done by our eldest titled "But it's only when he's drinking."

_____________________

Now, unfortunately, some bad news.

Japanese popular culture provides me with a pretty good amount of entertainment, both of the intentional and unintentional variety. Over the past couple of years I've gotten some good stories from the Mainichi Daily News.

You can imagine my disappointment when, while preparing for this week's Weenie Waver Wednesday, I clicked on my bookmarked web link and found this:

The Mainichi Newspapers Co., Ltd. continued to post extremely inappropriate articles in the WaiWai column of the Mainichi Daily News (MDN), its English Web site. We have reported the results of an in-house investigation into the case on Pages 22 and 23 of the July 20 morning edition of the Mainichi Shimbun.

We continued to post articles that contained incorrect information about Japan and indecent sexual content. These articles, many of which were not checked, should not have been dispatched to Japan or the world. We apologize deeply for causing many people trouble and for betraying the public's trust in the Mainichi Shimbun.

"Incorrect information about Japan and indecent sexual content"? And the problem with that was...what, exactly? Oh well. You can read the whole apology here.

It will be a somber Tuesday here at the Compound.

Family time, overtime and virgin birth

First, MizBubs, dynamic homemaker, baked a delicious blueberry pie.

Then we found out that her brother would be in town from San Antonio to watch her nephew compete in a bike race. We had a great visit, and he helped us drink some of our surplus beer and sangria left over from the 5th.

Then came the overtime, only a few hours of it though. I work for a smaller department. We normally have two detective sergeants and six detectives, but we've been short a detective since last September. My fellow sergeant just left for NY on vacation, one of the detectives is on vacation in Puerto Rico, another detective is on light duty after falling backwards out of a chair onto a concrete floor, and another is detached to a burglary task force for the next week. My Nextel started chirping Saturday morning, so I went in for a few hours to help deal with a couple of situations that turned out to not be so bad after all: one of our local gang members alleged he got slashed on the hand by his girlfriend's ex-boyfriend, and a local business received a death threat from an ex-employee.

The Fry Daddy came out this weekend and got used for scallops and catfish. I got some decent fresh scallops, and here's what I did with them:

-rolled them in flour seasoned with creole spices
-dipped them in a beaten egg
-rolled them in panko
-threw em in the fryer for about 3 minutes

They nearly doubled in size, and were amazingly flavorful and tender.



MizBubs, gentlewoman farmer, harvested green beans, lettuce, radishes and nasturtium, and all that green was a welcome counterpart to the fried seafood and the sweet potato fries. Then we settled in and watched movies all night. First up was the surprisingly funny and kind-hearted Superbad (favorite line: "You just cock blocked McLovin!") followed by George Romero's Diary of the Dead.

Sunday was a beautiful day, and the occasion for my newest niece's baptism. The service was wonderful, and their priest did a fine sermon. Plus, after seeing the baby welcomed into their faith community, my brother treated us all to a fine fried chicken dinner at White Fence Farm. I knew right away that I'd like the place when I saw a giant fiberglass rooster at the front entrance. The fried chicken was outstanding.

This was occasion for my first foray into a Catholic church in several months--we've been struggling between a return to the Catholicism of our upbringing and re-committing to the liberal American Baptist congregation where we've attended church for over a decade. I won't get into a long discussion about the relative merits of the two experiences, but I will say this--when did short pants and your cleanest Sox jersey become acceptable attire for church? When did people just start holding fairly audible and obvious conversations throughout the service?

I'm sure it's not like this with fundamentalists, but at the two R.C. churches and the American Baptist church I've attended I've seen people chewing gum, walking in with go cups of coffee, and looking like they're on their way to a picnic or a ball game, not a house of worship. And don't give me that "it's not important how you look, it's that you care enough to go" nonsense either. The coffee-slurping, shorts-wearing church goers in both congregations definitely gave off the vibe of shuffling through an obligation more than making a joyful noise, believe me. But I'm just an asshole who has no right to comment anyway, since more Sundays than not I just sleep in.

My eldest describes herself as an atheist (I remember those days--I described myself the same way in my late teens) but has a highly-developed sense of propriety when it comes to church-going. This is what she said in regards to the carelessly dressed:

"I may not believe, but at least I respect."

_________________________

Which brings me to the virgin birth. No, not that one.

Our female cockatiel Daisy laid an egg. There is no mister cockatiel in her life, and this was the second egg she's laid in the past 2 weeks.

Turns out that female cockatiels, if they feel comfortable enough in their environment, can just spontaneously produce and lay eggs. Sometimes they develop a freaky attachment to a favorite toy in their cage and get busy with it. MizBubs, girl genius, knew about this since she actually reads books. She also knew what to do about it.

It turns out that virgin egg-laying is not healthy for the bird. It can deplete calcium and harm them if it continues. So, after the first egg, MizBubs put Daisy in another cage and moved that cage to the tiki bar for a few days while she cleaned out and changed the toys in the original cage. After a week or two Daisy was returned to her re-arranged cage, and promptly swelled up and laid another egg. I guess she's really happy and comfortable.



And now it's time to return to the work week. I will leave you with dog pictures.

Carnage at the compound

MizBubs, dynamic early riser, made a gruesome discovery this morning.

An unknown rabbit, clearly lacking even basic Darwinian survival instincts, decided to make a nest in our yard. Our yard that is a big playground for two terriers. And she built the nest less than a foot off to the side of the well-worn path that the dogs use to haul ass from the back porch to the far corner of the yard when they see squirrels running along the back fence. None of our neighbors have dogs or cats, so you'd think that given a choice most rabbits would pick a yard that does not smell like predator poo.

So, while I was sleeping soundly, MizBubs was on dead bunny detail in the back yard. The body count was three, but she thinks some of the wounded might have crawled off.

By the time I came out with my coffee, all that was left was a bare patch in the lawn, a little hole, and some cottony tufts drifting like little tumbleweeds across the grass.

Circle of life, yo.

My dog has a blog

Maybe, at some point in the future, I'll have something to say.

For now, all I have to report is that my dog has a blog.

Get going!

This motivational message was brought to you by the official rat terrier of Sprawling Ramshackle Compound

April Showers

Bring dogs in scuba gear

Guns, bugs, alcohol and smokes...

That's how MizBubs summed up our weekend as we sat in the screen house surveying our back yard Saturday night.

Our youngest daughter, the Peculiar Girl Wonder, and a friend had caught a cicada, and it turned out it was just about to bust out of its shell. PGW snapped a couple of pictures as it emerged.


Our eldest and her boyfriend had a couple of old bb guns and were shooting some targets I brought home from work; the targets look to be late 80's vintage, and the integrated bad guys on them bear a resemblance to Chuck Norris and Gary Coleman.

So there we all were: me and Mizbubs sitting enjoying a drink and a smoke (I got a tasty cigar knowing I'd have time to sit and do nothing for an hour or so) while our one daughter played with a bug she found and the other shot stuff. I'm living the American dream. Seriously, I can't tell you how glad I am that I have a 15 year old who can still be entertained by catching a bug in a jar and watching it for an hour or two. MizBubs turned to me and said "look at this--we got guns, bugs, alcohol and smokes" and I knew on the spot I had a title for a blog post.

The inside of my house is a mess. It needs a deep cleaning, and I have a couple loads of laundry that need to be done, and it's generally in a state of disarray. And I don't really care right now. We've had the best time the past few days just hanging out together. The only real work we've done has been outside. I think we both decided, unconsciously, to spend what little time we have not working doing things that will bring us joy: working up a sweat in the garden, cooking together, and just sitting without doing a single damn productive thing. It's been restorative.

Just goofy bullshit like throwing a tennis ball, over and over, and over, for our mutt Duffy, until he falls down exhausted in the grass.
MizBubs invented a new drink for us on Friday. It doesn't really have a name yet so we're open to suggestions for a name. It's one shot of vodka, one shot of Bauchant raspberry liqueur, and it's topped up with tonic water, with a couple of berries muddled in. Damn it was good.

MizBubs planted a row of sunflowers along the back of the house, and they're coming up nicely. They're developing some nice buds, so hopefully they'll bloom within a few weeks. She found a couple of funny folk art chickens at someplace like Hobby Lobby and put them in there; I love it because it reminds me of Key West.

Ah well. I have a couple of things to put up in the next few days, but right now I got to get some sleep. Y'all take care.

Hot Dog

I have got to train my dogs to do this: