Agent Orange

Kittens having kittens...

While visiting my parents, I've been feeding 3 cats: Puma, Snaggletooth, and Miss Thing**. Well actually... I've been feeding one cat, and co-feeding the other two...(Snaggletooth and Miss Thing are also fed by a neighbor. He feeds them more than enough to sustain them, but that doesn't stop my parents from putting out a bowl every morning at 8.) For a long time, the system was perfect. My stepmom had three bowls, and the three cats had 3 spots picked out by the door.

That was until Agent Orange started coming around - a pink tabby kitten - maybe 3 or 4 months old...? At first she didn't eat so much...just a little bit out of Miss Thing's bowl. She mostly hung around to play. She loved climbing the trees, and swatting at the other cats' tails. She was clean, fluffy, and energetic. We all assumed she had a home in the neighborhood, and was just coming by for the extra food and company.

Almost overnight she has become much more aggressive. First pestering the others while they ate, she now actually pushes them from their bowls in an attempt to eat the canned stuff I add to the dry food. It's gotten so that I have to stand guard over Puma's dish, because he won't stand up to her.

A little more than a week ago, I noticed that her tummy was too large for her body. For maybe a second, I thought to myself, "she's getting fat from all that food," because her winter coat was filling out, as well. But her tummy seems rounder. And it is her tummy that continues to grow. I think Agent Orange is pregnant.


**The names have been changed to protect their privacy.

The War on Gardening

There are almost a hundred different species of Poppy, but the variety used to make opium is the same one we use in our food:
Papaver somniferum.

Don't worry. The DEA won't be knocking on your kitchen door. It's not the chefs they're after. It's the gardeners. While possession of poppy seeds is not illegal, cultivating them is. (So I'm wondering why they're sold in gardening catalogues all over the country?)

My garden, like thousands of others across America, has dozens of gorgeous poppies sharing sunlight with cosmos, echinacea, daisies, and every other leggy, lacy plant that feels like hanging around. If I'm not shipped off to GITMO for supporting our troops, I'll probably be arrested for my hot pink breadseed poppies!

Lemon Poppy-Seed Cake

6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
4 egg yolks
1 1/4 cups cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup poppy seeds
1/3 cup milk
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract

1. Cream butter in bowl.
2. Gradually beat in sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Beat egg yolks in separate bowl until light and lemon colored;
4. Blend yolks thoroughly into butter mixture.
5. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Add poppy seeds.
6. Add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with milk, blending well.
7. Beat in lemon peel, lemon juice, vanilla and lemon extract.

8. Pour batter into well-buttered, lightly floured bread loaf pan.
9. Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven 40 minutes, or until loaf pulls away from sides of pan and tester comes out clean.
10. Let cool on rack.

[ By the way, if you're subject to drug tests, you should avoid eating Poppy seeds. As little as 1/4 tsp of poppy seeds is enough to make you test positive. And many, many employers...especially those prospective employers...won't bother to rule out poppy seeds unless you take them to court. The problem is...prospective employers probably won't tell you why you didn't make the cut. ]

Change

Every new season, I claim is my favorite. Autumn's colours this year are bringing me to orgasm. (Makes it hard to walk, lemme tell ya.)

Safe