Embracing the Season...Bugs, Worms and All

I woke up today and thought it was Friday. Needless to say, I was disappointed when I heard the sound of the Rumpke Recycling truck and soon after heard the sound of my recycling bin being emptied and realized as I lay in bed that it was, in fact, Thursday.

I decided to embrace the fact that I still had another day to go until the weekend because, well, I quite like Thursdays. They’re on the downward slide of the climb towards the weekend. Also, during the regular TV season, they’re good nights for TV. Also…I just like Thursdays.

When I got to work and we had our morning meeting, my boss asked if anyone else felt like it was Friday. I was surprised that several people said yes and not just me. It must be the anticipation of the three-day weekend.

Even though we do have to work tomorrow, I anticipate it being rather quiet. That’s the thing with holiday weekends. People leave early and come back late so the days before and after the holiday are pretty quiet.

I don’t mind. In there, for me, are three lovely days away from the office where I get to hang out with my mother and my pups and just enjoy the summer days.

Even though summer isn’t my favourite season, I’m finding ways to appreciate it. Obviously, the best way that I appreciate it is through food. I love summer food. I love going outside, picking fresh basil and tossing it with tomatoes and fresh mozzarella to make the perfect summer caprese salad. I love seeing the cucumber on my vine growing to the size of one you actually buy in a store and knowing that I had a part in that cucumber growing. I love the promise of my own fresh tomatoes as the first flowers on my tomato plants appear.

Most of all, I love that everything is so…fresh.

That’s the thing with winter food. While I love it’s heartiness and the comfort food overtones of autumn and winter flavours, it’s not fresh. It’s heavy as cold-weather food should be.

It’s why I love the seasons. It’s so nice that when we’re finally getting tired of salads and grilled fare, it’s time to bring out the pumpkins, winter squash and stewed dishes. Then, when we’re growing tired of heavier winter fare suddenly the first asparagus and fresh vegetables appear in the stores.

So, even though I’m not a fan of the heat and humidity of the lazy days of summer, I do appreciate the fresh produce it gives me. I love grilling a piece of fish quickly and having it with two sides of fresh veggies.

I also love that I can sit outside in the evenings and appreciate the summer nights. Granted, these evenings are accompanied by the gentle ‘whirr’ of my Off battery operated mosquito fan but it’s still a nice way to spend the evenings. I do think that the mosquito fan works. The only thing is that it only works on mosquitoes. There are still plenty of other irritating little insect life forms that circle but since they don’t bite like mosquitoes, it’s not so bad.

I like to sit outside until it’s just about to get dark when the fireflies first come out. I find there’s something magical about fireflies. One minute, it’s dusk and then it’s filled with these little sparks of green glow that flicker out so quickly you wonder if they were ever there.

My only problem with the fireflies is that I have to remind Sookie constantly not to eat them. Unfortunately, she’s got a certain fondness towards eating bugs. Well, she doesn’t actually eat them as much as like to catch them with her mouth for sport. Of course, she accidentally kills them at which point they’re no longer fun and she spits them out. Sometimes, she brings them as a gift. It’s a little vile but a dog’s got to do what a dog’s got to do.

Rory, on the other hand, doesn’t like bugs. Her preference is worms- dried ones. I discovered when we were out for a walk one night after it had been rainy for a few days and then the sun had been shining for a few more. The rain had caused a mass population of worms to be washed onto the paths and roads. Then, when the sun shone, they dried up and their little dessicated corpses were all that remained.

To me, they were rather yucky little additions to our nightly work. To Rory, they were a sumptuous feast. It took me a while to realize why it was taking my little dachshund so long to catch up to Sookie and I when I realized she was trying to eat all the worms.

Yes, again, this is a little vile. However…worms are supposed to nutritious…right? I did try and stop her for a while but unless we just stopped going for walks, the sheer amount of dried worms that were out there made it impossible. Also, we had some on our patio. I just made sure to give her some teeth cleaning biscuits after she’d had her ‘feast’.

I will say that the eating of the worms and bugs are not exactly one of the best things about summer but, well, in the winter, I deal with snow-covered dogs who like to go out and roll in the white stuff and then come in and roll on the carpet to get the snow off.

Each season has its merits. When summer gets really hot, muggy and comfortable, I might start looking towards Autumn but, for now, I’m enjoying the fact that the summer bring fresh food, long days and fireflies.

I also like that it brings us a nice long Fourth of July Weekend. I intend to enjoy mine. I hope you do too!

Happy Friday!

Stormy Weather...

This has been a very stormy weekend, literally. The days have started, hot and muggy with a haze of smog hanging over everything. Then as the hours have gone by, the clouds have appeared and within what seems like mere moments, the wind has started up, the thunder is rumbling and the rain is pouring.

Yesterday, the storm happened as I went into Target. It had only looked cloudy for a short while and it wasn't until I walked into the store that I realized the sky was suddenly black. Moments later, it sounded as though a million drummers were pounding on the roof as the rain started to fall heavily. The thunder could be heard rumbling as though it were inside the store. By the time I left Target, the storm was over but the car park looked as though autumn had come early with the piles of leaves that had blown in with the storm.

Today, I was luckier; I was at home. I went outside to check on the puppies when I noticed the sudden appearance of the storm clouds. The thunder was already rumbling and then the wind came. Leaves cascaded over me, around me, swirling as though they were something out of The Wizard of Oz. I half expected a house to come cascading down.

The house never came but the storm did. My silly puppies who were once so adverse to getting their precious paws wet have come a long way. They now go out into the rain, hunting any wildlife that might be trapped in the storm. Consequently, they came in soaked. I'm jumpier with the storm than they are. The loud cracks always make me jump even though I love storms. They act as though they can't hear anything.

As a result, even though the storm is over, I now have two rather wet puppies on the floor. They have this rather annoying habit of bypassing the towel that I attempt to dry them with, instead they play their favourite game of "towel" with it, having a tug-of-war that only ends when they get bored. Instead, they'd rather dry themselves on the carpet, lying on their backs and squirming and wriggling until they at least feel better even if they are still rather soggy-looking.

I don't know if we'll have any more storms tonight. I do hope so. I love a good storm. My favourite are the ones that come at night when we're supposed to be sleeping. There's nothing nicer than being in bed, listening to the sound of the crashing thunder and pouring rain.

Of course, that's a few hours away and so is the end of the weekend. It's coming fast and furious, the end of the weekend, much like its own version of a storm. It's been a quick weekend, as always filled with errands mixed with relaxation. In a way, those are the best type of weekends- not so lazy that you feel guilty for not doing anything but not so hectic that you don't feel like you had no chance to relax.

And I did get chance to relax. Rory and Sookie honoured my request to let me sleep today and they stayed curled up by my side until I was ready to get up. Crocodog did not make an appearance. I'm not so sad about that. While Crocodog is amusing, it's not so amusing on my toes which still feel like they have little teeth marks embedded in them.

Now Crocodog is on the prowl again but this time she's stalking her sister and not my toes. She just finished stalking and attacking a cicada bug outside. Those things make a dreadful noise when they're caught. Sometimes, though, Crocodog comes in useful. Last night, we had a rogue cricket in the house. I'm not girly enough to be afraid of crickets but I don't really like them. Last night's was rather large and it was in a dark spot on the carpet where the light doesn't quite reach. I couldn't make out what it was until it took me by surprise and hopped right up, buzzing my chin which had leaned down with the rest of me to see what it was. I squealed because, well, that's what I do when a bug takes me by surprised. No matter though, at the sound of my distress, Crocodog came to my rescue. She managed to corner that cricket within seconds and then...scooped it up in her mouth. I managed to get her to spit it out. It's one thing to suspect your pet eats bugs but to see it happen...well, I'd rather not. So she spat it out. The cricket was dead. I put it in the bin. Crocodog saved me from the nasty cricket.

Crocodog and her sister are currently hunting prey in the wet garden outside. This means they'll come in wet again but, at least, the storm has passed. In the meantime, the weekend has not yet finished passing and I intend to make the most of what remains. I just hope it holds another storm since it's hot out there again. We'll just have to wait and see.

Happy Monday!

TV Promo Overkill and an Ode to Nathan Fillion...

So, I watch a lot of TV. This might explain why, in addition to this blog, I also attempt to maintain a TV-related blog. Lately, it's been more of a "Dissecting Grey's Anatomy" blog because that show, formerly one of my favourites, is rapidly going down on my "Top Five Shows to Watch on a Weekly Basis" list.

I don't have cable or satellite. I know I've told you that before so I'm sure it's not a new revelation. I used to not have cable or satellite because I couldn't afford them; nowadays it's by choice. I won't say I don't miss having the endless ability to flip channels. I am a sucker for those travel shows where people eat odd foods like bugs. I watched on the other night at my parent's. It was Jeff Corwin who I believe used to be on Animal Planet after "The Crocodile Hunter." He went to Thailand, travelled throughout the country and ate all kinds of bugs ranging from ants that apparently emit an acid when threatened and that taste rather good in a salad with chilli to cockroaches (or something resembling them) that were deep fried and spicy. Not my sort of snack but I quite enjoy seeing what other people are willing to eat.

I digress. My original point is that I have rabbit ears on my TV and thanks to that "convert to digital television" warning that flashed across every television program for, like, two years, I have a nice little analog-to-digital converter box on both of my tv sets. It makes the picture better even though they've extended the time for people to switch over in case they were unaware they had to. My slight issue with that is that anyone who watches TV currently had to have known about the switch. Aside from the distracting scroll across the screen, each network had handy little commercials with celebrities TELLING people to get a converter box, just in case someone couldn't read. Chances are, if you needed to switch, you'd know about it already. I am aware that there are poorer areas of the U.S. who are a little behind on news like that but, seriously, if they had a television that they had to convert because they watched it regularly, even they'd know that they had to switch. Nevertheless, I have a better picture now even if I do get digital static rather than analog.

I digress. Again. So, due to my lack of cable, I watch a lot of network TV. It has come to my attention that the Networks are killing their own new shows by advertising them too much. For example, I watch Lost on a weekly basis. During each episode (including the nifty "Pop-up Lost" that plays before each new episode), ABC has decided to promote their new show Castle. Castle is a show staring the fantastic Nathan Fillion and the lady who played Nina on 24 and tried to kill Jack Bauer. This makes her my enemy.

However, the first few times I saw the preview, I thought it looked like a lot of fun. The premise is that Nathan Fillion plays a bestselling mystery writer. Nina-from-24 plays a detective. Nathan wants to base a character on her so he shadows her. He's a womanizing smooth-tongued playboy, she's a no-nonsense cop. It's not the most original premise but, well, it has Nathan Fillion in it. If you are unawre of Nathan Fillion's brilliance then you clearly haven't seen Firefly or the big screen sequel "Serenity". You must not have seen him play the evil preacher who almost killed Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You also must have missed Dr. Horrible's Sing-along-Blog which is, in my opinion, bloody brilliant. It's a musical by Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy and much other brilliance). Fillion plays Captain Hammer. He has a line "The hammer is my penis." He's a ham, he's a used-car-salesman but he has that naughty charm that makes you just adore him.

However, I have now seen the preview so many times that I feel like I might have seen the entire first episode. I no longer think it looks like a more relaxed version of Bones, only funnier. I'm fed up with it and the show doesn't even air the first episode until Monday. Fox has also done this with their shows in the past though not so much with the new Joss Whedon show Dollhouse which NEEDS promoting because Fox has put it in the exact same time slot that killed Firefly a few years back. NBC...same thing. I know they have to promote their shows but they could cut back a little. It's really not just the major networks, either. When I watch BBC America at my parents, they promote their new shows to death. I think there is such a thing as overkill.

You may wonder why I didn't post this in my TV blog. Well, I did have a reason though I've digressed from it. There is one good thing I saw in the Castle promos. There's a scene where Nina-from-24 and her team of police are wearing those bulletproof vests that say "POLICE" in large letters. Nathan Fillion's character isn't a policeman but he's wearing one anyway only his says "Writer." I thought that was hilarious and, instantly, I wanted one. I think it would be not only a silly fun thing to own but I think it would be a great symbol. It could be my 'rejectionproof vest', one that would save me from feeling so hopeless and despondant when I get the toughest rejections. When I saw it, I was having my weekly Lost viewing party with my friend. She wants a Dharma Initiative jumpsuit like the ones they sell on Lost. And yes, those are available in ABC.com's Lost store. We made a deal, if I get that vest, she gets the jumpsuit and we wear them to work. That would be cool. And silly. But still rather cool.

Seriously though, I loved that vest in spite of the fact that I'm sick to death of Castle already. I think it would be a great thing to own. It probably wouldn't look as good on me as it does on Nathan Fillion but I don't think that would matter.

Sorry to ramble again but it's that kind of week. At least it's not about panda bears again. Thanks for reading.

Happy Thursday.