I Was FRAMED, I Tells Ya!

Remember this guy?

He's still a little grumpy. I know how he feels.

Those chairs have been sitting on the porch since before The Pony left for college! I'm pretty sure. And Farmer H just HAD to have them, after seeing them at the end of somebody's driveway BACK WHEN HE STILL DROVE TO WORK. Uh huh.

They were nice chairs, before they sat on the porch for two years, in the weather, having cat butts on them. And that frame is for my best ol' ex-teaching buddy Mabel, who is on the lookout for such things, and probably would not like her future household accoutrements marking time on a porch, available as a scratching post.

Farmer H must be a REVERSE hoarder. He stockpiles stuff on the OUTSIDE of his house. Pretty soon, we won't be able to get in and out.

I think maybe Stockings has given up.

I know how THAT feels, too.

Sauce Revise For Different Guys

Now that The Pony is out of the Mansion, I have to adapt my "recipes" for Farmer H. You may recall that Farmer H does not much care for fluid in his food. Like when he dips himself a towering bowl of vegetable beef soup...he does not like the "juice," as he calls it. I just call it soup.

Anyhoo...the three guys all loved spaghetti. Genius was a middle-of-the-road kind of guy. He'd eat it any way I made it. No Goldilocksing for him. Everything was just right.

The Pony preferred elbow macaroni noodles in his "spaghetti." That's because they hold the sauce in their hollow elbows, and The Pony is all about the sauce. Oh, he'll eat noodles bare, and noodles with only butter. But he really likes sauce. He'd drink it out of a cup, I imagine. And perhaps dip a scrap of bready pizza crust in it every now and then, or dunk a noodle. So when I made spaghetti sauce with The Pony at home, I had to tilt the dipper and get his with no meat or mushrooms in it. Pure sauce. A lot if it, with about 1/3 bowl of noodles swimming in it.

Farmer H wants nothing to do with "juicy" sauce. I have to also tilt the dipper for his, making sure the saucy part of the sauce runs out, and he gets red-colored hamburger meat and mushrooms. The good thing about Farmer H is that he loves his spaghetti more the second and third day! So I get three meals out of one preparation. That's because the noodles soak up the sauce in the container in FRIG II, leaving Farmer H with red-colored noodles, hamburger, and mushrooms.

Oh, yeah. It's not like I make my sauce from scratch. It's a can of Hunt's Spaghetti With Meat Sauce. Not that there's any meat inside. I think it just has the flavor. Allegedly. To that canned sauce, I add a couple individual packets of NutriSweet for Farmer H's diabetic sweet tooth, squeeze in some minced garlic, grind some black pepper, and add the browned ground beef and some canned mushroom pieces.

I'm shocked that I don't have my own cooking show: The Hillbilly Gourmet.

A New Sucker At The Devil's Playground

It's a time-consuming job, you know, to keep the blogworld updated on new snack discoveries at The Devil's Playground. But somebody's gotta do it, and Mrs. Hillbilly Mom pledges to leave no new snack untasted. Because she's selfless like that.

I bought a bag of Tootsie Pops the other day, and upon closer inspection at consumption time, noticed a new notice on the bag.

No, not the PEANUT FREE part. Who ever thought there might be deadly peanuts in a Tootsie Pop? Not this ol' gal, that's for sure. But look right above that peanut notice, at the WATCH FOR NEW FLAVORS command.

I'll admit that I picked through three bags to find the one with the most red suckers showing through the window. I had no idea there might be new flavors, or I might have shaken those Tootsies to see which bag had new ones!

Let the record show that my bag DID contain two new flavors. Only one of each. Because most of my Tootsies were red. But I found this one right on top when I opened the end of the bag.

It caught my eye because of the orange color. I haven't seen an orange Tootsie Pop in about a decade. Okay. It's been about a decade since I bought anything Tootsie. Seems like the last thing might have been one of those big bags at Halloween, with assorted Tootsie treats, to keep in my classroom cabinet for the boys when they waited for me after school. There might have been an orange Tootsie Pop in there. If so, I guarantee you that I hid it for myself! And just now, research showed me that you can buy A WHOLE BAG of orange Tootsie Pops online!

Anyhoo...I grabbed this one, and put on my glasses, and saw that it was pomegranate. Meh. It was okay. Nothing special.

Since I had success finding THAT new flavor, I shook out all my Tootsies, and found another!

I tried it last night, and deemed it okay, though not as good as the pomegranate. I think I'll stick with my cherry Tootsies.

Maybe these don't seem like new flavors to you, if you're a regular Tootsie Pop consumer. But I'm used to the originals, which I remember as Cherry, Chocolate, Orange, Grape, and Raspberry. I was never very fond of the grape, and detested the raspberry, because it impersonated my favorite, cherry.

So there you have it. A new snack review for you, and a stockpile of cherry Tootsie Pops for me.

Letting My Faux-Outrage Flag Fly

That's a cool image, isn't it? Or perhaps frightening. Mrs. HM waving a flag of faux outrage, which might be outrageously un-faux...

But first, that flag imagery has reminded me of Farmer H. He's been tooling around in his Trailblazer for a month now, sporting an American flag on a stick. I don't know if he has it stuck in his mostly-rolled-up back window, or if it came with a little support thingy to stick on the window. The fact is, every time Farmer H goes up the driveway, I see him flying that patriotic flag.

I have nothing against that flag, but I want to tell Farmer H that the 4th of July holiday is over, and most people don't drive around flying a flag. It kind of makes your car stand out. Makes it easier for road-raged people to follow you, and pick you out of a crowd of silver Trailblazers. And believe me, if anybody was ever going to elicit road rage with his driving techniques...that would be Farmer H.

I've been forgetting to mention the flag issue to Farmer H, since he's always leaving when the thought hits me. Then Friday, I drove through the cemetery for a moment, going the other direction than usual, because I was on the way home this time. You know how different things catch your eye when you vary your routine? Well...I noticed something about that cemetery.

At least a dozen graves had that exact same flag!

I don't mean just an American flag. The same wooden stick, the same size, the same materials as Farmer H's Trailblazer flag. Heh, heh! Farmer H has been driving around sporting a grave flag!

But that's not what I'm outraged about! I guess it's really just medium outrage, compared to another issue I've got simmering, which you shall read about elsewhere. But I'm still pretty annoyed. I don't know if any company makes a Pretty Annoyed flag for me to fly.

What I'm mad about is PEOPLE WHO WON'T GET OVER!

You know. On the road. They take their half out of the middle, as my dad used to say. Now I know exactly what he meant. When two cars are approaching each other on an unlined road, they both, out of courtesy, should stay as far to the right as they can. Then there's no danger of hitting each other, you see.

I dutifully move T-Hoe as far to the right as I can. But other drivers insouciantly cruise along with a five-or-six-foot gap between their wheels and the edge of the road. That makes it very difficult for T-Hoe to avoid them. There is no shoulder on our blacktop roads. Just a drop-off, of varying depths.

T-Hoe is a substantial vehicle. Like an army tank, not a Shriner's mini-motorcycle. Piloting him is akin to bulldozing through the eye of a needle, not cycling under the Eiffel Tower. Balancing his two right tires on the edge of the pavement is like riding roller blades along a tightrope, not flappping Ronald McDonald shoes along the Great Wall of China.

People really need to be more considerate drivers. Don't make me get an actual car-flag!

If Only I Could Recreate This At Halloween

I saw him through the garage people-door as I parked T-Hoe. Catching a picture of Stockings is a stealth operation. He does not take kindly to photos. I knew the minute I opened up that door, he'd be off, nose out of joint, tail twitching, around the corner of the porch.

Lucky for me, my black cat was distracted by the arrival of Farmer H, and the barking of the dogs. Apparently, it's better to be an audience for a 3-ring circus than to perform in one. Farmer H was in my way at the people-door, and as we did that awkward dance step to see who was going which way, I managed to push the door back, and zoom in for this sight. 

I was able to creep three steps across the brick sidewalk, while Jack and Copper Jack muzzle-wrestled, and Juno barked her fool head off.

Stockings was not amused. He looks like the 3-ring circus ran out of cotton candy, the ringmaster is not to his liking, and he's imminently headed to the ticket booth for a refund.

The good thing about being a fat, anti-social cat with a hoarder human is that you can choose any apartment you want in the cat condominium on the porch.

Stink Bait, The Apparel

Tuesday morning, I reached for the knob to turn on the shower, and saw a hat. A camouflage cap with a large fish hook on the side. I was pretty sure Farmer H had not set a line to catch a fish in the shower. I figured he'd washed his hat, and hung it there to dry. He often hangs his SpongeBob boxers that double as his Poolio swim trunks there. Even though historically, bathrooms have been humid areas, suitable for growing African Violets, and not a great place to hang clothing up to dry.

Sweet Gummi Mary! What's with the hat hooks, anyway? If you've ever immersed yourself in Hillmomban culture, you've seen that fashion statement. Even high school students wear them, IN school, which doesn't seem quite right, those giant hooks being as menacing as a pocket knife.

Why would anybody want to wear a giant fish hook mere millimeters from his eye? If you fall, it could pierce your skull. In a fight, you're equally as likely to skewer your own temple as snag some guy's knuckle. In a car wreck, you could jam that curve of barbed metal into your temporal lobe. Say goodbye to memory, understanding, and language! Oh, wait. You can't bid those faculties farewell, because you won't have a memory to do so! At the very least, you could fall down drunk, and scratch your scalp, and need a tetanus booster.

Anyhoo...I told Farmer H that I'd moved his hat to the side of the big triangle tub, and that he might want to hang it outside to dry.

"Yeah. I washed it last night. I was sitting there, and I smelled it."

"I've learned that whenever I'm sitting in the living room, and get a whiff of a stench, that's always what smells. Your hat."

"No. I wasn't sitting in the living room. I mean at the auction. I was sitting there at the auction, and noticed a stink, and it was my HAT!"

Heh, heh. I'm glad I wasn't his traveling companion for that auction in the city.

Sliced, Meat Loaf

Because nothing ever goes as planned in Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's world, the meat loaf creation occurred Tuesday morning. Since Farmer H sprang that surprise auction trip on me Monday afternoon, Monday's supper became Tuesday's lunch. That's because a different auction trip was planned for Tuesday night.

Actually, making the meat loaf for lunch fit into my time schedule better than for supper. I made it when I got up (at 10:00 [DON'T JUDGE]), and it was ready by 11:30. I'd told Farmer H that it would be ready by noon, in case he wanted to eat before he left for the auction around 2:30. The auction doesn't start until 6:00, but it's an hour drive, and the guy he rides with likes to get there early to look at everything.

Anyhoo...Farmer H was running around the county, being at that time in town at an estate sale. He came home for his trailer, and said he'd be back in an hour. So I waited until after I got ready for town to make his smashed potatoes.

I must say, the meat loaf turned out well.

That's after Farmer H sliced off the end. He likes the ends, and will no doubt take the other one for his next meal. I don't mind if I have the end or the middle. Here the meat loaf is already in a plastic container, ready to be shoved into FRIG II until time for my supper.

Nothing exotic in my meat loaf. It's ground beef, some type of diced bread (in this case, two hot dog buns), dashes of steak sauce and Worcestershire sauce, a sprinkle of dry onion soup mix, and two eggs. That all gets mashed together by my own two hands, then plopped into a glass baking dish, drizzled with ketchup, and slid into the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. It's actually one of the easiest things to make, as long as you don't mind getting your hands slimy.

The little red-skinned potatoes out of Farmer H's pal's garden were first put into the microwave for 10 minutes. Then stabbed a couple times with a paring knife to open them a bit. I added butter, ground some salt and pepper onto them, poured in a little milk, and set to smashing them with my smasher. A taste off the smasher proved them to be surprisingly delicious.

That's about two Farmer-H-size servings left, stored in a recycled plastic bowl that once held a Hardee's Chicken Bowl. I like those little bowls, because they have a see-through lid that doesn't spill. I often put Chex Mix in them to send to The Pony.

And now, in keeping with my long-standing habit of chronicling my various and assorted minor injuries...I'll show you the near-maiming I suffered during the making of this meal.

We've got a bleeder! That ain't ketchup, by cracky! I actually didn't feel any pain, but noticed that red spot on my thumb as I was getting the ingredients ready. Sweet Gummi Mary! The littlest thing can turn into a bloodletting when you take an aspirin a day to keep your blood unclotted.

As you can see, I'd done no more than tear a hot dog bun into tiny pieces to line the bottom of the mixing bowl. I hadn't even opened up the pack of ground beef yet. My skin was sliced when I tore off a piece of plastic wrap to lay out for a hunk of that ground beef, that was being frozen for later, perhaps for spaghetti sauce.

You know how clingy plastic wrap can be. I was wrestling it loose from itself around the roll, and the cutting strip on the edge of the box got me. I didn't want a bandaid mixing with the raw meat. So I kept rinsing off the thumb and blotting it with a paper towel. The side of my thumb didn't actually come in contact with the meat mixture, but I didn't want to take a chance on any dripping.

I didn't mention the near-severing of my thumb to Farmer H. I'm sure he would not have cared. Not about a drop of blood having a chance to mix into his meat loaf. Nor about my pain and suffering.