Recipe...

... for Disaster

- or -

How Not to Cook

Ingredients: one bagel

Place in microwave on carefully folded piece of paper towel.

Close door.

Press Cook.

Press Power - 30%.

Press Time - 1.. 0... 0...

and just for good measure... another 0...

Approximately 6:30 mins later, realize you haven't heard the microwave bell ring yet.

Peek into the kitchen. Observe the following:

• horrid scorched smell


• smoke seeping out of the microwaves vents


• flickering light, i.e. flames, through microwave door window.

Open the microwave door. Observe the following:

• microwave is FILLED with roiling, oddly yellow-coloured smoke


• which rolls out of the microwave at lightening speed, and


• expands to fill entire kitchen and living room to a depth of 4' down from the ceiling.

Perform following tasks:

• Turn on kitchen wall exhaust fan


• Open many windows


• Carefully preserve scorched bagel for photographing for blogging purposes.

Toasted bagel, anyone?

Cat Wars, Part the Second

The seige of Rileygrad begins.

And in this corner...

Tigger, the Featherweight

Cat Wars

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Well, there was a lot of cat hair, anyway.

Riley has reigned supreme for nigh these seven years. He has allowed The Beagle, who was here when he arrived, to live for it is stupid and poses no threat.

Yes, Riley reigned supreme, having dominion over the couch, arm chair, kitchen ledge, every bed and lo, even the coveted Living Room Bay Window That Is Many Feet In The Air, verily at songbird flying height. And next to a tree. Life was good.

And then came Pepper.

Who turned out to be not so bad. Except that he will not submit to repeated inspections by Riley with Sniffing and Licking. But other than that, he'll also be allowed to live, for Pepper is Congenial. Pepper doesn't mind The Beagle. The Beagle loves everyone. Things were settling nicely.

And then came Tigger.

Who, after a 3 week separation from his brother Pepper, no longer accepted Pepper as a Being Worthy of Life. There has been much hissing and fissing and slapping of paws. Tigger has designated the Beagle JAWS OF DEATH and hisses and fluffs up ferociously upon a mere sighting of the dog from the next room.

And Riley.

Tigger has declared Riley HE WHO MUST BE CRUSHED. It's a Battle of the Alpha Male Kittehs.

Riley is seven years old and weighs about 15 lbs. Tigger is six months old and weighs about 3 whiskers and a ball of fluff.

I reckon it’s a dead heat. Hold your tickets, ladies. Hold your tickets.

Black Dog

Has got me.

One if by land, two if by coaster

Holly of June Cleaver Nirvana has given me an idea. No. Not that one. No. Stop! What a bunch of frickin' pervs! Besides, I already thought of that myself. This is serious.

In two weeks time, I shall be picking up the ridiculously expensive, yet totally unstylish and unseen by anyone except the soles of my feet, orthotic insoles that will ride in like Prince Charming on a white charger and rescue me from my current reign as High Priestess of the Funny Walk (TM).

BUT! As Holly pointed out, what if they don't work? Could happen. She suggested I'll be left with very expensive coasters. Which I really don't need as I just purchased two sets of hugely expensive, classy coasters at The Dollar Store just last week. A store which only sells the finest goods, as indicated by its high class name. But Holly's comment got me to thinking. If the insoles turn out to be useless and not the magical cure they have been touted, for what do I use them?

This has led me to a plan. An evil plan. Okay, not evil. But a plan, nevertheless and that is to charge you, my fine readers (all 3 of you) with a task.

A noble task. A quest, if you will. You must advise me and advise me wisely, oh readers mine. I mean, those suckers cost $350 CDN. Which is US$349.632. Or £177.31. Or 1,104.75 in Malaysian Ringgits. And boy, am I glad I don't live in Malaysia, because my math's not so good and with those big numbers...

But I digress. I'm not sure about the fauna in your neck of the woods, but here at Wrath World Headquarters, money doth not grow on trees, no it dothn't. So, if it turns out I've spent the money that could have bought me a shiny, brand-spanking new 160 GB Classic iPod *drool!* (That's storage space for 40,000 songs, people! FOR TEE THOW ZAND! Wait a minute... are there 40,000 songs in the world? Oh, look! A bird!)

Where was I? Oh, right. If they don't fix my feet, to what worthy purpose shall I turn my new insoles? Discuss amongst yourselves.

Nice legs, shame about the feet

I have been diagnosed with bilateral plantar fasciitis. Yes, my plantar fascia, both of them, are itised. In plain English this means I have tendonitis in both feet in the plantar fascia which is a big, honkin' tendon, or series of tendons, really, that run along the bottom of your foot and keep your toes from parting company from the rest of your foot. So you can imagine the joy that is planting my feet on the floor first thing in the morning after the tendons have spent all night relaxing and curling up all cosy with their bad selves. Yes, that howling noise you've been hearing every morning has been me. Sorry. Thankfully, once the tendons have stretched out again the pain goes away and I'm able to do everything else quite well. Except play the piano. I never was very good at that.

I had my first visit with the podiatrist (chiropodist for my British readers - the rest of you are on your own) yesterday and was told that I walk funny. Most of your weight should be transferred along your foot to the big toe when you stride and I apparently put most of mine on the other toes. Who knew? My feet sure didn't. And I know I didn’t get that memo, so I’ve been walking wrong for the last 50 years and it’s been doing nasty things to the tendons. But frankly, now they've had enough of it and measures must be taken. Ha ha! Measures. Geddit? Never mind.

The good news is that this is the least painful form of the disorder. For most people, who get it from wearing high heels too much, or spending too much time on their feet, the disorder is truly agonizing, while I just have extremely stiff feet and have to walk like Gimpy McGimperson for the first 5 minutes or so.

So it's orthotics for me.

The fitting was not unpleasant. They have you lie face down on an exam table with your feet hanging off the end and they wrap thin cloth dipped in some kind of 'fluid-while-warm, solid-at-room-temp' rubbery stuff around the soles of your feet. It actually feels quite nice. Very spa-like, in fact. It only takes about 5 minutes or so for the stuff to cool and form and then they just pop them off your feet and voila! you have very attractive (if you like mummy-like footwear) molds of your feet in all their glory from which they shape the inserts.

Then, $350 CDN later (gah!) and I had my new, magic, gonna-make-it-all-better orthotic inserts ordered. In three short weeks they’ll be ready and I shall walk like a normal person.

We will now take jokes, jibes and good-natured insults from the floor.

Ladies and gentlemen...

The Mull River SHHHHHHHHHHHHHUUUFFFFLLLLLLLLLLE!