A Mouse in the House

For real, we have a mouse in the house. How do I know this, you might wonder. Well, oddly enough not through any of the tell tale mouse-in-the-house indicators:

mini poops scattered about - nope, not a one
little gnaw marks on plastic bags full of cookies - also nope
the patter-skid of little mouse feet when you walk into the kitchen - thankfully, uh uh
a half eaten piece of cheese strategically left out on the couter - nope, the freaking chunk of cheese didn't have so much as whisker marks on it from a curious mouse sniffing

So, how do I know there is a mouse in the house . . . b/c it keeps eating my tomatoes. Every morning I walk out to my garden and I pick a bountiful supply of tomatoes. I bring them inside and put them in this nice little wicker'ish basket. And there they sit until I get home in the evening and make a salad or a sauce or slice up some mozz and basil.

Well the other morning as I was loading up the wicker basket with a new batch of maters I noticed that one of the ones on the top from yesterday's heap had the middle chewed out of it. I was flabbergasted. Only one of them was eaten out of and the little bugger didn't even have the courtesy to finish it. Just a few mouse mouthfulls and off he went.



I really wasn't convinced it was a mouse b/c it was only one tomato and it was sort of a smallish "bite" and all the other dry goods on our counter top were left totally unmolested. So I thought maybe it was a bug of some sort. Well the next morning, same thing, different tomato. So, I took to covering my wicker basket-o-tomatoes with a plate. This seemed to work rather effectively for several days. And I figured it was totally some icky punk bug and not a mouse and moved on. I mean a tomato eating mouse? Odd, right?

Then one evening I forgot to replace the plate after using some of the tomatoes. The next morning, TWO tomatoes had bite holes in their middles. The little stinker had totally just been waiting for me to get careless. So now I am finding it really hard to believe that this is a a bug b/c, not that mice are known for their acumen but I sort of couldn't bring myself to credit a bug with that sort of laying in wait strategery.

My counter move? I put a piece of cheese right in front of the wicker basket and went to bed. The next morning . . . NADA. I dunno maybe there is some sort of mouse school they all go to that teaches them that if ever there is cheese just laying about it is most certainly a trap. But whatever, this mouse bypassed the cheese and went straight for the tomatoes.

I actually started getting suspicious that this was Kelly, sneaking into the kitchen after I had gone to bed and carving out a little hole in the tomatoes just to get a kick out of me getting all worked up and playing Nancy Drew and the Mysterious Vegetarian Mouse. I in fact became some convinced of this that I confronted her on it when I found yet another gnawed on tomato After she worked through her fit of laughter she pointed out that there were actually little mouse teeth marks on the tomato.

So, we have a mouse in the house. Kelly wants to kill it. I am having a hard time getting on board with that. She said that if I could find a way to gently trap it she'd be happy to go dispose of it in some field somewhere. As of yet I have not found any mouse traps that do not either snap the neck of the the mouse or glue his little feet to a box bottom until he starves to death. I dislike both of those options.

I sort of feel like my tomato plants are yielding enough tomatoes for both of us. And I am intrigued by this little guy. I mean what sort of mouse bypasses cheese for veggies? A special sort of mouse, I say. . . and I think Erica would agree.

In case you were wondering why I keep using the masculine pronoun to refer to the mouse, I think it is because when I was a kid two of my favorite books were Stuart Little and The Mouse and the Motorcycle. Both of those mice were boy mice.

Mankind is Noodlekind

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the instant noodle phenom Ramen Noodles. They were invented in 1958 by Momofuku Ando and today nearly 100 billion are sold each year (this is totally gross to me). Almost more popular than the noodles themselves is Ando, who despite being entirely unknown to the hundreds of college students who consider ramen a suitable form of sustenance, is somewhat of a hero in his home country of Japan.

Ando developed Ramen Noodles at the age of 48 in response to the Japanese post war food shortage. At the time it was highly desired but considered a luxury item b/c of its high cost of Y35 (~75 cents, this is how hard life was in post war Japan). Thirteen years later Ando unveiled Ramen Cup Noodles, which we can thank for dropping the cost to like 14 cents a package and for the proliferation of completely non biodegradable polystyrene containers.

As a result of Ando's commitment to the development of food like products the Japanese government awarded him with numerous medals and accolades. His highest honor was receiving the The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star, Second Class. This is the 2nd most prestigious Japanese decoration for Japanese civilians. Perhaps if he had invented SPAM he would have scored the Gold and Silver Star, First Class.

In addition to all of his major awards, In April of 2008 a statue of Ando was unveiled in front of the Nissin's Instant Ramen Museum. I can't even imagine how NOT fascinating that museum must be. The statue's unveiling was attended by (and I quote) "Japanese dignitaries" who were there in attendance of The World Instant Noodle Summit. Yeah, seriously.

This of course is actually pretty small potatoes in comparison to the fact that when Ando passed away in January of 2007 they held his funeral in a baseball stadium with 6 thousand people in attendance. The funeral included speeches by the Prime Minister and a goodie bag that contained, among others things, a Cup of Noodles and a copy of a book of Ando's famous sayings.

I find the whole thing wonderfully inane. I mean he stepped up and fed hungry people in a hard time in Japan's history and had the story ended there I believe Ando would be rightly considered a heroic pioneer. The fact that soggy noodles in salty water with dehydrated corn or its sibling brick-o-noodles has lived on to this very day, does not take away from his innovation in a time of need but it sure is entertaining.

In case you were wondering, here are a few Ando gems:

"I invented instant ramen when I was 48 and Cup Noodles at 61. In life, there is no such thing as too late."

When you enter a market, do it slowly. When you withdraw, do it quickly."

"Flavors taste best to those who appreciate them"

and his most famous: "Mankind is Noodlekind."

Have You Missed Me?

In case you were wondering . . .

The US Women's team has beaten Japan 4-2 and will be advancing to the final gold medal game on Thursday 8/21 at 9am EST (probably on MSNBC). They will be playing Brazil who beat Germany 4 -1 earlier this morning.

If someone at the restaurant Julip in Jackson, MS tells you that it is "Free glass of wine night" and then goes on to explain that means that if you order a full bottle you get a free glass, what they mean is that if you order a full bottle of wine you a free EMPTY glass. No lie. And even if you ask the waitress "does the free glass of wine apply to dessert wines?" Her answer will be "yeah" and then will have no compunction charging you.

If you are a fan of the Pogues and enjoy music in Irish pubs, you should check out the band Flogging Molly. If you have ears you should check out the band Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.

Ok that's all for now. Go USA.

A Heavy Heart

In case you were wondering, the US Women's Olympic soccer team lost to Norway 2-0 this morning in their opening match. It was a poor performance from the US. Far beneath their potential. Which, as frustrating as that is, is also hopeful that they'll step it up for their next two games and this Norwegian blunder will become irrelevant.

If you weren't wondering, that might be because you had no idea that the Olympics had even started. And officially, they haven't but since there are so many soccer matches to play they start those game a few days early.

Or maybe you weren't wondering because you don't really care about/follow women's soccer. Well, let's see if we can change that. Because you should care, if only for the next 18 days.

Here is a quick cheat sheet: There are 12 teams divided into three Groups: E, F, G (the men have 16 teams and are groups A, B, C, & D). The top two teams from each group advance plus the top two 3rd place teams from the three groups. In their group (G) the US faces, Norway (done not good), Japan (tough but beatable), and New Zealand (krazy kiwis just tied Japan). Confused? Ok, just cheer for the US. After the loss they just suffered, they're going to need all the remote cheering you can muster.

There next game is against Japan on 8/9 at 5:00am on the USA Network (my mom suggests using your TiVo). I know, its early. But hey the Olympics only comes around every 4 years (well the summer edition). And if you can't really muster the energy to watch soccer at the butt crack of dawn well then just see if you can dream about diving header goals, magical first touches, an impenetrable US goal, and a Red, White, & Blue romp.

In case you have an eagle eye, pay attention when they pan the sidelines and you might catch a glimpse of Erica Walsh, assistant coach of the US Women's Olympic Soccer team.

Zero Dollars

Today I accomplished something I never thought possible. I walked out of Target without spending a single dollar. . . or cent for that matter.

No Lie!

Here is how it went down . . . I walked in with my list - after one too many Target trips that resulted in me walking out of there with $100 worth of useless nick nackety trinkets I now never walk in there without a list. My list had 5 items on it.

Before I had been in the store 5 minutes I had already loaded my cart with several non list items. This of course is normal and each item had been assessed for 1. entertainment value = check 2. cheapness = check and 3. necessariness = deemed irrelevant see #1 and #2. Then I hit the section of the store where my list items were located. Surprisingly, Target had none of my list items, not one.

So, I started wandering down the kitchen aisle looking for potential new gadgets that I certainly don't need but would assuredly be wicked fun to use every 6 months. Then, so as to not walk out of Target a consumer failure, I started mentally adding to my list. I could for sure use some new shampoo and what about a new CD case for all my picture discs. Ooh and I have been meaning to get new pens, the ones at work are crappy. And then this thought popped into my head "you could just leave, you know".

It took me a minute to process this avant garde concept and while it swirled around in my brain, I took inventory of my cart. . . . a mini globe ($1 and would be so fun at work), airwick refills ($5, on sale, I think I have one of these), pink tie-die croc knock offs ($9.99, pink-croc-knock offs, need i say more), a canvass bag made entirely of recycled materials ($6, dubious claim, i know), and turkey jerkey.

I don't know where the moment of sanity came from but I just stopped my cart in the middle of the aisle and walked right out of the store. I felt so liberated. So, freed from the irresistible siren song of consumerism. I even felt a little bit proud of myself. I realize this seems pretty ridiculous, never the less it is an accomplishment that has always eluded me.

In case you were wondering, I am plagued with guilt right now that I just left a cart full of stuff sitting in an aisle for someone else to have to restock.

Mixed Bag

I feel like I really shouldn't do another post about my garden or a veggie theme of any kind or I risk chasing off the 4 of you who actually read this thing. Variety is the spice of life after all so today's posting will be a mixed bag of randomness that I have stumbled across and found interesting:

1. I don't know anything about flowers but I like taking their picture:




In case you were wondering this is a flower my mom is growing and I don't have the foggiest idea what sort of flower it is.


2. There is a test called the wonderlic test. It is a 50 question test that is supposed to gauge an person's aptitude for "learning and problem-solving in a wide range of occupations." A score of 20 indicates average intelligence and corresponds to an IQ of 100. Apparently it is the working world's equivalent of the SAT.

(For sample questions: http://www.professormoney.com/wonderlic%20sample%20test.htm)

Ok, so you probably don't think that in and of itself isn't all that interesting and I didn't either until I found out that pretty much the only company that uses this test to screen future employees, is the NFL. They actually make their pre-draft picks take it, no lie. I find this to be hilarious. Not that football players can't be intelligent people but really, is it really a primary criteria? Well, despite making their draft picks sit through the test, it apparently does not actually play that large a role in the selection process. Here are the average scores per position:

Offensive tackle: 26
Center: 25
Quarterback: 24
Guard: 23
Tight End: 22
Safety: 19
Linebacker: 19
Cornerback: 18
Wide Receiver: 17
Fullback: 17
Halfback: 16

And apparently it shouldn't really guide draft decisions because, as one might guess of a standardized aptitude test, it really isn't a very good indicator of how good someone might be at football. For example Vince Young, the Titan's star QB, scored a SIX on the test. And Dan Marino only scored a 14. Maybe if he'd scored higher he would be wearing a Superbowl ring . . . NO WAY. Don't get me wrong, I am not sure how Mr. Young can dress himself and only score a 6 on this test (i'd like to pause here to offer up a sample question: The ninth month of the year is: October, January, June, September, or May) but I still don't see what it has to do with football.

Now to be fair, there are NFLers who do very well on the test. Like this years Superbowl QBs Tom Brady and Eli Manning who scored a 33 and 39 respectively. Anyway, I think its funny that an IQ test is part of being drafted into the NFL. That's all.

In case you were wondering, here are the average scores of non NFL occupations:

Chemist: 31
Programmer: 29
Journalist: 26
Sales: 24
Bank Teller: 22
Clerical worker: 21
Security Guard: 17
Warehouse worker: 15

Someone should go tell the Security Guard that he could be making millions playing wide receiver for the NFL.

3. Leon Kass was the Chairman of President Bush's Council on Bioethics. He is what one would call extremely right wing, nut job, conservative. For example, he finds eating ice cream uncivilized. For you doubters, here is an excerpt from his book "The Hungry Soul"

"Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone --a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know eating in public is offensive. I fear I may by this remark lose the sympathy of many reader, people who will condescendingly regard as quaint or even priggish the view that eating in the street is for dogs. Modern America's rising tide of informality has already washed out many long-standing traditions -- their reasons long before forgotten -- that served well to regulate the boundary between public and private; and in many quarters complete shamelessness is treated as proof of genuine liberation from the allegedly arbitrary constraints of manners. To cite one small example: yawning with uncovered mouth. Not just the uneducated rustic but children of the cultural elite are now regularly seen yawning openly in public (not so much brazenly or forgetfully as indifferently and "naturally"), unaware that it is an embarrassment to human self-command to be caught in the grip of involuntary bodily movements (like sneezing, belching, and hiccuping and even the involuntary bodily display of embarrassment itself, blushing). But eating on the street -- even when undertaken, say, because one is between appointments and has no other time to eat -- displays in fact precisely such lack of self-control: It beckons enslavement to the belly. Hunger must be sated now; it cannot wait. Though the walking street eater still moves in the direction of his vision, he shows himself as a being led by his appetites. Lacking utensils for cutting and lifting to mouth, he will often be seen using his teeth for tearing off chewable portions, just like any animal. Eating on the run does not even allow the human way of enjoying one's food, for it is more like simple fueling; it is hard to savor or even to know what one is eating when the main point is to hurriedly fill the belly, now running on empty. This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought to be kept from public view, where, even if WE feel no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior."

In case you were wondering, I am still trying to figure out how it is that you can be unaware of the embarrassment of blushing.

4. I have hired a guard dog to protect my garden from vermin intruders. We decided that in order to maximize success we needed to employ the element of surprise. So, Finnegan has gone deep cover:


In case you were wondering, that's all for today.

No Such Thing as a Cute Squirrel

I have a friend named Erica. She is what one would call an animal lover. She is one of those special people who feel an intimate and powerful kinship to the creatures of the world and she doesn't really discriminate. She has a favorite of course, her dog Finnigan, but other than Finny all animals/insects/reptiles/rodents are the same.

Now she's pretty normal about it. You're not going to catch her throwing red paint at people wearing baby seal coats - although she'd consider it but pretty much anyone with a soul should consider it. She's just an animal lover and in fact she's heading off to veterinary school in the Fall so she can be a professional animal lover.

So you might be thinking ok, great for Erica but why exactly is the blog spot light on her? Well you see a few nights ago Erica and I were hanging out chit chatting about this and that when before I know it she is showing me pictures, on her phone, of a litter of baby squirrels she rescued not long ago. She kept trying to convince me that they were so very cute - as only an animal lover or the mother of a goopy newborn can - when really they looked like goopy alien rodents. Despite that fact that newborn anythings are not cute (miraculous/amazing/pure joy, sure. cute, not usually) these things were squirrels who I am currently at war with. Now not these baby squirrels in particular. But give it time. I have no idea what the life span of a squirrel is but as soon as they can I know they'll be pillaging my garden just like the rest of their kind.

So far squirrels have ruined the only yellow squash my plant has managed to yield, my very first chocolate pepper, and now my very first tomato. And here's the thing, they don't just bite it off the vine and scurry away with it to enjoy in their icky nests in our attic, they just take tiny little bites out of the veggie and leave it there. So, I go out to my garden and I see a a perfectly ripe tomato and I get so very excited (ok, more so then perhaps necessary but it is my first tomato in my first garden so whatever) . . .



And then gently twist it off the vine and on the other side I see this . . . .



My lovely tomato with a big gross rodent bite out of it and you just know that it has been macked all over by little squirrel lips.

So, Erica this is why I don't think squirrels are cute. Not at all cute. I do still admire your animal version of the Hippocratic oath and I am glad to know that when I mow down a family of garden thieving squirrels you'll be there to get them back on their feet.

In case you were wondering (Anna), these are the veggies we got from the CSA yesterday (pen for scale, that didn't come with the veggies)