Yoda the Four Eared Cat

Gosh, I love this cat!

He’s soooo cute!

And I’m horribly allergic to cats. I would take shots for this little guy.

He has four ears. Should anything with four ears be so darling?

He must be like cuddling a little space alien or X-Cat.

Full story on Yoda here.

Bigfoot: Dead or Alive!

I’m always delighted when they come up with new Bigfoot or Loch Ness Monsters stories. They’re so charming! I also like reading about the hoaxes perpetrated mostly for kicks, like the famous Surgeon’s photo of Loch Ness or the guy who carved giant wooden feet and tromped around the California forest wearing them. I like those kinds of pranks.

Last week’s big shocker was a supposedly dead bigfoot huddled in a freezer. It does look pretty pathetic and the apparently the DNA analysis revealed nothing but human and opossum DNA. Which is, decidedly, the weirdest combination of DNA around. The article also describes an opossum as a “cat like” creature, which seems a wholly inaccurate description to me. “Giant rat” appearance seems more suitable. Bigfoot can be seen at www.searchingforbigfoot.com

I don’t see a whole lot of point to solving the mysteries, frankly. Suppose they discovered a school of unusually large sturgeons in Loch Ness that were responsible for all the sightings. How disappointing! Once you find an animal, they become simply an animal, like the gorilla or the rhinoceros. These animals were only rumored in Europe for centuries! Now we know they exist and there is definitely less excitement.

One that I find very odd is that of the Kraken. The kraken was a legendary giant squid, like the one in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I keep reading these odd things like could the kraken been inspired by The Giant Squid or the Colossal Squid? Okay, the monster is describes as a giant squid. It doesn’t have magic powers or is covered in fur or sprouts women shaped lures to tempt salty sea dogs. It’s a huge squid. Now it happens that we occasionally find the bodies of gigantic squids. They’re just like little squids, only huge. Can’t we fairly say that we’ve discovered the kraken? Of course, we can’t say that every time a rum soaked sailor spotted a giant tentacle it really was a huge squid, but come on! It’s more than a vague supposition.

Lightnin' Cubs!

Last night we went with our Norwegian pals Simen and Sturle to the Cubs game. The game started out beautifully. It was sunny and warm. The lads enjoyed hot dogs and tried nachos for the first time. Note to Europeans: the beer vendors won’t accept EU driver’s licenses.

The Cubs weren’t playing well, but we were enjoying it. Witness Sturle!

They called a rain delay at 7:40 pm. There was TONS of lightning. I can’t believe they didn’t call it before then, because it looked really dangerous. We were all looking at the lightning behind the scoreboard but we eventually realized it was much worse behind the press box. It didn’t look like it was going to stop so we decided to leave at 8pm. After walking past two Elvises high fiving each other (one of whom apparently then ran onto the field and skidded across the huge tarp laid over the infield), we heard this garbled announcement. Turns out they were telling everyone to leave the stands and get into the concourse.

A couple of workers tried half heartedly to stop us leaving the stadium, but we walked out and I realized they were blowing the tornado sirens. I have never heard those in Wrigleyville before. We jumped onto the Red Line and it was raining so hard and blowing so badly that water was spurting out through the crack between the doors and pooling in the floor of the car. There was lightning everywhere and the conductor must have been driving at top speed.

When we got off at Bryn Mawr, we stuck under the awnings for the first block, but the little half block to our apartment had us soaked to the skin and cringing from the thunder. About 15 minutes after we got inside, there was this gigantic fork pronged lightning bolt that looked like it hit near the Bryn Mawr station. All the car alarms in the neighborhood went off.

I’m glad we didn’t stay for those last couple of innings! They were insane to start playing again

Dogs, Monkeys, Groundhogs

This weekend’s plans:
1. Dog Beach (Knut went yesterday, met three baby Cavaliers. I stayed home because he was a little bit grumpy. Darn it!). Will attempt to wade with Colin. Colin has previously shown no interest in swimming. I’m hoping peer pressure is the answer.

2. Awesome party at Cynthia and Steffi’s. Here’s the text from the invitation:

"God vs. the Monkeys -
We're having a party! For no particular reason, although it happens to fall on the same date that the Scopes "Monkey" Trial came to a close in 1925. To honor this this original showdown between the Creationists and the Evolutionists, we'll be serving up some brass monkeys and -- for those who remain faithful to Genesis -- some sour apple cocktails. Also feel free to BYOB (the B standing, of course, for Bonobos and Bibles, though Beer is okay too).

So come over next Friday to reconnect with your inner primate and nourish your jungle roots. We don't know exactly how the night will turn out, but we imagine it will look something like this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKXqqjhnOhM"

Looking forward to that! My favorite part of their parties is Knut sitting and being admired by super cute lesbians because he’s strong enough to open the hatch to the roof. It’s far too adorable.

3. Road trip to Woodstock. To Woodstock, IL not the 1969 Music Festival. I do not expect The Who to be there. Although that would be awesome! Woodstock is where they filmed Groundhog Day. It’s also the hometown of the creator of Dick Tracey. I’ve heard there’s a little Dick Tracey museum. We basically just feel like getting out of the city.

I don’t know what we’ll do on Sunday yet. Probably early preparations for the Norwegians who will be coming on Thursday. Right! I almost forgot to ask to borrow sheets and pillows from my folks!

Household Engineering Challenge

We have the greatest kitchen table. It’s actually a vintage drafting table in excellent condition. It’s got a heavy wood top and a metal base enameled in John Deere green. And it still works.

Possibly a little too well.

In fact, one side of the table wobbles when you lean on it. The left side, which is the that’s meant to tip down to the floor, falls about an inch and a half when pressure is applied. The right side remains stable when pressure is applied. This is a problem given that Knut and my father are huge elbow leaners. The only way to get around it was to have both men sitting opposite of each other, which works fine until one gets up. This was especially noticeable during Easter Egg dying.

So I’ve been thinking of a mechanical means to brace it, but I would definitely like to preserve the drafting function. So far, I’ve thought of mounting an extra leg that could swing out (like an old fashioned gaming table) or having a wholly separate pedestal that we could just slide under when we’re using the whole table (right now the wobbly side is pressed against a wall to hold it steady, which works very well.)

However, any engineering expertise would be appreciated!

The Joys of Fireworks

Since it’s the 4^th of July tomorrow, I was thinking about the fun we used to have when we’d go to 7-11 to buy Snap Caps, Smoke Bombs, Snakes, and Witch Whistles. They started selling small fireworks like that in mid June and it was a time of excitement! My brothers kindly always bought me some of the girly fireworks like poppers and sparklers too. I love this Black Cat logo, but we never had that kind of fire power until we were adults.

The Smoke Bombs could be set off anywhere it was amusing to have a cloud of green smelly smoke. I do recall that you couldn’t throw them because they were made of something like pressed sawdust and would disintegrate upon impact. And it was hard to relight the pieces.

Snap caps were generally reserved for stomping on in the driveway, but we did occasionally put them under the tires of the neighbor’s cars. They never noticed. You could also pop ‘em between your fingers, which hurt a bit but was totally worth it to see other kids’ expressions. The really brave kids (I think Jamie did this) would pop snap caps with their teeth, which is probably not a hugely clever idea.

Snakes are interesting. They were these little black tablets and when you touched a lighted match to a side long coils of stinky black ash would push forth, looking appropriately like snakes. You got maybe 18 inches of ash from a tablet the size of antacid. They were pretty cool and left permanent char marks on the front steps.

The Witch Whistles were the most memorable. They were these orange waxy tiny rockets, about the size of a golf pencil, and when they flew off they emitted a high pitched screech that was highly appreciated by the adults in the neighborhood. We would set them off in the alley and every so often they’d backfire and we’d go tumbling out of the way. Good times! Once in a while we’d try experiments with them like, could you tie one to a popper and have it pull the string? They never worked, but we were all very good in high school Physics.

Sparklers were just for pretty, mostly, and running around with after dark.

That was fun. Knut and I checked and they don’t sell any of those things any more, not even Sparklers. In fact, the Park Ridge Fire Department sign now reads “Protect your family and friends by avoiding fireworks and sparklers.” You know, in case you stick one in your eye or something.

I think that’s sort of sad. I mean, I suppose we could have gotten burns or cause minor property damage, but it was so interesting! You got to experiment with something and cut it apart to see how it works and learned what it could do.

I feel a little bad for today’s kids. Many of the parents I know are scared to let them out of the house or do anything even a tiny bit dangerous. They probably don’t have much alternative to video games or tv.

Whaling, Whaling, Over the Ocean Blue!

I’ve recently become aware of a Facebook group called “F*** OFF JAPAN… LEAVE THE WHALES ALONE.” This strikes me an as unusually rude (and frankly ineffectual) try at conservationism.

I’m a bit ambivalent towards whaling. Mostly because I’ve eaten whale and am not particularly enamoured of its “fish-beef” flavor. Imagine roast beef that’s gone off. They sell whale all over the place in Norway and Norwegians have a fairly active whaling industry. According to Wikipedia, Norway kills about 600 a year. Mostly they hunt Minke whales, which are pretty small for whales, but still huge. There is a skull of a minke whale in the basement of the Stavanger museum that is longer than I am tall, still drooping with dried out baleen.

It does occur to me that since each animal is basically school bus sized, you could potentially feed a lot of people with the death of a single animal. They are also not endangered. Because of its rarity, whale meat is fairly expensive and I imagine a lot of people earn a decent living off the lives of a relatively small amount of animals. This is a marked difference to, say, chickens. One large chicken feeds about 5 people so when you add up all those Sunday dinners, it’s at the cost of quite a number of animal lives.

On the other hand, whales have near human length life spans and long gestation and parenting phases. With animals that live so long, it can be difficult to correctly interpret conservation numbers. At the moment, Norway is still well within the quota of whales it can hunt, but I imagine the data can be pretty tricky to collect.

So it’s definitely not the debate over whether whaling is a good idea or not to which I object, it’s the general disinterest in information over emotion.

For instance, a few years ago MTV had an ad for Europe that showed a CGI mother and baby hump backed whale playfully frolicking while whistling Enya. Then it flipped to black with the slogan “NORWAY IS WHALING AGAIN!” I don’t think anyone hunts humpbacks, certainly not Norway, and hunting a mother with calves is a bad economic idea. It’s just a good use of sentimentality.

When I was in college, I was on the bus listening to a particular inane conversation between two classmates. It went something like this:

“Eww!! I hate lobsters! They’re like giant bugs.”

“Yeah! I don’t know how anyone can eat anything that ugly. Like big ugly bugs.”

“Yeah, but like cows are cute. I don’t want to eat them either.”

“Yeah, but like chickens are okay.”

“Yeah.”

Apparently, there’s a minimum and maximum level of acceptable attractiveness for edible animals. Despite the fact that crustaceans and mollusks are plentiful, nutritious, and of minimum intelligence they aren’t cute enough to eat. Cows are too attractive, so you can’t eat them either. I can’t quite figure out how other commonly eaten animals rank in this system. Presumably rabbit is too adorable, but what about sheep? I know snails are too ugly, but how about pigs?

I guess I just get annoyed at superficial opinions.

Media

I am convinced the media creates most of the fear in the world. I mean, if you just go along from day to day, you worry about things like getting hit by cars, leaving the stove on, or getting catching a cold from your colleagues. Watch CNN for an hour and your simultaneously worried about drought, floods, serial killers, bioterrorism, zombies, giant subterranean man eating clams, rabid gila monsters, glue sniffing teens, monogamous gay couples, and japanese long horned beetles.

Most of these are either not really a threat or strictly the kind of threat that we can figure out how to defend ourselves against, except for gila monsters and gay couples. They just want to be allowed to be themselves and live comfortable productive lives.

Which leads me to this great page!

Benjamin Radford writes great essays dealing with the slight of hand of the media, the hype, and the misinterpretation of data. He also contributes to Skeptic Magazine (look for his hilarious account of a haunted house investigation!)

The book is great, and he has several essays posted for free. Here are some of my favorites:

The Today Show's Fake 'Stranger Danger' Test

A Closer Look at Internet Predator Laws

Is Barbie Really an “Ideal”?

Predator Panic: A Closer Look

To Do List

Gosh, I am all over the place today.

I was knocked out yesterday with a sinus headache (I think I was only awake for half hour intervals) but am now feeling cheerful again.

My agenda:

Take photos of the new beer bottle cap pies. Exciting new flavors! Coming SOON!

Pot flowers for Mom and Dad (Mom and I shopped for plants in a a downpour. Nothing will keep me from buying pentunias! NOTHING!! When I still lived at home I would always get a few interesting plants like chenille or candy corn plants, but now that I only go to look after things, we buy low maitenence plants. Mom has a charming lady of the manor style. She loves flowers and gardens, but hates being in the sun or digging in the dirt. I also cleared and mulched around the roses. Right now the phlox and bluebells are threatening to overrun the place. It’s very nice now because we have those big light resin pots. I just pot ‘em up and put them around the perimeter. Add some hanging plants on garden hooks and the phlox is free to run wild. Looks very pretty.)

Post pies to etsy.

How much of this will I get done? That’s always the mystery!

Urban Legends!

I woke up this morning and thought it was Friday. Then I thought it was Thursday. Now it turns out it’s Wednesday! Curse it!

Anyway, my evenings have been very busy doing some pretty cool stuff for someone of undisclosed gender who frequently reads this blog, so I can’t discuss that either.

I made a new set of bottle cap pies on Monday night (While I watched Bones! Yeah!) and I really intended them to be for my cousin Gretchen. However, less than an hour after I put them up on Etsy, they were sold to someone else. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. Gretchen will get her own set personally delivered.

Now, time for Snopes! Snopes is a great website devoted to Urban Legends. I can’t imagine how hard the web keepers must work to keep it going because it’s always full of new legends and rumors. It’s a terrific resource when you get those constant forwarded emails filled with dubious information.

I love reading Jan Harald Brunvand’s urban legend books, but whereas he can really only deal with classic urban legends like the Spider Nest in the Beehive, Snopes stays up to the minute.

If there’s an article on Barrack Obama NOT being Muslim, I know a few people in the office who ought to read it.

One of their nicest features is the photo gallery.

How about a test? Which of these photos are real?

Click the link below to find out! Links go to the relevant Snopes.com page

True or False? Click to Find Out!

True or False? Click to Find Out!

True or False? Click to Find Out!

True or False? Click to Find out!

The Legend of the American Science Center

Snazzy hat, eh? I kind of wish I had bought it now.

This fab chapeau is only one item available at American Science and Surplus! I guess they have a website, but I’ve only ever gone to the store. This last week I had a shopping list of 1mm glass balls, water syringes, empty jars, and a few other things. Last Halloween, Knut bought me a gorgeous little bat skeleton there. At the moment, it’s in a little mini mall and geared towards the trendy geek. Ahh… but when I was a lass it was different…

It used to be called The American Science Center and before that it was something like Genco? Anyway, it occupied a strange building in an industrial area with only a small sign to lead you into the Ali Baba cave of nerdy wonders within.

It was a big square room with a row of glass cases marking the staff area at the front and aisles of goodies. These were roughly divided into silly stuff and evil robot building supplies by a display of telescopes. The serious stuff was mostly things like alligator clips, mercury switches, motors, cables, etc. The silly side had pretty much everything else: old glove molds, laminated animals for dissection, tiny rubber pigs, the top half of Jabba the Hutt dolls, jars, rabbit pelts, plastic organizers, magnets, and spools of mylar. Each item was in its own bin with an amusing card stating the name, price, and usually a bad pun. In the glass cases were optical illusion kits, real anatomical specimens, vintage gas masks, and sea monkeys. This was an excellent place to buy both wall-y-walkers and replacement rotary phone cords (turquoise only). Various doodads hung from the ceiling or were pinned to the walls.

I was pretty much the only child in there at the time and now it’s more geared towards science projects, but they seem to be doing well. It’s pretty darned neat.

3-2-1 Contact!

I have a big head. Tragically, I can never wear those cardboard top hats at New Years Eve parties (since that is one of the few aspects I like about New Years Eve parties, it is tragic.). My husband has a really small head, but it’s rock hard. I’ve had many a cut lip from him accidentally bringing his head up while I tried to kiss him.

I think Knut is one of the few people who could give someone a Glasgow kiss and feel no ill effects. A Glasgow kiss goes something like this:

“Can your mother sew?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Then have her stitch this!”

(Grab the other fellow’s ears and bang your forehead into the other guy’s head).

In films, this knocks out the other guy, leaving our hero unscathed. However, if you’ve ever played the game where you squish two M&Ms together to see which breaks, there can be unexpected results. Apparently most people knock themselves out or at the least the two guys can share a taxi to get their concussions looked at.

Which leads us to…

A CHANCE FOR HOME SCIENCE:

How much harder is Knut’s head than mine?

Good thing we had Easter eggs.

With equal force I banged this charming lavender Easter egg against my head and then smashed Knut one with the other side. Once he recovered from the shock, we compared sides.

Katy’s Side

Smooth and mild breakage. Practically a warm embrace. This egg would be able to get up and walk away, if eggs were generally able to do such things.

Knut’s Side

Tiny round DEEP puncture. Resembles a bullet wound. Notorious E.G.G. style. How did the man manage it? It’s not like he’s a unicorn…? Nah.

Now, whose head would you rather get knocked with? I think I’d better keep my Glasgow kisses to the romantic kind.

Adventures in Easter Themed Baking Part 5

Taaaa Daaaa!!

The finished product. Covered in tasty frosting and yummy coconut, it's hard to tell I had to piece it together.

The inside of the ears are tinted marzipan dusted with sugar. The eyes are marzipan and chocolate chip pupils. The nose is a teeny grapefruit Jelly Belly.

I rather pleased considering it as my first try at this thing.

If I make it again, I think I'll bake it in two halves and stick them together with jam.

My hope is to get Knut's mother's deilig (Norwegian for delicious) lemon bundt recipe and make a lemon rabbit for less seasonal occasions :)

One of the problems with this kind of cake is that no one wants to eat the face. Had my brother Jamie been present at Easter dinner, I'd have cut off the head and served it on a plate for him.

I think he'd like that.

Happy Easter, everybody!!

Adventures in Easter Themed Baking Part 4

Okay, here is the evidence that I should always trust Great Aunt Edna. Any woman who can keep a sweater from 1967 looking as fresh as one bought today clearly deserves respect. Buckets of it.

The instructions said to wait for the mold to cool totally before opening it. Thank goodness I'm impatient! There was a delicious looking outer shell and a gooey uncooked center.

Fab in a Cadbury Cream Egg, but not what I was looking for in a cake.

It also hadn't risen enough to meet the top of the mold.

Crap.

I put it back in the oven and it cooked through, but I still had half a rabbit. Fortunately! I had baked those little cupcakes. I could patch the problem and cover it all in 7 minute frosting, which is basically stirred meringue. Powerful as gorilla glue and tastes like marshmallow. Side A and Side B.

Adventures in Easter Themed Baking Part 3

Sorry! I meant to update more Saturday, but there were a few unforeseen problems followed by foreseenly awesome Lucha Libre! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

I made the batter on Saturday, according to the recipe. I checked the instructions and they said to fill it only with 3 cups of batter.

Edna's recipe was at least 2 cups more than that so I figured I'd err on the side of the recipe and use only three cups.

I filled up two ramekins to make cupcakes in addition.

I filled the mold, tied it together with string, and baked it per the instructions.

Let this be a lesson to me and to others.

Don't ever mistrust German housewives.

They know their baking.

Adventures in Easter Themed Baking Part 2

Okay, I've eaten the ugliest Easter egg for Easter Power! Yeah!

(We had my parents and our awesome friends Lauren and Eli over to dye eggs. Highlight of the night was definitely Knut's Iron Maiden Eddie egg.)

I've taken out the mold and looked at the directions. The mold came with recipes too. Last year, someone brought in a lamb cake to the office that was sticky, dense, and dry and heavily flavored with almond extract. Having looked at those recipes, it's obvious how that amazing combination of adjectives was achieved. Yuck.

Fortunately, I have the angels on my side in the form of Great Aunt Edna's recipe. Mom got it over the phone so this should be interesting. Mom has pretty but virtually unreadable handwriting. I looked it over at lunch yesterday and said to her "A little suet?!"

"That's salt" she said.

Interesting, indeed.

I've started my shopping list and I just can't decide. Cream Cheese or 7 Minute Frosting? I think Cream Cheese is traditional, but I looooove 7 Minute. It also has the advantage of being super stable once it sets, which is a definite plus since it has to be transported and probably be a centerpiece.

Okay, clearly I've made a decision without realizing it.

Adventures in Easter Themed Baking Part 1

My great aunt, who is now in her nineties, used to bake lamb cakes every Easter when she was a young and spry (like in her 70s). Lovely ones filled with spice cake, cream cheese frosting, coconut fleece, and currant eyes. I think she sometimes even put a ribbon around it's neck. Beautiful and delicious.

Two years ago for my birthday, Mom got me a cast iron rabbit cake mold. We couldn't find it last year for Easter, but now I've got it. I'm going to make one!

I'm petrified.

More updates throughout the day!

PS. This lamb cake is from here:http://annhetzelgunkel.com/easter/lambcake.html

Not Aunt Edna's actual lamb cake. Maybe Mom has a photo somewhere...