Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Am Le Tired

Yesterday was Quite A Day, let me tell you. It started normally enough - took a shower, drank some coffee, chatted with my guy, and started to get ready to finish the shrug I was working on...

And my mother told me to get ready for an adventure with the cat!

I'm always down for a kitty trip, so I threw on some Tromping Around Clothes (I'd changed back into pajamas after my shower, not anticipating the surprise adventure), and came down to find a paper bag on the counter.

The plan was thus:

• Grab the cat and the paper bag, get in the car.
• Head to the Wal-Mart for some forgotten bread and a box of tissues
• Head to the next town over to drop off some Vicks, cold medicine, and tissues for my guy, who has a chest cold (Feel Better, Love!)
• Find a beach that was open and not too crowded.

Now you may be thinking that's a lot of car time for a cat. Would she be okay? Especially with a trip to Wal-Mart?

Sure, she was fine. Annoyed at being stuck in her carrier while I tried to find the tissues (I was lied to by an endcap and looked in the wrong aisle for like 5 minutes before I could find them), but fine.

The first beach we tried was Birch Point State Park, but apparently the state decided that, despite our Septembers being anywhere from 55-75℉/12,8-23,9℃, and Mainers swimming in the ocean up until about January, the beach had to be closed. What a pain.

Well, we weren't going to let a little State Park Closure prevent our girl from having her first ever beach adventure, so we headed over to another beach - Crescent Beach. Poor Evie the Cat was chirping crankily from her carrier and reaching out with her cute little paws by now, so we made our way down and parked. By the time we got her out on her leash (which she was very curious and very nervous about), I realized we'd made a fatal error that my fellow Mainers will probably tease me for.

We forgot to check the tides.

We arrived just as the tide was at its highest, just starting to ebb.

On a beach where the beach head is 100% loose stones.

Yeah, there was no sand for her to walk on for the first half of our visit.

She enjoyed sniffing the dried seaweed and climbing the rocks (which, yeah, was against the rules, but she's a cat, so she can't read signs), and we figured that would be it.

And then another family pulled up and came hiking across the stones.

If you've never met my cat, you need to know this about her:

Evie LOVES people. She is obsessed. She desperately loves new people and wants to hang out with everyone on Earth.

So of course, she immediately had to go visit these people, dragging my mother and I with her. Thankfully the family thought our 3-Braincell Tabby was the bees' knees, and they put up with her crawling under their feet and begging for snacks (they had a banana). Eventually, the water receded enough for us to put her down on wet sand and...

She hated it.

So, Evie did not enjoy her beach trip as much as we'd hoped lol.

And she was also so squirmy and exploratory that it was very hard to take pictures between trying to dislodge her from crevices where she got herself stuck. I did manage two pictures, though!

Here's Evie sitting on a rock, about to go wrap her leash around a rugosa rose bush.
She's just noticed the family and wants to go say hi!

Here Evie has failed to retrieve banana from the other family
And has grumpily decided she'll go climb more rocks in protest.
Also seaweed smells fun to her I guess lol

After that, we scooped her up and took her home, where she sulked outside with my mom. I ran upstairs and worked on yesterday's blog.

I do have to admit, though...

It was incredibly hard, being surrounded by all those delightfully smooth beach rocks in so many interesting colors and shapes and knowing I couldn't keep any of them. It's illegal to take the beach rocks, and at Crescent Beach, they're absolutely necessary for preventing erosion, so it's just bad all around to take beach rocks from there. If I'd gone wading and grabbed one from the water, I'd have been pretty ok with it, but I wasn't going to get in the surf while the tide was receding as fast as it was (we went from no sand to 5 feet of sand in 10 minutes, it seemed).

So that was my adventure this week!

The rest of the week's plans are thus:

• If you want to send me a coffee donation through that light green button, you can leave a message telling me what theme I'm drawing from this week! Those themes are:
• Animal
• Vegetable
• Mineral
• Geometric
  
• Location
• Dedbert
• Word
• Art Blog on Thursday
• I forgot to post the tea last week so maybe I'll do it this weekend? We'll see
• More crochet for Monday!
• Blather next Tuesday!

I hope my feline misadventures have brought a smile to your face today!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which Adventures Were Had, Anniversaries Recognized, and Coffee Sipped.

This week I had a blast hanging out with my guy and my friends because they scooped us up for a quick jaunt around the midcoast! We stopped by JJ's Schooner Dogs in Rockland (I strongly recommend the 1/4lb all-beef hotdog with the hickory smoked bacon bits and some of Johnny's homemade pickled red onion and/or his homemade sauerkraut!), had lunch, and we even taste-tested the forthcoming Snapperoni (a red snapper hotdog mixed into a cup of mac & cheese topped with those same hickory bacon bits)! It was a blast, and I strongly recommend popping down there if you're in Rockland during the summer months.

I had so much fun, in fact, that I forgot to take any pics lol! Thankfully my guy had me covered, so here's my 1/4lb All-Beef Hotdog with Hickory Smoked Bacon Bits & pickled red onions and his Kielbasa with all the fixins!

Kielbasa with mustard, pickled onions, homemade sauerkraut and more!
Credit to Z.

The 1/4lb all beef hotdog with bacon bits & pickled onions!
Again, Credit to Z, who was the only one with the presence of mind to take any pics lol!

And if the delicious dogs at JJ's weren't enough of a splurgey trip of awesomeness, our friends packed our overfull selves into their car and took us to Camden and led us through the sugary wonderland that is Uncle Willy's Candy Shoppe! This fantastic little candy shop is exactly what you'd imagine from an old-fashioned candy store! The main floor sold handmade chocolates (their peanut buttercups are enormous, the fudge & divinity look exceptional, and the dipped nuts & espresso beans were gloriously shiny thickly-coated), as well as a lot of fun gummies and licorices, plus there was a small cooler filled with glass bottles of soda (including local "favorite," Moxie).

Upstairs at Uncle Willy's has a wall of Jelly Bellies, candy bars I've never even heard of, and a wall of bags of chocolates and candied nuts, among many other things. There was even a fill-your-own Pixie Stix kiosk!

I got a 1/2lb bag of Sixlets because sometimes you want spherical not-M&Ms that vaguely taste like Double Bubble on the outside. Z got himself a candy bar (Zagnut maybe? [Edit: It was a Big Hunk!] it was peanut nougat with peanuts in it) and a bag each of Boston Baked Beans (red, candy-coated peanuts) and something that was essentially the same as Boston Baked Beans but with added crispy bits embedded in the crimson candy coating. Our friends picked up some candies of their own, and we headed along a scenic route to ooh and ah over Mt Battie and the absolute beauty of Maine's lakes and ponds. Somewhere in the middle of Camden, one of our friends handed Z & I our first taste of violet candy. 

I've had candied violets before, so I knew some of what I was in for, but Z had never experienced the sheer bizarre nature of eating something that your whole being wants to tell you is probably straight perfume and not a treat. It's not unlike tasting Moxie for the first time, to be honest, because it's such an unusual flavor if you've never had it. 

The candy is very very different from the candied flowers, but only in so far as, to me, the candied violets having a more subtle flavor. The little pale violet tablets have a mint Lifesaver texture but the flavor is... well... it's extremely floral. It's like eating an entire bouquet of candied violets. It really lets you know you're eating a botanical.

And once you get the initial reaction under control and just surrender to the absolute floral assault, you may just find, like Z & I, that you absolutely love it!

To be clear, Z adores Moxie, too. I like the smell, and the initial flavor isn't bad for me, either, but man... that aftertaste on Moxie... it's so unappetizingly bitter to me. Like an earwax bean from Bertie Botts.

There's no earwax aftertaste to the violet candies. Just some faint floral notes that fade slowly like a nap in the sun.

I bet they'd be amazing crushed over some vanilla ice cream.

This trip was on Saturday, and I still have a palmful or two of the Sixlets. No word on the status of the candied nuts, but they were good enough that I'd bet they'll be gone soon if they aren't already ;)

If you're ever in the midcoast Maine area, those are definitely a couple of spots to check out, and afterwards, if you're still craving a small adventure, I'd give Birch Point State Park a peak or dip your toes at Crescent Beach in Owl's Head. I grew up going to both and I have to say, they're lovely places to enjoy the sea, if a bit crowded sometimes.

After Saturday came Sunday, of course, and that saw me getting the longer parts of my buzz shaved down by one of my older siblings (THANK YOU!!! That one tuft was tickling my ear so bad!), and then came Monday.

Monday was what it was, as you probably saw on my blog. I also did not sleep last night. I finally fell asleep around 4:30AM, which was a real pain, but that's life sometimes.

Today, I was lucky enough to catch a ride with my mother and return a bunch of bottles, then I took that money and turned it into oddly religious cheddar popcorn and Peanut M&Ms. When we got back, my mom took Evie outside, and I realized it was our cat's Gotchaversary! On this day 11 years ago, my mom & younger sibling brought home a very cautious and weirdly foot-obsessed cat. Today, she's more interested in demanding half & half and cuddles. And beating the absolute tar out of our neighbor's barn cat.

Poor Sky caught those paws again today, and when my mother swooped in to defend the poor lad's honor, Evie hissed at him!!!

What a cantankerous turd lol. He hasn't really threatened her at all, either. He's easily half again her size and a successful hunter, so I doubt she'd fare well if he decided to defend himself, but he never, ever does, and usually after we "ground" Evie by bringing her back inside for the day, he'll call mournfully into the windows until she comes and sneers back through the screens.

She needs to chill lol.

This coming week I plan on working more on those stupid straps for my Secret Project (the interminable Mushroom Purse), drawing or painting something (there's still time for you to put your 3 bucks in on whether it'll be an Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Geometric, or Location based picture!), and possibly having more adventures. We'll see how naughty Evie continues to be, regarding the other cats. Thankfully the last time I saw Orange Boy (a newer fluffy orange cat who I once saw limping) he seems to have healed all the way up from whatever misfortune befell his foot.

Thanks for wading through this wall of text this week, guys. That's about all the news updates I've got for y'all!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

It's Still Tuesday in my Heart
Even if it's Wednesday by the time I post...

So...

It's technically still Tuesday, but let's be real, I put this blog off all day so it'll probably be close to midnight when it goes up.

If it goes up tonight at all lol.

So what have I been up to that I'm all dopey and avoiding writing anything down?

A LOT, but in a good way!

Since last Tuesday, I've been on a journey northwards and back, my younger sibling got engaged, my mom went to help her mom out for a couple days, my dad got swarmed by ticks, my cat was a velcro kitty for a day but not with me, I managed to figure out a potential stabilization solution for the Secret Project on Mondays, I tried a few new things, and I also ended up having a bunch of new ideas I have no clue what to do with lol!

Let's begin:

Saturday was a long day and one which saw a friend of mine and Z's snagging the two of us and whisking us away on a multi-hour adventure northwards. We stopped at a drive-in and I ordered a 3oz cheeseburger with ketchup and ate that, most of a slice of tortiere (which seemed to be a mashed potato/turnip and spiced ground meat pie), a lot of fried green beans (which may have been fried from frozen since they were a bit limp and watery on the inside but were otherwise good), and a few bite's of Z's Brunch Burger (fried egg, two 3oz patties, maybe caramelized onions?). The drive-in, Belanger's I think it was called, was fantastic. 10/10 would eat there again, even if the tortiere was... weird. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. No idea what their turkey pie is like.

My tasty lil burger with a small preview of maybe the curly fries our friend got?
The bun on this was super soft & fluffy and the cheese was perfectly melted.
They grind their own beef, and I thought the balance of fat to lean was perfect.

After Belanger's we went to a Dairy Bar in another, even further-north town, where I got a conservative small chocolate soft-serve (I wasn't feeling the best that day, since I'd scarfed down a bunch of cheddar cheese before I got in the car for several hours lol). Z on the other hand got a big ol Moxie float with Moxie ice cream. I tried a little of the Moxie and found that while my aversion to beets has gone away, I still think Moxie has an earwax aftertaste. Moxie ice cream, however, lacks the aftertaste, so it's a yes from me. Gives you all the fun herbal/medicinal flavors of Moxie with a creamy vanilla overlay that kills the aftertaste!

I'd love to make Moxie ice cream myself sometime. Maybe a chocolate Moxie ice cream, even!

I came home to news that my little sis is engaged! Congrats! (Though I doubt any of my siblings read these, they're busy!)

Guess what we had for dinner that night at nearly 9pm because no one was hungry til then?

Burgers. They were good, though, so all around, very nice (if beeftacular) day!

Sunday was mostly everyone getting ready for my mom to head up to her mother's place to take care of her while my grandmother gets ready to start treatment for her cancer. The cat could obviously tell something was up, and once my mother was gone, she pulled a velcro-kitty and stuck herself to my poor dad, who was just trying to work from home, which was very hard when the cat was determined to be right where he needed to be and insinuating herself deeper and deeper into his lap until he was forced to sit like a frog or lose the insides of his thighs to her kneading claws.

Poor thing didn't even want to go outside!

Monday came and I worked on the solution to my mushroom purse woes (yesterday's blog), but I also took the cat out for walkies and tried out a thing I picked up while hanging out with our friend on a previous day. I also took pics of the really nice Mexican Hot Chocolate Z bought me for Valentine's because he's the bees' knees!

He picked this up at one of the newest bookstores in the area :)

You can really smell the chocolate & cinnamon

This little puck fits in the palm of my hand.
I'd say for comparison's sake it's about as big around as a soda can.

You whisk the puck briskly into milk, and I promise it dissolves fast.
And that's when the pecan notes hit!

I'm pretty sure they use the pecans as a thickening agent...

Because this is a THICK cocoa.

The hot cocoa was incredibly sweet and velvety thick and smooth like melted ice cream almost. It was, in fact, almost too sweet, so I added a shot of coffee to it and...

I am convinced that's how it's supposed to be drank because it was heavenly.

Meanwhile, someone was pretending she didn't care about going outside.

But cats are like Maine weather. Wait five minutes...

... And suddenly you'll find yourself outside!

But she didn't seem to want to be out for very long.

Me not letting her sulk and skulk underneath the camper and the deck probably had a lot to do with it...

But she got to stalk a chipmunk and squeak at a bird, so she was satisfied.

You know what else is satisfying? Pouring yourself more coffee when you're done letting a bored cat explore the yard and topping it with a Stroopwafel.

Look how perfectly it fits on this mug!
It's like they were made for each other!

Two minutes of rest over a steaming cup and it's perfect.

Just the right balance of soft & crispy & gooey.

Stroopwafel are something I've been meaning to try for a while. Makes sense to me that I'd like them - I like waffles, I like caramel, I love treats that go with coffee. But I never remembered to grab them!

Thankfully, I noticed them while Z & I were shopping with our awesome friend and we picked them up. I can't wait to make him a nice cup and let it cool down a bit with the stroopwafel on top, softening slightly.

It's nothing like a sugar or waffle cone you'd get for ice cream, to be honest, and that surprised me. The crispiness is subtle, the sweetness not as overpowering as you'd expect from something with a caramel layer, and the softness from the steam is nothing like the staleness you sometimes get from a slightly soft sugar cone.

All in all, I've been very busy lately lol! But delightfully so, and I can't wait to keep being busy this week!

Tomorrow will be drizzly and cool (high of 63℉/17,22℃), so I think I'll stay in and sketch.

Thursday should have the fruits of that sketch on the blog! And maybe I'll slip out at some point to snag some snacks and a Jarrito?

Hopefully by next Monday I'll have A) finished my strap or 2) found another short plastic zipper to cannibalize for my purse. If not, I have another potential solution: Zip ties & thread. Yeah, I might just zip-tie a couple of circles, stitch around them in either crochet or just sewing, and call that good lol. Might even be less of a headache than trying to track down another zipper. We've only bought just so many sheets and blankets, which is where the first zipper came from...

But this has already become an obscenely long blog where I just babbled and blathered at all of y'all.

If you want a say in this week's art, feel free to shoot me a coffee over on my Ko-Fi account (the link should be in my sidebar? Idk, is that what it's called?) and tell me Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Place, or Geometric! If I get multiples, I'll do my best to combine things ;)

Go Enjoy Something!

FC