This is SO coming out of her allowance!

I'm so angry at the cat right now! I came home this evening and was going to my make myself a sandwich with tomato on it, but apparently not. The bag was all wet and slimy and there were little tears all over the tomatoes. I have been harsh with the grocery store baggers, assuming that they were abusing my produce during checkout. But my most recent batch of tomatoes, the ones that weren't on sale and were $3.49 a fucking pound, I hand picked, carried home in my lap and deposited gently on the counter not three days ago. They were fine this morning. And now they look like this.

Go ahead and click on the picture for a good close-up. So angry! Where am I supposed to keep tomatoes that's not in the fridge and not where the cat apparently thinks she can use my expensive prime produce for her personal chew toy? I guess there are parts of the three tomatoes that are intact enough to put on a sandwich, but BLECK, the cat has been chewing on them!

This does explain why she's been all meow-y around the counter when we're over in the Tomato Zone making sandwiches. I couldn't understand why she thought the toaster was so exciting and meant she might get food, but apparently it's been the damn tomatoes all along. And while we have two cats in the house and didn't witness the chewing first-hand, I suspect it was Emily as she has been known to chew. Rich has been trying to sniff the tomato on her breath, but I would prefer to just rub her face in them.

New Food Tuesday goes international!

After leaving work today at 2pm to sit in a waiting room that stank of stale cigarettes and cabbage (What do you old people bath in? An old soup pot?), only to find out that the procedure the Puddin' was there for was cancelled at 6pm, I was ready to start flipping uncomfortable waiting room furniture upon our exit. So despite the craptastically rainy weather, I decided we were going out for New Food Tuesday. Some of you may remember that we started picking a new place to eat (or far less often a new meal made at home) every Tuesday to help broaden our supper horizons. We have fallen off the New Food wagon recently, in that some weeks I forget what day it is until Tuesday has come and gone. But it happened to be a fine coincidence that today was Tuesday and we were hungry and I had a cunning plan for a new restaurant.

They've opened a new Pupuseria, which as their name implies, serves a wide variety of pupusas. I admit we went because the name sounds naughty and the sign is HUGE, inviting us in with all its Salvadorian charm. Being Tuesday and pouring down rain, business was not really busy for them. We were literally the only two people in the restaurant at 7pm. Our waiter didn't speak so much English and the menu definitely started out in Spanish and was only half-heartedly translated in a few places. We looked for a few items that said "won't kill foolish Americans," pointed at the menu while we smiled and ordered, then hoped for the best.

I was super pleased with our order. The rice was light and smelled like Basmati, my chicken was tender, and our pupusas were very pupusery. So we feasted on $5 plates of food, tipped heavily, and headed home triumphant after so much frustration this afternoon. We're now back at the house chillin' with cigarettes and crack cocaine, like true rock stars.

Kitties Unrequited

a gentleman caller This photo has two key parts to it. One is the orange pumpkin that the Puddin' placed outside last weekend. I worry every day that neighborhood hoodlums are going to take our beautiful round gourd and smash it in the street out of meanness. I breathe a sigh of relief every time I come home and it's still safe.

The second part (and hard to see unless you click the link and view it in large size) is the grey tuxedo cat eating catfood on our front sidewalk. This cat has shown up at our house off and on for almost two years and I have scripted this elaborate story that he and my beautiful black cat Isis have some unrequited love due to her being confined indoors now. I don't even know if it's a male cat other than it fits my story line better (and tuxedos are generally worn by males, dontcha know).

So when we came home tonight very late and I saw him on the front porch, I made as little noise as possible and came back outside shaking a plastic cup of food. I sat on the floor in the living room watching him eat it all. I even told Isis that while they can't be together, at least he had a good meal.

I managed to exert my Crazy Pumpkin Lady skills and Crazy Cat Lady skills all within the first 15 minutes of being home.