Dumb old birds.

Got home this evening and got the kids all settled down to do their schoolwork while I got supper started and signed their papers and turned the clothes dryer back on so that the stuff I had left in there last night wouldn’t be too wrinkled. Supper? Fish fillets and jambalaya with steamed broccoli au gratin. Sounds much better than it was, but it actually wasn’t really so bad. Even with what I termed “crispy biscuits,” done for the benefit of getting the kids to eat them.

I had made them this morning for breakfast, and they were still a bit underdone, and we were running out the door, so after I turned the oven off and had everyone something fixed, I slung the pan back in the oven and shut the door. Ostensibly to let them finish cooking, but really just to get them off the countertop. ANYway, came in this afternoon and they were done, but were just a little too done. Not burnt, but sorta hard and well, crispy. But rather than let the kids think something was wrong with them, I had to make it seem as though crispy biscuits were the rage in all the hot spots around town.

I ladled a bit of the jambalaya over them, and the munchkins ate them up like biscuits with spicy rice. Finished up and was trying to put everything away, and was stuffing the biscuits into a ziplock bag. And then, one fell. Onto the floor. With extreme prejudice. We usually employ the Five Second Rule, but due to the intense crispiness of these particular foodstuffs, the biscuit sort of bounced a bit, and rolled, and flopped over from one side to the next. Just a little too much floor on that one.

So I gathered it up and went to the back door to throw it in the yard for the birds. Remember last week when I went out the back door and something kind of flew past my head and I thought maybe it was a bird that had taken up residence in the back-door Christmas wreath? Well, there was a bird that had taken up residence in the back-door Christmas wreath. I was standing there fussing at the kids about something and flinging my dirty biscuit when I hear, “DADDY! You just let a BIRD in the house!” ::sigh::

I loaded up the Mossberg with some high base magnums and started blasting huge holes in the sheetrock and appliances.

Not really.

It flitted through the kitchen then lit in the den. I left the back door open, risking further invasion by other woodland creatures such as owls and sloths and pangolins and stationed Catherine on the steps with a jacket to swish anything toward the door. Never give a seven-year-old such a job. They aren’t very good at following directions, you know.

I heard Boy up on the steps at one point, “OOOO, we’re going to KILL a BIRDIE tonight!” Little ghoul. “Jonathan! We aren’t TRYING to kill the bird! We’re trying to swish him out the door. OKAY!?” ::disappointed sigh:: “Yes, sir.”

It flew around and bashed itself on the mirror and the big engraving over the fireplace and into the ceiling and lit on the window valence. I walked in and it flew through the foyer and into the dining room. It made the entire tour of the ground floor. Obviously, my biggest concern was the greatly increased risk of Carolina wren droppings all over the house.

We chased that stinking bird for twenty minutes. I got a towel and tried to get it corralled toward the door, with Catherine hot on my heels. “GO. STAND. ON. THE. STEPS!” ::pout:: The bird flew into the kitchen and lit into the dishes in the sink, then into the countertop stuff, then back through the dining room, then bashed into the wall, then flew into the Christmas tree, “DADDY! YOU’RE LETTIN’ BUGS IN THE HOUSE!”, then it flew into the floral arrangement on top of the bookcase, then back into the kitchen where it lit on one of the baskets on top of the cabinets and YEP! Pooped. Dang it all. I kept up the towel swishing, and Catherine kept screaming at it and running after me, and the poor bird kept on flitting around.

It finally began to tire and was hopping on the carpet toward the door. Finally. However, just as it got to the door, it flew up and in a miraculous bit of towel-handling, I managed to somehow grab it up into the towel and spun it around so that it was all wadded up inside. Success! I went to the back door and popped the towel and it flew off to go blog about what had happened to it, and I got to thinking I should have closed the door again before I let it go. Oh well. I did at least have the sense to move the wreath off the back door and over to the window next to it.

Such excitement.

As for other stuff that happened this weekend, well, as I said, after the big parade we went to go get some food at the new seafood place up over the hill going towards Pinson. Very good food--I had the crab cake po boy, which was excellent, although still not quite the best I’ve ever had. Reba got the Greek Islands snapper which looked wonderful, and Ashley got the halibut, which looked good, too. The kids got variations on the kids’ meal theme. Overall, it was a good deal, and very good, very fresh seafood, although preparation was a bit on the slowish side. The bright side was that the gent that seated us put us right by the teevee so I could watch mah game.

Finally got out of there and headed home to finish watching the game while everyone else went and did other things. (I don’t know what.) I will say that Tennessee played a tremendous game offensively. They ran all over the place, and it didn’t look like there was anything we could do about it. Thank heavens for all those penalties they collected. (I’m sure there are some Bama fans who would call it just desserts after their experience.)

Sunday, up early as usual, everyone dressed, everyone to church, had our holiday eating, went home, sent Oldest and Middle Girl and Mom on some sort of shopping something or other while I stayed with the younger two and read the paper, then on back to church early without Mom and the girls because I had a meeting and it was time to go. They walked in to the church building about six minutes after we got to there. ::sigh:: That old “arrival time - travel time - preparation time = departure time” equation rears its head again. Whatever.

Meeting, then worship, then on to the house, where we find as we go through Catherine’s backpack detritus that she and the rest of her little classmates had been assigned a social studies project for next week to present the Christmas traditions of countries all over the world.

Her country? Ireland.

So I figured a fifth of whiskey and a potato should suffice for her presentation. She has been instructed to get tanked up on the whiskey, pick a fight with someone, then knout them on the head with the potato. And then sing Auld Lang Syne.

Not really.

We figured she could make some REAL soda bread to take with her. This guy seems to have the proper take on how best to make REAL soda bread--in a way, it’s a lot like we Southern cornbread traditionalists look at things. No sugar, no raisins; nothing but grease and flour and buttermilk, the way God intended. Here’s one of his recipes that sounds about right:

White Soda Bread

4 cups (16 oz) of all purpose flour.
1 Tsp baking soda
1 Tsp salt
14 oz of buttermilk

Method:
Preheat the oven to 425 F. degrees. Lightly grease and flour a cake pan.
In a large bowl sieve and combine all the dry ingredients.
Add the buttermilk to form a sticky dough. Place on floured surface and lightly knead (too much allows the gas to escape)
Shape into a round flat shape in a round cake pan and cut a cross in the top of the dough.
Cover the pan with another pan and bake for 30 minutes (this simulates the bastible pot). Remove cover and bake for an additional 15 minutes.
The bottom of the bread will have a hollow sound when tapped so show it is done.
Cover the bread in a tea towel and lightly sprinkle water on the cloth to keep the bread moist.

Sounds good to me.

Cat also said she wanted to sing Danny Boy. Reba had sung it to her sometime, and although she kind of had the lyrics, the melody escaped her. We had a book with the music and words, so there in the kitchen after supper, we had an impromptu sing-along. An Irish tenor I ain’t. That A above C towards the end is a killer. Especially if you have a cold. But we did manage to get Tiny Terror pretty well versed. It sounds awfully cute when she does it.

Anyway, that’s the rest of the weekend wrap-up. Tomorrow I will still be a bit busy, so the free possum-flavored ice cream cones will once again be 27% smaller. But, you know, still full of possum flavoring. Eww.
posted by Terry at 10:38:00 PM