Bake Bake Bake!

The outdoor kitty's dad finally contacted us - he lives over on another road near here, but farther than even I thought, it's about a mile and a half from us. I run in that area sometimes (more now that there aren't loose dogs anymore). We were able to trap the cat again and hold him and the guy dropped by with a carrier. The cat's name is Tony Hawk - he says he let one of his kids name him. Anyway, he's back home now.

I'm mildly disappointed because I was all excited about ✨new kitty!✨ despite also wanting him to go back to his regular family. I was also a little dubious about adopting a young cat with Crowley still around. I'd like him to live out his senior years in relative calm, and he enjoys being the only cat in the house. Fox was also saying we can go to the shelter when we're ready, and mentioned that I seemed like the type who would adopt an adult cat, especially if they weren't a sprayer. (I would, he's right)

On a totally different topic, but one I love - noodles.

For several years whenever Fox and I are at Disney World and we end up at Animal Kingdom, we go to the Satu'li Canteen in their Pandora area for this noodle bowl that is just delicious. We both get a mixed grill kind with smoked chicken and beef. They used to also offer chili-garlic tofu which was really good. Fox gets his dressed with herb ranch, and Disney actually published a home version of this sauce. The one that a lot of people, including me, really want is the black bean vinaigrette.

I've made a few stabs at this dressing but never could really figure it out, especially how the black beans fit in there. Chinese black bean sauce was WAY too pungent and just very wrong, regular old black turtle beans from a can didn't make sense.

I was watching an episode of Beard Meets Food and he was eating this bowl of Korean black bean noodles, and they mentioned the name of the stuff the sauce was made with. I'm not very familiar with Korean cooking beyond gochujang, and making a spicy sauce for tteok bokki, or spicy sauce over rice cakes. So later in the evening I had this revelation - a literal shower thought. What is that Korean black bean stuff? I bet that's what is in the dressing at Disney! It's black fermented soybeans made into a paste. It's more salty than the Chinese stuff and doesn't have whatever stinky thing the Chinese version contains.

I now have a tub of the stuff and I'm going to try whipping up some black bean noodles this weekend - jjajangmyeon. Vinaigrettes are pretty simple - vinegar, a sweetener, maybe some herbs and black pepper. The Disney stuff is savory but mild. Disney's "spicy" is a step down from Japanese "spicy." *laughs in Cajun* Cracking this recipe would make me feel like an immortal among Disney Adults. Bow down before me, I am the Recipe Whisperer!

It's 50 this morning. Maybe I should have put an extra blanket on the bed.

The cat came back, he couldn't stay away.
He was sittin' on the porch the very next day.
The cat came back, he didn't want to roam.
The very next day it was home sweet home.

Guess who showed up yesterday. Actually my next door neighbor caught him in a trap she'd put out for a raccoon that has been getting too close to her chickens at night. (She also caught a 'possum.) Shortly after one of her kids released him, he was on our back deck so we put some kibble and water out for the cat we're now calling "Neko." (Yes it means cat in Japanese, we named the cat "cat." We're dorks.) I sat outside while he ate, but my presence made him anxious. He responded well to a fishing pole toy, so he played with me for a while, but then he seemed like he wanted more food but wasn't willing to come closer while I was there. I gave him a break and went inside.

I just checked out cameras, and he's sleeping on top of the wood cradle. I guess we have an outdoor cat.

Slightly off topic, but for years I thought I'd hallucinated a movie called Banjo the Woodpile Cat but I finally found out in 2001 that it's real. It's a Don Bluth joint. Thanks, internet!

Not only do I hate Facebook, I do very poorly in local groups, mainly because of my overwhelming desire to "laugh react" to stuff like this.



Because it's funny.

Mattie Rogers, weightlifting champ.

Not sure if this counts as a "gym crush" but I've developed a fixation with this lady. Not just because she's only slightly shorter than me and I can look at her and have physique goals as well as lifting goals, but she's from nearby Apopka.

Okay, realistically, I will probably never lift as much as she can, but I enjoy seeing what's possible. Looking at her arms is just making me want to end my cut early and start training hard again. Because holy shit, girl, you are a fucking BEAST. And I mean that in the best possible way, with little animated sparkles and rainbows.

Alas, I need to leave and go Do Things.

Quote from this morning's reading:

"The choice is not between the free market and central planning but in getting the right mix of regulation. No one wants state ownership of production where the absence of competition corrodes the character even more. The answer is not to seek moral perfection which inevitably leads to theocracy and dictatorship. Since it is in man's nature to want more, one learns to live with human imperfection, and one seeks regulation that not only tames the Duryodhanas [evildoers] but also rewards dharma-like behavior in the market."

Gurcharan Das, author and former CEO of Proctor & Gamble India

An interesting combination of morality and economics, which for all of our noise about ethical practices in business, aren't usually seen as occupying the same spaces.Proponents of either state-run or free-market policies tend to paint themselves as virtuous and their opponents as the embodiment of all the ills in the world. It's a philosophy of economics that wouldn't necessarily be out of place alongside EF Schumacher's Small is Beautiful.

1. How long ago did you join LJ (or DW)? I joined LJ in early 2001, then DW in ... 2016? I forget.

2. How did you find out about LJ (or DW)? I was an artist on Elfwood when they temporarily shut down. Their page said you could find out more at their LiveJournal, so I signed up at first just to keep up with that situation, then stayed because I started making friends on the site.

3. If someone introduced you to LJ (or DW), is s/he still on your friends list? I think Elfwood is defunct now. But I still have some folks here that I knew way back then!

4. Have you introduced anyone to LJ (or DW)? OMG yes, a lot. I had several people on LJ, but I don't think I have anyone I've gotten to join DW. Maybe?

5. Is your LJ (or DW) public or friends only, and why? It's mostly public. For one thing, I don't have much reason anymore to keep my journal friends-only. When I still lived in Louisiana I worked for the parish government and kept things locked just so nosy people wouldn't find out much about me. It's also good to keep it open here because I have a friend who doesn't need or want to sign up but still likes to read my posts.

Yesterday turned far busier than I expected and I find I'm still a little tired from it today. I wanted to get the garden in order for cool weather planting, so we weeded and prepped the two unused beds. All that took about two hours. I also used feeding stakes on the citrus trees. The lemon has a lemon on it - it's a young tree so this is its first year bearing fruit. The calamondin was nipped back by a frost last year and didn't produce as much but it's very heavy with fruit now. The key lime is finally old enough to start producing and has probably a pound or so of limes on it. The yuzu still hasn't quite recovered from the deer stripping it, but it has a fine covering of leaves again and has grown up to about my shoulder.

I'm planting some different cooking herbs, a variety of lettuces, and some cabbage. Nothing super exciting. Might get some spinach, too.

Later in the afternoon Fox decided he wanted to start cleaning out a utility closet. It had a couple of enormous plastic storage boxes of his old things, and a lot of stuff of Fran's that we just tossed in there after she died, because neither of us wanted to deal with it. That turned into almost a three hour job, but the closet is mostly cleared out now. It's actually a fairly large storage area, maybe three feet by ten. We have completely filled the bed of the truck with stuff to take to the dump. There's still a lot that we dragged out and need to deal with today. I bought a few storage boxes for things like our running shirts. See, when you do Disney races, you get a tech shirt for each race. If you do challenges, you get an extra shirt for that. Since we've done multiple Dopey Challenges, we each have far more tech shirts than we can really wear, and obviously some of them we don't particularly like. So about 90% of them can be put into storage for now. That will help free up drawer space and further clean up the exercise room. Progress!

I was planning to ruck today but I think I'll just focus on getting everything tidy here and go out tomorrow. It's still nice and cool and I can wait until the school/work rush is over. Fox is going with me to St Augustine later this month for a guided city ruck, so I probably need to make sure we have a pack that will fit him.