Tales from the Shark Tank

We received a shipment of frozen stuff today that came packaged in a thick styrofoam container.  Once I’d gotten the contents into the freezer, I went back, expecting the ice block packaged with it to be one of the reusable ones.  Instead, I found that the white plastic bag read “Dry Ice.  DO NOT TOUCH” in large friendly letters.  My son had been hovering over the whole unpackaging process (and getting between me and the freezer, but that’s another matter), and so was right there.

Dry ice, eh.  And my favorite weather geek standing right there.  Would he like to do a science experiment on fog?  Wouldn’t he just!  So I went and ran some water into the tub, then went back, picked up the plastic bag containing the dry ice, took it into the bathroom, cut it open, and let it fall in.

Fog boiled up so quickly we couldn’t even see the splash we knew must have occurred.  It continued to bubble up from the locus of the ice, covering the water surface and then rising steadily to fill the tub.  He poked the fog with a finger, and proclaimed it cold.  He put his hand in it, carefully away from the block of ice itself, and lowered it carefully until the tip of a finger touched the water, and proclaimed it colder.  Then he tried to get a close look at it.  It was cold enough to hurt his face before he got close, so he came back and got his swim mask.  That took care of the eyes and nose (it’s a snorkeling mask), but it burned his mouth. Back to the swim bag.  He returned to his investigations with his snorkel in his mouth.  He finally got an actual look at how the fog developed, and said that while it was “burny-cold” on his mouth after a minute or so, the mask and snorkel let him stay close long enough to get a good look at the pattern of temperature currents in the fog over the dry ice, and off at the other end of the tub.  I was tremendously impressed by his persistence and ingenuity in getting the look he wanted.

So our unexpected package was a double gift - both the consumable contents and the means to do an impromptu chemistry lesson with my kid.  Or maybe it was a triple - the ice chest it arrived in is far the nicest foam one I’ve seen in a good while.  I’m thinking it should go in the back of my car, to get frozen things home from my favorite grocery in Indy.

And my son was so excited that as soon as dad pulled into the driveway, he was out the door to tell his father all about the bathtub full of burny-cold fog.  That was the best part.

My son and I went swimming at the municipal pool in the next town east today. I was taking a break when he came over to me with a swim-mask in his hands, which he handed to me.

It wasn’t his swim mask. That was up on his forehead out of the way. It was another kid’s, and it had come apart. “Here, Mom” he said. “It belongs to that kid over there, and it broke. Tell me when you’ve got it fixed.” I asked a couple of questions and found that the mask had come apart, and the kid had taken it to his own mother.  She said she had no idea what to do. So he simply brought it to me. Why? “Because you can fix anything!” he said, as if that were a self-evident fact.

Someday he will disillusioned of his belief in my abilities. But it didn’t happen today. Today I fixed the mask.

Being in need of comfort food and wanting to have something moderately healthy that fit that description, I set about making myself rice pudding last night.  Mom’s rice pudding was nice, but I thought a bit of creativity was in order, just because, well, it’s more fun that way.  It came out so well I’m putting it here.

APPLE RICE PUDDING

Heat 1 quart of milk in a heavy pot with a lid.   Add 2 Tbsp. turbinado or brown sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla power (or 1 tsp liquid vanilla), 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and  1/2 cup brown rice.  Cover and start cooking.  Peel and chop up 2 tart apples, like Granny Smiths, and add to the pot.  Put the lid back and cook on very low heat for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 300 F.  When the rice has cooked somewhat, stir the pudding, replace the lid, and put it in the oven.  Bake for 2 hours.  Remove and eat.   It’s a little chewier than the usual rice pudding, but the texture isn’t bad, just different . Hot, it was lovely with vanilla ice cream.  Cool, this morning, it made a really nice breakfast, as it’s not too sweet.

As to ingredients:  For milk I used organic 2%.  It really does taste different than the standard mass produced stuff.   The rice was sweet brown rice, a short grain rice that breaks down in cooking and so is used for desserts (hence the name), but long grain would work.  It would just be another degree more chewy than it comes out with the sweet rice.

And I have another quart of milk to use up before it goes bad.  I think the next experiment will be with mixed chopped dried fruit, slivered almonds, almond extract and a little ground ginger.  But that will wait.  Right now I want to take advantage of a sunny day with a good breeze and moderate temperatures and go for a walk.

“I know what it is; it’s Communication Lite! None of the content, none of the context, but all the sincerity of Regular Conversation!”

I have plenty of evidence that the kid who lives in this house is mine. The one for whom I have to shut off the light regularly, not because he’s scared to go to sleep in the dark, but because he was reading. The one who uses irony in and out of season. The one whose first original joke was a pun, and who makes - and gets - play-on-words humor more than any other kind. Yeah. That kid.

So it was rather a shock when I braked on a country road saying “Look, look, look!” “What?” he asked, looking up. “There!” I pointed. “That hawk, right there. She’s huge. Isn’t she gorgeous?” I had startled a red-tail off her kill not two feet off my front bumper, and she had taken off on a path that took her right across my windshield and low over the field beyond. She wasn’t more than 10 feet off the ground. Economy of motion, grace in flight, she was pure elegance in feathers. I had seldom seen one so close, and never when I had the chance to just stop and watch.

So my son’s reaction took me entirely by surprise. He watched for a minute, then said “It’s a big bird” in an unmistakable “what’s the big deal?” tone. Then a pick-up came up behind me, and I had to move on.

I’m positive he’s my kid. But you sure couldn’t have proved it by that encounter.

Our black cat, Tornado, is a consummate huntress. She frequently struts past the sliding glass door to show off her latest trophy. She’ll knock on the door with one paw until I look up to see the mouse or chipmunk or frog or bird in her mouth. Then once I’ve seen it, she wanders off a few feet to the base of a maple tree and either plays with it, eats it, or both.

So I was not at all surprised to see her at the door with a mouthful of young, tender mouse the other night. I’ve learned to tell from the way she holds her prey whether it’s still alive or not. I prefer not to open the door for her to bring prey into the house; enough that I’ve gotten to clean up the remains of what’s been caught inside. I certainly don’t want live prey in the living room! She wasn’t relaxing her grip on this little mouselet for an instant, which I took to indicate a certain potential liveliness.

So she took it where I could see clearly, put it down, and started to play. It was, indeed, still self-propelled. She’d let it run a few feet, then pounce on it again, drag it back and repeat, with occasional tosses in the air with her paws for the sake of variety. After a few minutes, she caught it, picked it up in her mouth, and presented herself at the door. Clearly, she wanted to share her lovely toy. I told her I appreciated it, but that it had to stay outside.

“Mom, why can’t I bring my toy in the house?” she asked. “It’s the mostest fun thing! Besides, the Big Noisy Kitten gets to!”

I was adamant. The Big Noisy Kitten’s toys are inanimate.

She took it off where I could see and demonstrated its wonders for me some more. I’m surprised the little thing didn’t die of heart failure, but it was still trying to run away, albeit with less energy. After a few more rounds, she gathered it up and presented herself at the door again, asking me to let her bring it in. I declined.

“But Mo-o-m, all the cool cats have self-propelled toys! I’ll clean it up when it breaks, honest!” I told her I was sure she would, but she could as well clean up after herself outside.

So she finally betook herself and her toy off to the base of the maple tree again, and resumed play until after one particularly enthusiastic pounce, as such things are wont to do, it “broke”. She poked it. It didn’t run. She tossed it. It landed, flump, and didn’t move. Okay, fun was over; time to clean up. That took three bites. I watched. (I couldn’t see the icky messy part; that was hidden by the grass. I could only see her movements. That’s not so bad.) Then she returned to the glass door, but this time did not ask to come in. She made sure I was paying attention, then turned her back and pouted. I went off and took care of bedtime stuff, came back after 10 minutes. She patted the door, so I opened it, but instead of coming in she turned around and sat down again, back to me and tail lashing. She was throwing a full feline snit. So I went to bed.

An hour later I got up, as usual, to answer the call of nature. First, though, I answer the call of the cat. There she was, at the door, mewing loudly. “Mo-o-om! Let me in! I didn’t mean it! MO-O-OM!” She didn’t even back up when I opened the door, with the result that she essentially fell into the house. She ran past me as fast as her little black paws could carry her, without looking at me.

I know why she’s embarrassed. For once, I managed to out-stubborn her.