Wherein Mike finally realizes...
...if the couch is good enough for Sidney to sleep on...
...it's good enough for Mike.
I heard Mikey moving around at his usual time this morning (~0630 hrs), but never heard him come down the hall to his bathroom or make a circuit through my bedroom. I got up to investigate and found him snuggled under the handknitted throw (my one and only entrelac project), which lives on the couch, on top of which is a 'sheepskin' blanket I keep for Sidney when he's here. I left it folded up on the couch figuring Mike would spend some time investigating it, which he has, daily, since Sid went back home last week.
Guess which one of us does not miss Sidney?
Backtrack...and Update
This is what I actually saw when I went looking for Mikey in the late afteroon Saturday, after I got back home:
He had gotten up on the couch and inserted himself under the knitted blanket. I covered him up a bit more, and since the night was mild, let him sleep there. The next morning is when I found him with his snout poking out, after he wriggled farther across the couch during the night.
Yesterday evening, he was kind of wandering around the house more than usual, ending up i the kitchen about the time he would normally head up to his sleeping area to sack out...but he just sat in the kitchen, body facing his room, head turned around to look at me. It being a warm day, and he being pretty warm himself, and the night promising to be (uncomfortably) warm (for me), I decided what the heck, give the boy a thrill...and so I put him inside of Sid's sheepskin blanket, so he was nestled between the "fur" layers, snug as a bug in, uhm, a blanket. And there he slept all night, getting pets from me through the blanket throughout the evening, just like Sidney does when he's here.
During the evening, he turned himself around in there (he always does a 180 degree turnaround during the evening, no matter where he sleeps), so he was facing the other way when he poked his head out in there morning, continuing to sleep there until I dragged his spoiled butt out of there at 11 AM.
This afternoon, he climbed up on the couch and onto the coffee table and wing-back chair. I shoved the table against the couch and chair some years ago because in his travels across the table, he's always disperse to the floor things on the table that I wanted to stay on the table (it being a sort of an extension of my filing system and knitting projects baskets).
I used to keep the pretty giraffe afghan Juliette knit for me across the top of the chair, but Mike kept trying to climb it, resulting in both him and the afghan going sliding, another reason for keeping the table shoved up against the chair (less risk of a forcible tail separation that way). Today, the lovely black afghan she knit for me is there, here providing a soft perch from which Mike can decide which way he will get down that will cause me the most aggravation:
Who, me? You talkin' to me??
Indeed.
...it's good enough for Mike.
I heard Mikey moving around at his usual time this morning (~0630 hrs), but never heard him come down the hall to his bathroom or make a circuit through my bedroom. I got up to investigate and found him snuggled under the handknitted throw (my one and only entrelac project), which lives on the couch, on top of which is a 'sheepskin' blanket I keep for Sidney when he's here. I left it folded up on the couch figuring Mike would spend some time investigating it, which he has, daily, since Sid went back home last week.
Guess which one of us does not miss Sidney?
Backtrack...and Update
This is what I actually saw when I went looking for Mikey in the late afteroon Saturday, after I got back home:
He had gotten up on the couch and inserted himself under the knitted blanket. I covered him up a bit more, and since the night was mild, let him sleep there. The next morning is when I found him with his snout poking out, after he wriggled farther across the couch during the night.
Yesterday evening, he was kind of wandering around the house more than usual, ending up i the kitchen about the time he would normally head up to his sleeping area to sack out...but he just sat in the kitchen, body facing his room, head turned around to look at me. It being a warm day, and he being pretty warm himself, and the night promising to be (uncomfortably) warm (for me), I decided what the heck, give the boy a thrill...and so I put him inside of Sid's sheepskin blanket, so he was nestled between the "fur" layers, snug as a bug in, uhm, a blanket. And there he slept all night, getting pets from me through the blanket throughout the evening, just like Sidney does when he's here.
During the evening, he turned himself around in there (he always does a 180 degree turnaround during the evening, no matter where he sleeps), so he was facing the other way when he poked his head out in there morning, continuing to sleep there until I dragged his spoiled butt out of there at 11 AM.
This afternoon, he climbed up on the couch and onto the coffee table and wing-back chair. I shoved the table against the couch and chair some years ago because in his travels across the table, he's always disperse to the floor things on the table that I wanted to stay on the table (it being a sort of an extension of my filing system and knitting projects baskets).
I used to keep the pretty giraffe afghan Juliette knit for me across the top of the chair, but Mike kept trying to climb it, resulting in both him and the afghan going sliding, another reason for keeping the table shoved up against the chair (less risk of a forcible tail separation that way). Today, the lovely black afghan she knit for me is there, here providing a soft perch from which Mike can decide which way he will get down that will cause me the most aggravation:
Who, me? You talkin' to me??
Indeed.
posted by Melissa at 5:10 PM
12 Comments:
These iguanas are quite the character. lol My iguana just broke one of the light fixture for UVB florescent tube the other day. Sometime I think he does it just to make my life a little more difficult.
Anyhow, what do you think is smarter green iguana, Cycluras, or monitor lizards. The monitor people are always telling me how dumb and boring iguanas are compared to their pet monitor because I told them I prefer to keep iguanas and Uromastyx than monitor lizards. They are a tough crowd to please without getting picked apart verbally on Kingsnake. lol
Oh, I have this recipe you're gonna love. It's Thai pork omelet. Here's how you make it.
First you beat 2 eggs in a bowl with some fish sauce or soy sauce to taste. Add some thin strips of onion (about half the onion), about 2 tomatoes cut into wedges, green onion and a little bit of minced pork. You can mince the pork in your food processor and make sure you don't put to much pork because you don't want too cook the omelet for a long time in order to cook the pork and burn the omelet. Now mix all that together. Then put some extra virgin olive oil into the frying pan until there is about 1/4 inch of oil in it. Turn on your burner on Medium until the oil is well heated then add the egg and pork mixture. Cook until the pork is done and make sure you flip the omelet so that the other side is cooked also. Serve over white rice with some chili sauce.
I didn't know Mikey ever got up on the couch! Think it is a territorial scent thing? He knows he is the knitting model after all.
Thanks for the recipe, Knot! I've developed a foolproof way to make omelets - maybe I'll post that in my Miscellani blog, since it's rather long written out, though easy and quick in practice.
Is that sweet chili sauce you mention in the recipe? I don't buy pork but may buy a little to try this. Between the pork, rice, soy/fish sauce, and rice, this sounds like a nice supper dish, too.
Given that Mike has lived here for 10 years now (oops! Forgot to celebrate our "gotcha" anniversary in May!), he has been up on the couch suprisingly few times. He's climbed up onto the coffee table more often than the couch.
I think that, because Sidney is getting older and spent more daytime hours on the couch than during past stays here, Mike never realized that Sidney slept up there, as before, he only saw Sid on the ground, laying, sitting, or standing (plastered against me so I'd protect him from the big leezard).
The chili sauce is a condiment you eat with the omelet. You just put some in a little dipping bowl and spoon the chili sauce onto the omelet when you are eating it...kindda like how ketchup is put on a lot of things in America. I think the name of the brand is Sriracha. You can find it on the ethic section of the supermarket.
Ah, Sriracha - that is like our Tobasco sauce, a fiery hot sauce, which many people here put on their eggs. I sometimes use a chipotle (smoked chili) sauce on my omelet when I make it with cheddar and jack cheese. The chipotle sauce is milder than Tobasco and Sriracha sauces. I like spicy hot food,s but not for breakfast... Hot coffee or hot tea, yes, spicy hot food, not so much. :)
I forgot to tell you that you might want to use a bit of oil for this omelet. IT's more like pan frying. That's why I suggest to put about a 1/4 inch of olive oil in it. The texture is a little different than the western omelet. And I know some people put cilantro in it, too.
Here's how I make an omelet: Preheat the oven to 375 F. In an 8" cast iron skillet, I put in enough coconut oi or leftover bacon drippings to make it about 1/8-1/4 inch deep, heating it on med-high heat, swirling to coat the sides of the pan about half way up its height. I whisk together 1 egg + 2 eggs worth of egg whites with a splash of water (you can also add a tablespoon of sour cream if you want), and pour it into the hot pan. I immediately turn off the heat, and add whatever my filling is going to be (cheese, herbs, green onions, leftover chopped chicken and cheddar cheese, sauteed spinach & mushrooms, etc., my current favorite being horseradish cheese), and stick the pan in the oven to bake for 7 minutes. Take it out (remembering to use the pot holder ;), run the spatula around the edges of the egg 'patty' and under the eggs, then fold half of it over.
I tend to overcook eggs and end up with most of them stuck on the bottom of the pan. The method above is the only way I've been able to make lovely, succulent just set omelets that come cleanly out of the pan.
Once I have a little cash to burn, I will head over to the Asia Mart, a wonderful multi-Asian-cultural market that carries foods from all over China, Asia and Pacific Rim. They're the only place in town I can find chicken feet, which I love in soup (and use the bones in moulage, as in this airport drill earlier this year, for compound fractures and bone fragments: Warning: not for the squeamish!). I keep hearing about Sriracha, so I'll pick a bottle of that up, too.
Okay, time for lunch!
For some reason, your monitor vs ig comment didn't appear until this morning...!
I think that the higher up its respective food chain a species is, the smarter it tends to be. While there are a lot of predators happy to eat a green iguana, once they are in captivity, and are no longer foraging for food, evading predators, and combating other green igs for dominance, they have all this brain power, curiosity, and time to spend watching us and interacting with us. Igs learn the meaning of many words, learn what's important to us (why else would they poop on the critical papers you brought home from work instead of the newspaper on the floor?) and just generally display individual personalities.
Through the years, the monitor people have always felt themselves to be superior to iguana keepers. Kinda like people who drive MBZ and Beemers feel themselves superior to those who drive Volvos and Hondas and Fords. ;) When igs were as expensive as monitors, owning an ig was cool. When prices dropped as popularity climbed, monitors became "cool".
People who just look at an iguana in a pet store, or see one basking in a window, but who do not actually live with iguana who spends time in with people in the people's environment (instead of being locked in a cage all the time) have no clue how smart they are, and how personable--and highly individualized--they are. And, of course, what a PITA they can be. :)
Well, if you pan fry it, it won't stick to the pan. The way the Chinese and Thai people do it is a little different than Western technique. ;-)
Yes, well, despite being an accomplished cook from a very young age, I have a remarkable facility for destroying any pan (and the food therein) in which I attempt to scramble eggs or make an omelet, or pop corn, in any of the 'normal' ways in any culture's cuisine.
I now make the latter in paper bags in the microwave, and attempt eggs out of their shell only in my trusty cast-iron skillet with an unhealthy layer of coconut oil (better than olive oil at high heat) or bacon fat on which the whole or beaten eggs sort of...float.
And the reason why this nice, Jewish girl has so much bacon fat on hand is that with all the nausea I've had lately as a side effect of the meds I'm on (and their effect on killing the various beasties within they're killing), about the only things that don't increase the nausea are, uhm, dark (preferably bittersweet) chocolate and bacon.
(The neighbor's dogs who come by for treats are finding them bathed in bacon fat in the dog bowl I keep in the kitchen for them.)
(And, no, I haven't gone so far as to dip crisped bacon in melted chocolate, though it has crossed my mind on several occasions. :)
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