Mice

Well, Mousy's been caught. But now there's a new one I call "Gio."

Season of Bundling

Today was the first day this fall season that I wore my winter coat. I was holding out for after November 1st, but gave in. Last year I was able to hold out until November 11th.

Morning Mouse

Yesterday morning I was greeted at work by a brown mouse. As I made noise putting away my lunch in the little kitchen area, it scurried about the floor until it found a corner to squeeze into. I wasn't pleased to see it, but by the end of the day, I felt the urge to name it.

The last mouse found in our office was given the name "Emily's Mouse." I guess this was because I was the first to see it and make it known that there was a mouse. But I can't see us naming future mice Emily's Mouse 2, 3, etc.

My mind has fallen on "Mousy," but this isn't any more original. I just don't want to be one of those people who gives animals distinctly human names such as Winston or Alexandria. I find this over the top, especially for something that I want dead.

Land of the Indians

I came across a glossary of Indian names and found some of them humorous. Here's a few:

• Chicago - "Place Of Wild Onions, Bad Smell", a river; city in Il., founded in 1833, site of Ft. Dearborn.
• Indianapolis - Chan-tun-oon-gi, "Make A Noise Place", Capital of Indiana.
• Mishawaka - "Country of Dead Trees", name of Shawnee princess, city east of S. Bend, Indiana.
• Tuxedo - "Place of beans"
• Wakaruso - "Hip Deep In Mud", town in Indiana.
• Winnebago - "People Of The Stinking Water", a tribe in WI.

I'm loving Chicago and Winnebago. There were also some very nice names:

• Idaho - "It Is Morning", our 43rd state.
• Passaic - "Peaceful Valley", a river in NJ.
• Ohio - "Beautiful River", an Iroquois word, river, and our 17th state.

My fave is Willamette ("Running Water", a river in Oregon). A few months ago I was joking with my brother that if I had an Indian name, it should be Running Water. Tallulah pretty much means the same thing, too. I don't know the tribe that Willamette originated from, but Tallulah seems to come from the Choctaws--so not really Miami. Oh, well.

Cooking with Emily

Last night I decided to cook. This is something I hardly ever do anymore. On occasion I make an omelet on a Saturday morning, but I'm pretty much in a microwave rut. I had found a recipe last month for sweet potato soup that looked tempting, so I saw it as an opportunity. The following is a step-by-step guide for you to follow if you feel like duplicating my experience.

Step one: Look at the recipe to figure out what you need to buy. This was pretty easy. I basically just needed to pick up the potatoes, celery, and apple. (We have plenty of apples at the house, but we didn't have the specified type, and I wanted to follow the recipe to the t.)

Step two: Start heating the sweet potatoes in the oven as you prepare the rest of the ingredients. This is where it became a little tricky. The potatoes weren't a problem, but upon looking at the recipe closer, I saw it asked for a stalk of celery. I originally thought a stalk was one singular branch or stick you pull off of the whole bunch, but when asking my mom for clarification, she said to use the whole bunch. At the time it didn't occur to me to seek further clarification online. So I dutifully cut up a ridiculous amount of celery, along with a Granny Smith apple and an onion.

After looking at a large saucepan exploding with celery, I rethought what I was doing. It didn't look right. And besides, the recipe I was making was called "Roasted Sweet Potato and Apple Soup," not "Roasted Sweet Potato and a %$@# Load of Celery." I decided to take out a sizable amount of celery before adding the partially baked sweet potatoes, but there was still about half to two-thirds of the original amount left.

Step three: Add the sweet potatoes and water, continuing to heat. Easiest step. Anytime I get to smell sweet potatoes and sneak some is good. And scooping their insides out of the skin was easier than I thought it would be.

Step four: Blend. I used my cheap handheld blender, which I bought in the spring for fruit smoothies. It blended well, except for spraying the hot liquid all over the counter, my shirt, my arms, and my face. After a while I developed a technique that proved less hazardous.

Step five: Taste. I took a bite. It tasted okay, but the celery was overpowering. The whole point was to have sweet potato soup, not celery soup with some sweet potatoes added in. The sweet potato coloring was there, as well as some of the texture, but I basically made "Celery Soup (w/ a little sweet potato)." Mom had a whole bowl before going to bed and said it was good.

Step six: Clean up and sit back. I gave the recipe another lookover and noticed it claimed to take one hour, start to finish. Nope. It was definitely over two hours. But next time, with the new knowledge of what a "stalk" is, I should do better.

Don't Mess with my Coffee!

Yesterday I noticed this message on a package of coffee I was using: "100% Pure Coffee." I had no idea that there was a problem of people selling things as coffee that were not, in fact, coffee. But maybe there is. I mean, why else would a company find the need to print this message on its coffee?

So watch out, my friends! If your coffee doesn't say "100% Pure Coffee," you might be drinking something else. And if you can't look at the packaging yourself, like if you're paying the big bucks for some at a coffee shop, don't hesitate to ask them, "Hey, I know you're selling this to me as coffee, but are you sure it's 100% pure? I don't want any imitations or fillers here."

Trick-or-Treating

My latest poll has surprised me. Five of us voted, and four claim to have trick-or-treated every year as a child. I thought there'd be at least one "never" and a few more "sometimes," because surely there'd be at least one of us whose parents thought Halloween was absolutely 100% evil. Apparently not.

I will identify myself as the one and only "sometimes." My trick-or-treating experiences include:

• My mom, brother, and I attempted to go door-to-door in our neighborhood one year, but either we were hours early or we had the wrong day, so we just never did it.
• After I attended a "harvest" party with some church friends, their parents took us to a few houses of people we knew.
• My mom took my brother and me to a nursing home that was all decked out. I think they gave away candy there, too.