"Do You Cook?" someone asked

This is an example of "not much" when asked about my cooking

One early-autumn day, you open the canned-goods-door of the cupboard and spy a package of taco seasoning. Aha, you think, I haven’t had Mexican food in ages. Reading the back of the packet, you see that it calls for a pound of ground beef. Hmm, you wonder, what’s in the freezer? You used to have turkey, salmon and Angus burgers. Let’s see.

                Aha! You pull out one burger—four ounces. Need 3 more for a pound. You scrabble, search for and find two salmon burgers (not as tasty on a bun as you’d hoped), but no turkey meat. That left four more ounces to make a pound.

                Another look in the pantry and you decide the can of chili-with-beans is just the ticket. So you pull out the medium-sized Teflon-coated skillet and a grease screen to cover the three frozen patties. You turn the heat to 5-6.

                After you’re sure the meat is fully cooked, you take two wooden paddles an inch-and-a-half wide, and tear the meat into chunks as small as possible. You decide that the bite-sized texture will be as tasty as that of ground meat.

                You drain the meat on paper towels--not a lot since salmon has no fat to speak of—then return meat to the skillet. You add the cup of water and the taco mix.

                Then, to the ongoing grocery list, you add “taco shells.”

                You stir the concoction and let it simmer for five minutes. Add the chili and simmer until it heats.

Done. Aroma is strongly Mexican. Or Tex-Mex. You’re not up on the difference and don’t care. Or that taco shells aren’t available. You ponder: AHA! Scoops! Frito Pie! You haven’t had Frito pie since you lived in Arkadelphia more than a decade ago.

You line a wide bowl with chips, add some meat, some salad mix, the last of the sour cream and a few grape tomatoes, sprinkle chili powder, Greek seasoning on top and take it to the table.

Not as scrumptious as anticipated, but you eat the WHOLE thing!

You wonder if this experience would answer whoever asked the question, “Do you cook?” Your reply was, “No, not much.” This experience, you think, is in the “not much” category.

Quite a bit of meat mixture remained, so you pour the contents from the skillet into a clear casserole dish to cool.

The following night, you decide to turn the taco mixture into soup. You open a can of tomatoes and stir them into the dish. You add some hamburger seasoning and onion flakes. Remembering the several large soup mugs in the cupboard over the stove, you pull one down. You spoon enough of the new “food” into it, cover it with a saucer and zap it until it steams. But it isn’t soupy enough, you decide. What to thin it with? AHA! Bloody Mary mix! You think it adds just the right spark. Fritos serve as your “crackers.”

The next night, you add a can of corn and a can of black-eyed peas. After that, who knows what you’ll do to it.

No telling.

Rabies shot, a former teacher and a vet: what we learned

Greye in the backyard, last year

                The three characters in this tale are Greye, the 10-year-old (guesstimated) domestic longhair; this blogger, and Doctor R.

                Greye hadn’t been to the vet since his last rabies shot--good for three years. He’s the only cat who’s stuck with me (and I with him) all these years.  Many others have come up and then disappeared, even though I had them “fixed,” fed, watered, and litter-boxed—some for several years. No matter.) Even though Greye’s not a lap cat, he begs for a hairbrushing under his chin, at the sides of his face and down his back. Which I will do—at least once a day. The only sound he ever makes is a quiet, but sometimes persistent “meow.”

                Today was different. I retrieved him from his carpeted lookout at the attic window, carried him firmly down the stairs and placed him in my jury-rigged pet carrier: a molded blue plastic storage box (towel on the bottom) covered by a plastic screen that comes with some litter boxes. This one fit perfectly over the rim of said box. A short bungee cord fastened low on the narrower ends secured the lid—and feline.

                Oh, my goodness, you’d a thought I was strangling him; or that he was preparing to attack me. His growls were feral, primal, low in his throat, loud. I ignored them. At the vet’s, the receptionist, hearing one howl, sent us scurrying into an exam room. “Shut the door,” she said.

                Greye settled down somewhat. I began the daily paper’s cryptoquote, anticipating a wait at some point.

                Pretty soon, in came the doctor, whom I’d never seen, since Dr. P. --being a former neighbor-- was my vet-of-choice. But today was Dr. P’s day off. Dr. R and I shook hands, and I handed Greye up to the table. A 12-year-old-looking assistant came in and held the cat, so I sat down. First, his rabies shot. Then his ears, eyes, mouth, teeth got a look-see, followed by a dose of de-wormer.

When the girl took Greye out to be weighed, Dr. R. asked me about, well, about me. I told him I had taught music at this-and-that school in Benton, and when I mentioned Eastside Junior High, he looked pensive, and said, no, it wasn’t me who was there when he went through Eastside. “Let’s see, who was the music teacher?” He looked at the wall, as if pulling information from way back in his memory. “Oh, it was Mrs. Paulus!”

                “That’s me!” I said. “I’ve had as many name changes as Michael Jackson had face lifts,” I said.

                “I remember that name,” he went on, “because I’d never heard a name like that before.”

                “Mr. Weed (Mike, former principal at ESJH) still calls me “Ms. Paulus,” I said.

                Now, for what I learned. “Are fleas a problem?” the doctor asked after the aide brought Greye back and he’d noted his weight.

                “He does scratch quite a bit; do the Advantage treatment, please.”

                The doctor ran his hands down Greye’s back and laid a bit of cat hair on the table. “Let me show you something that’ll tell us whether he does or not.” He laid a paper towel over the hair, sprayed it with water (?) and said, “Let that soak in a minute or two.” He proclaimed Greye extremely healthy and said whatever I was feeding him was fine.

                Then he lifted the paper towel and turned it over. He pointed out teeny red pricks here and there among the hair. “That’s flea poop,” he said. While the aide applied the Advantage Multi, the doctor and I said our goodbyes and he left the room.

                We all learned something and had a grand time doing it.

                Well, except for Greye.

Greye, left, several years ago

New computer advantage: ask Cortana anything

 All right, Cortana, what to add to cottage cheese for a complete meal? Of course, all Cortana does is—in the blink of an eye—sent me to websites with “cottage cheese” in the title. I clicked on the first one. It’s always the best, right? Wrong. I clicked on the X and lost the list, so I asked her if she could go back to the last question. She couldn’t. Ha-ha-ha-hah. So I had to re-enter the question. This time, I clicked on the third entry, a cutesy blog that at least gave me some sensible choices. I chose one: crumbled graham crackers & a bit of pumpkin spice?

Let’s try that. I had a glass canister of graham crackers at one end of my row of snacks lining the counter. Pumpkin pie spice I found easily in the shelves of spices that I rarely use. Crumble, crumble, shake, shake, stir, stir.

As our present choir director said after he heard our choir sing (before he was hired, I believe), “Not bad!” (We’ve never, ever let him live that down, even though he meant it in a good way.)

This concoction wasn’t half bad! Just a hint of sweetness from the crackers and, of course, the “autumn” flavor of the spice added a nice touch. Thank you, Cortana.

And just WHO is Cortana? I asked Cortana that question. Well, I put her/it in the Microsoft Edge Search and cut-and-pasted the answers, which even I didn’t know. Cortana is rather like Siri, the voice that directs you in GPS machines.

Cortana is an intelligent personal assistant created by Microsoft for Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows Phone 8.1, Microsoft Band, Xbox One, iOS and Android.

Cortana is NOT a she. But it can do these things: translate languages, keep you moving with current traffic info, track a flight, text from your PC (Good news to me, I think.). It can track your teams and scores, set quiet hours, screen your calls and messages. You can tell Cortana who may break through your set quiet hours.

She/It will play your music, remind you about things based on time, send reminders based on your location, remind you of things when people contact you.

Cortana is good at math; it can find facts for you, convert weights, measurements, and currencies, contact a business quickly and help manage your calendar.

Just think, until I had to buy a new PC, in which Windows 10 was pre-installed, I would have been ignorant of this new ‘bot’ that supposedly can make my life easier.

But what it can’t do is write in information on the Master copy of National Poetry Day in Arkansas Celebration winners’ list. Nor can it design and create a template for certificates for said event.

I thought I’d ask Cortana a question I’ve been lightly pondering after using up the bag of salad greens: Is spinach dip considered a green vegetable? She/It evaded the question by giving me a list of spinach information and recipes for making spinach dip.

So I asked another: Are pickles considered a green vegetable? She/It did find an answer: Cucumbers have relatively little nutritional value, and with the salt or sugar added, probably not. Drat!

But thank you anyway, Cortana.