Roxy Bisquaint

I think my dad used to make grits once in a while when I was a kid, but beyond that vague memory, the only time I ever eat grits is when I hit up Waffle House near my mother-in-law's. They force the grits on you, but they're awesome so it's okay. I can't say I've ever even thought about eating grits at home. Recently at the grocery store, though, I happened upon Quaker Instant Grits. They didn't have the cheddar cheese flavor, so I bought the butter flavor.

I just had some and OMG YUM. I did, of course, add a slice of cheese, so the grits were exactly as they should be: buttery and cheesy. You can pretty much make anything delicious by adding butter and cheese, can't you? I think these are going to become a regular part of my late night diet.

No, definitely not. I should eat TWO chocolate chip cookies!

My giant crazy cat ate my favorite necklace. Well, he didn't eat the little charm, but he ate about 95% of the leather strap it dangles from, including the clasp. WTF cat?! I must have left part of it sticking out of my jewelry box or something and he yanked it out. The jewelry box was still closed, yet I found the remnants of the necklace on the floor.

He's like a shark, this cat. He'll eat anything. He's been known to eat plastic, tape, paper, carpet fuzz, rubber bands, pieces of vinyl mini blinds, styrofoam, hair, ponytail holders and aluminum foil. And now I'll add a leather strap and a metal clasp to the list. I wonder if all this stuff is just stuck in his stomach?

A couple nights ago the man got a hankering for a tasty treat at 11:30 at night so we headed out in search of splurgey goodness. He wanted pie, so we went to 24-hour Wal-Mart (it's one of those super stores with the groceries). Much to our disappointment the only thing they had was lemon meringue at the bakery counter, so we had to hit up the frozen pies. We got a delicious Hershey's chocolate creme pie. And when I say delicious, I am seriously understating it. Really really good pie.

Anyway, there was one piece left tonight. I'm not sure how that happened. Maybe the man ate an exceptionally large piece that first night or he had a bonus slice off-camera. But somehow we ended up with an odd piece. The general rule in these situations seems to be that chocolatey treats go to me and most others to him. Tonight, however, was an exception because I knew he really wanted it.

"You've still got a piece of pie," I said.

"No, I want you to have it."

"No, you take it."

"But I don't need it." <-- always said in Denholm Elliot's voice from A Room with a View

"You should have it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. It's all yours."

He did finally take it. He gave me a bite, though :)

Decide to toast pumpkin seeds without first checking the bottom of the oven for any burnt food chunks from the previous use that might start smoking and cause the smoke detectors to go off. Oops.

In typical nocturnal fashion, I started working on my pumpkin in the middle of the night. I cut it open, cleaned out the guts, then thought hmmm, toasted pumpkin seeds would be nice. I got them all prepared, popped them in the oven and took a little timer out to the couch to watch TV and mark my template out on said pumpkin. 15 minutes later, the smoke detectors went off. And of course, these are our brand new smoker detectors that have battery back-ups in them, so I couldn't just run down to the basement and flip off the circuit breaker. They'll just keep sounding.

The only way to shut them up is to turn off the circuit breaker and hit the "it's not a freaking fire!" button on one of the detectors (which only stops them for 30 seconds unless you've also cut the power). To do that, I have to stand on a chair and poke it with a stick. But by the time I could even think get chair and stick, the man was awake asking for the stick (he doesn't need the chair). And he was neither alarmed nor grumpy about being awoken by a smoke alarm in the middle of the night. I guess he's used to my late-night shenanigans.

Just so you know, it's not like the house was filling with smoke and I was oblivious to it. Even standing right in front of the oven I couldn't see or smell any smoke. Those smoke detectors are just really sensitive.

The pumpkin seeds turned out perfectly golden brown. Yum.

Tonight I'm going to get pelted in the head by 9mm shell casings. Translation: Going shooting.

Why do I love baby Glock soooo much? It's definitely my favorite. And now that my husband has a Glock of his own, we're like a couple of gun dorks. Maybe we should wear matching outfits to the range.

Also, it feels like a salad bar night. Yeah, target shooting and salad eating... perfect combination.

What happens when all your dreams come true? I don't know either, but I do know what happens when one of them does: your mouth and tummy delight in the sweet, sweet taste of a flaky crust surrounding warm apple filling. Yes, a McDonald's Hot Apple Pie just appeared unexpectedly before me while I was thinking about how nice it would be to have a sweet treat. My brother (my God, props yet again) handed it to me because "the meal came with 2 and I didn't want the other one." I must have done something good because this can only be karma. Either that or he's plotting to hit me up for some cash soon.