Friday, July 07, 2006

Tick Tock


I think I need to declare a moratorium on parodying songs that I can't get out of my fool head. What *was* I thinking? The Lion Sleeps Tonight is more insidious than...than...well, a lot of things! None of which, when they take up residence in your brain, want to leave. Rude, rude, rude brain guests! And, why is the lion sleeping anyway? If I were a lion, I'd be out eating some villagers or something.

WARNING: Discussion of ticks follows. If you are squeamish about bugs, especially bugs that want to live on you, stop now. Go back to humming and cursing me about the Lion Sleeps Tonight. I don't mind. Honest. Or skip down a little bit...


Here in Poodlevania, we are waging war on ticks. I hate ticks, as I'm sure everyone does, and I really, really, really hate them when they are on me! I hate them so much, that looking up a photo of a tick just wigged me out. Thank goodness for MS Office clip art. This year has been the absolute worst I've ever seen. Our usual precautions for flea and tick control are no match for the army of ticks that have descended upon us. We've sprayed the yard, and I've even put tick collars on the dogs...it just kills me to find them on the dogs, because they can't get them off themselves...I know, I'm weird. Plus, it just weirds me out when I find one on me. I start thinking about Lyme disease and getting all paranoid that I'm doomed. Every time I feel a little tickle on my leg, I start frantically searching myself for the little critters. Plus, I read somewhere that you should keep the ticks you pull off in case you need to have them tested for Lyme disease. The suggestion was to put them in a zippered plastic bad with a cotton ball soaked in water so they won't dry out. Evidently, it's harder to test dessicated ticks for Lyme. So, I have a little baggie of ticks and a cotton ball...weird, I know, but just color me better safe than sorry. Plus, I can have the supreme satisfaction of tracking their little death throes as they slowly suffocate inside the bag. It takes a really long time for ticks to die. I think they're kinda like cockroaches in the superhuman survival spectrum...or would that be super"bug" survival? Whatever. Hate ticks. Burning intense hate.

\Tick rant off....


Today was the first day of the new July menu at SS. It is more appealing to me than last month's menu, but I seem to be in the minority on that. (Note--I am in no way dissing the SS menus; it's just a matter of my personal food preferences.) All I care about is that we still have hoisin sauce as an ingredient. I looooove the hoisin sauce we have, and I have seriously thought about just drinking it with a straw. The brand we use, Lee Kum Kee, is wonderful. I became really addicted during the May menu, which is when it first appeared, and I was trying to figure out how to get my hands on some that didn't come in a #10 can (those really huge ones). Honestly, what was I going to do with that much hoisin sauce? And, according the Lee Kum Kee website, they sell stuff in even larger quantities, like 55-gallon drums...scary! I can see it now, "In local news, woman suffers death by hoisin sauce; story at 11."

Publix grocery has started making some more upscale (for a grocery store) sushi-type items, and one of the new things is a Vietnamese-style fresh spring roll in a rice paper wrapper...which is excellent with that hoisin sauce. So, you see why I had to find a small home version for when I get the craving on days I'm not working? I knew you could.

Luckily, I found a bottle at one of the farmer's markets that caters heavily to the Asian market, so I can slow down and not worry about never getting the sauce again. I don't know about you, but I find it most distressing to fall in love with some food item only to have it become unavailable for whatever reason--the company goes out of business, takes it off the menu, etc. Sure, I'm up for trying new things, but sometimes I really want the old thing. (Ben? Jerry? Do you hear me? Bring back the Chubby Hubby!! Back, back, I say!!)

And, another yummy thing I found today was a yellow watermelon. I stopped at this little psuedo-Farmer's Market (really just a glorified fruit stand), and they had yellow watermelons. I haven't had one in years and years, so I'm really looking forward to it. And, it will be mine, all mine, because The Man says he dislikes the watermelon. Phooey on him and more for me, I say! (In case you are curious about what yellow watermelon looks like, I will post pictures after I cut it.)

6 comments:

KittyBean said...

I know what you mean about disappearing food items. My husband and I fell in love with Now & Zen's Unsteak, but I haven't seen them in over a year. My very picky daughter fell in love with an organic bean burrito that apparently cannot be replaced, the distributor for our local co-op doesn't carry the brand. My husband loved the two packs of dark chocolate Reese's cups that were a special edition, never to be seen again. Drives me nuts!

Kim said...

On the tick rant, I agree they are one of the few bugs that give me the heebie jeebis. For killing them quickly, a little alcohol will do the trick.

The yellow watermelon sounds good. I have never seen one before.

SUEB0B said...

Ticks - go to the vet or the pet store and get some Frontline or Advantix...it is expensive but it last s for months, isn't poison like flea/tick collars, and best of all, works perfectly. Once the fleas and ticks go through once cycle without a host, they will go off to torment someone else and will leave you alone.

Poodlebugz said...

We're on Revolution, which is a heartworm/flea/other nasty parasites and stuff prevention, and I've never had a problem with fleas. The thing is that we're finding them more on US than the dogs, and I can't seem to convince The Man that he should try the Revolution thing, much less a tick collar. : )

Anonymous said...

Weird. Even our low end grocery store (in Guelph Ontario) carries home cooking sized bottles of all the Lee Kum Kee products - hoisin, sesame oil, oyster sauce, black bean sauce...

The Chinese boyfriend also suggests the Vietnamese chilis in oil for your Asian and Asian-inspired cooking. This weekend's fusion? The boy stuffed a chicken with my mom's traditional turkey stuffing (bread, onion, bacon and bacon fat, garlic, sage and celery) then baste the chicken (it's on a rotisserie on the barbeque) with soy sauce and teriyaki. It was amazing.

Anonymous said...

Guelph! Long, long ago on some European odyssey, I met two sisters from Guelph. It sounded like such a great place to live.