A Cop Pulls Over His Pastor When He Notices Him Swerving

As the officer approaches the window he notices a bottle in a brown bag on the seat.

Officer says, "brother, I pulled you over for swerving back there. You haven't been drinking have you?" "
No sir, why would you ask that?"

"Well I noticed the bottle on the seat next to you."
"Oh, that's just holy water."

"OK brother. So why is it in a bag?"
"Well, that is to protect it from the suns rays."

"Mind if I take a sip?"
"Not at all." As the officer puts the bottle to his lips and takes a drink, he immediately spits it out... "Brother, this is wine."

The pastor, "PRAISE THE LORD. HE'S DONE IT AGAIN!"

Some Penguins Escaped From The Zoo The Other Day....

Some penguins escaped from the zoo the other day and were headed south on the highway.

Meanwhile, a few miles up that highway an officer was posted up at a speed trap to catch speeders.

One guy zooms by, exceeding the speed limit by 25 miles per hour.
The officer pulls him over and tells him what he was doing wrong.

When the officer is ready to go write him a ticket he notices that the man is very distressed, so he decides to cut him a deal. He tells the man that if he goes and picks up the penguins from the highway and takes them to the zoo, then he will not get a ticket.

So the man thanks him and says he won't speed anymore and goes off on his way.

The next day the officer is at the same speed trap and pulls over a guy going 20 over.
When he gets to the car he sees the same guy driving with 5 penguins in the back wearing sun glasses.

The officer says "what the hell do you think you're doing?! You were supposed to take these animals to the zoo!"

To which the man replies, "and I did just that officer. In fact, they enjoyed it so much, that today I'm taking them to the beach!"

I Am Why Wilton Manors Smells Like Coffee

I ran out this particular day.

Up before 5 AM, I got back from the dog walk and started the Normal Routine.  Sure, it was a solid hour and a half before sunrise but that's how I roll.

Making the dog's breakfast, I then turned my attention to my own needs.

Coffee.

I have a mug that is a French Press brewer and you drink directly from that.  I can make coffee any strength I want in that mug, from what Grandma likes to the hipster quivering espresso, and it's all from home roasted beans.

21 grams of "real" coffee beans.  Guatemalan Huehuetenango Finca Antigua I believe.  Roasted just before second crack to bring a bold and balanced flavor to the mug.

Sure, it's a bit OCD, measuring out 21 grams, not 22, into the grinder and grinding it to espresso powdered fineness, but it tastes great with scarcely any extra effort.

There's a problem.  After this first mug I will need more since I only had 7 grams left.   I could mix it with some rather excellent decaf beans that I had on hand, but I knew no matter what I would have to roast more.

Roasting coffee is a trivial process.  Getting the green beans is tricky, but the idea of pouring them into the right popcorn popper, plugging it in, and waiting for the right moment to let them come out and be poured into a cooling bowl is the trick.

Just before Second Crack.  Roughly 5 minutes and 30 seconds for the first batch, shorter for the second and further.

I went through my own morning routine while drinking that mug.  Complex flavor you will not get from a pre-roasted commercial bean.  It really does degrade after about a month no matter how you store it once roasted.  Green beans last about a year and a half and I buy those Huehuetanangos when I see them on sale - recently $3.65 a pound, a true 16 ounce pound.  Roasting will make them weigh less.

It was time for that second mug so I went into production.  It was after 7AM so I was free to make the noise I was going to make with the popper outside.  I roasted five 1/2 cup batches of these beans.  It took me about a half hour. 

Yep, I've got it down to a science.

Since I had my own breakfast while I roasted, I was done, and Rack, my faithful McNab SuperDog sidekick was vying for my attention.

"Ok, lets go have coffee!".  It's our normal habit to go out and have coffee by the pool.  We walk around the yard inspecting the irrigation system practically every morning. 

I made a round of the pots and realized that I was being talked about indirectly.

Over the hedge I hear "Hey, is that coffee ready?".

He wasn't talking to me, he was facing the other direction from what I could see.

I didn't hear the response.

"That stuff smells great!".

I had to suppress the urge to shout out a thank you over the hedge.

Going back inside to give the neighbors privacy, I took the trash out about a half hour later.  What I didn't realize was that the entire neighborhood still smells of Coffee.  Well, really coffee and mango.

I walked out to the corner tree and gathered up three wind-fallen mangoes for tomorrow's breakfast and realized that the scent of my coffee was on the breezes.

So if you were in town this particular morning, I apologize.  I only roasted up 5 batches.  It does carry on the wind and give things a smell that will linger.  Give it a bit, that scent will waft over into Fort Lauderdale soon.

Zen and the Art of Sprinkler Maintenance

At 515AM I ran into a neighbor and started talking about two of my favorite things.

Dogs and Sprinklers.  The dogs were doing their own thing, watering the ground when I casually mentioned

that I had to be back before the irrigation started at 6AM.  We spotted a random rogue sprinkler head in a strange spot and I wanted to look for fountains.

It was at that time that I ended up going into a reverie of sprinkler geekdom.   It's really rather simple technology but it needs a lot of maintenance.

You see, when I was a wee brat, on the open Prairie land of South Jersey, a sprinkler was an entertainment device.

You would use it on those days that the temperature was up into the 90s, sometimes nudging up to 100, and go run through it.  Kids everywhere know what I mean.  They'd see you had yours out, wait until the grass got good and wet and then join you for a good splash.

You never really used them to water the grass.  The only time you'd consider it was when you had just planted seeds and wanted them to sprout.  Then the International Sign for Do Not Cross would appear - small stakes and some white cotton string.  It would draw a boundary around the area and you knew that you just were NOT allowed to be there.  The sprinkler would then get dragged out, usually with the green hose crossing the sidewalk somewhere, and get turned on so that every prospective grain of grass seed would get a drop.

New Jersey got 40 inches of rain each year, and the only real time you felt it was "dry" was in August.  Even in August you'd get the Thunderstorms rolling in from the west down the street in a battleship grey cloud.

South Florida gets 50 inches of rain.  Or so they tell us.  It falls mostly in the "Wet Season" of May to December.  You may get a storm here and there in the other months but they're the exception.  This is also the land where you don't need an umbrella because if you get caught out in it, you're drenched.   If not, you just huddle under an eave somewhere for 15 to 20 minutes and it's done.

The other six months or so - welcome to the dry season, also known as the Desert.

In order to keep those lawns green so that the people from other places like New Jersey, and other places in the country would expect, we have to water frequently.  It's illogical.  The British Habit of keeping rolling hills of green grass work because it rains practically every day and is cooled by clouds and never really gets what I'd consider warm.  Our winter temperatures are a good warm day in Britain.

So how do we do it?  I'm considering a degree in hydrology next.  Really.  Because in order to keep our grass as green as we do, we do a dance of watering, timing it just so, and three separate zones of plastic pipes, fittings, tubes, and bubblers of all shapes and sizes.

But it all is fairly simple, even if it is annoyingly "fiddly".  There is a well that goes down into the higher ground water aquifer.  I know we don't suffer from salt intrusion because the other day when I was adjusting a sprinkler head, it flew off at full speed into my left eye, and sprayed directly into my mouth.

Mmmm tasty, tasty ground water!  Full of things like Iron, Monsanto produced garden chemical "leechate", and bacteria!  Yay! Bacteria!  Right in my mouth!  Ugh, never mind that.

Also sand gets brought up.  I know that because my mouth crunched some after that little shower.  It also collects in the low spots along with all that slop that gets in my precious bubblers and sprinkler heads.

The water goes into a manifold that shuttles it between the three zones, and then into a distribution system that each zone is more complex than what it takes for my house to give me that daily shower.

The first two zones are full flow - all out watering so they're restricted.  Water the grass in front, hedges and grass in the rear.  As such I can only use them twice a week during set hours.  We do it in the morning on those days since the grass is most thirsty then and it keeps the roots from rotting in water that sat in the beach sand that passes for top soil here, 2.5 miles from the briny Atlantic Ocean.

Zone 3 is the pots and flowers.  Everything there is on drip feed.  My farmer relations out in Nebraska would know exactly what I'm talking about.  Each "drip" is limited to 1 gallon per hour.  Zone 3 runs only 30 minutes a day so each pot gets two quarts of water, roughly.  There are currently 18 pots in the backyard, along with a perimeter soaker hose that spot waters the hedges.  All of that puts water exactly where it is needed.

Everything has joins, unions, and elbows.  Reduced down to smaller than a drinking straw, all that wonderful bacterial water has a nasty habit of slowly plugging up.  I have a precision tool made up of a piece of copper telephone wire, 24 gauge I think, that I run through each head when they plug to knock out the collected plug of bacterial muck, ground water chemicals, and general ooze.  After that it's soaked in white vinegar to get more of it out and returned to duty.

All of this so I can remain scrupulously legal in my watering and keep things green.

But all of this requires maintenance.  The faster the water moves, the less maintenance it requires.  The large "Golf Course" sprinklers in the front yard will knock a small woman over with the flow, but they rarely need attention.  The midsized ones under the hedges need rather a lot.  The pot bubblers?

Every morning coffee time with Rack.  We go outside to the backyard while they're running.  He runs around the yard, I look at sprinkler heads.  Every blasted one.  Or rather the ones that aren't blasting water all over my Mango, Ruellia, Milkweed, and Banana trees.

All so that we can have it nice for the Monarch Butterflies that munch on the Milkweed, the random Bananas that I used to get before the plant got overgrown, the deep purple Ruellias I'm starting in that pot.

Yeah, it's a lot of work but I like it.  So if you have a problem with the sprinklers, just ask around.  It's pretty simple.  But skip the cotton thread.  We've got turf here!

How To Keep A Parrot Happy - Don't Blink

I have had Oscar, my Orange Wing Amazon parrot since 1986.  It's entirely possible that he will outlive me.

That is common with the midsized and larger parrots, they have long lives, and there was a Yellow Naped Amazon who lived in Homer Alaska to the ripe old age of 106.

Yeah, Alaska.  Of All Places.

You end up having to find coping strategies with them.  You see, it's not like with a dog.  Dogs bond in a pack mentality, friends is a good way to describe it.  You work together as a team, even if that work is sitting on your lap and keeping you comfortable.   They do jobs, they give you companionship, they give you help in many different ways, and they give you love.  I have even heard a pretty good discussion as to how the Human Race would not have survived had it not been for the assistance of the dog.

But Parrots?  Well they're a very strange creature in their own right. 

You see where Dogs see you as a co-worker, Parrots see you as a mate.

Yes, for 29 years I have had a small green mate in my house.  It takes getting used to. 

There are better bonded parrots.  I had a Goffin's Cockatoo named Sonny who was so closely bonded to me that he would "get loud" until I opened the cage, and no matter where I was in the apartment, he would then hunt me down so that he could be near.  Then he would act silly.  Backflips, barking, chattering, and the like.

Squeak, my Grey Cheeked Parakeet used to ride all over Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia inside my shirt.  I would walk into shops, he would climb out just enough to see where he was, then if he liked the people there, he would climb out to say hello. 

But Oscar is somewhere in between indifference and bonding.  He is named Oscar because he's a bit of a

grouch.  It's a coincidence that he's green like the Sesame Street character and that was what got me calling him that. 

He will interact with you but only on his terms.  I am his favorite person, which is to say he won't shred me to pieces with that beak of his all of the time.  I can get him to go back into his cage when I say "Go Home", and he shows his appreciation by talking to me.

At sounds louder than a Jet Engine at 3 in the Morning.

So I have learned.  He is an intelligent creature and requires mental stimulation.  If he doesn't get it, he makes his own, learning how to bounce sounds off of walls for echo location, especially if those walls are three blocks away.

At least that is what I think he's trying to do.  I can't fathom why else 130 db are necessary other than to gauge distance.

But there his cage sits on the room divider.  I keep oddball things there to keep him from eating the room divider because anything that is wood will be chewed.  We would like to keep the divider in one piece since we are somewhat attached to the architectural element of it.

I found a long time ago that he will go quiet if I put toys on top of the cage.  Beach Balls are the best since they are light and too large for him to get his beak around.  They also won't destroy anything when they are ejected in his favorite game of "Make the Human Fetch".  Anything left on the room divider is fair game to be ejected, to the floor, post haste.

Don't leave anything "food related" on there because he does want to sample.  Usually at 130 db. 

Yes, the word Hello gets used loudly and often since he has figured out that I pay attention to it.  In his little world, Hello really means "I Want".

I want that food you have.

I want your attention.
I want a shower in the rain.
I want it NOW.

It's like living with a two year old version of Verucca Salt from the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movies. 

At 130 db.  A pain inducing one hundred and thirty decibels.

So if you see me covered in rain, parrot feathers, some scattered food, and a couple of scratches on my arms, it's a normal day in the life of a parrot owner.  Just don't blink.  He'll be into something else real soon.

Lemon Meringue Pie With A Tasty And Angry Recipe

Did you ever get started doing something and found yourself herded into a completely different direction?

I did because I was stubborn.  Bound and determined to make "something good" for dessert that night, I started while I was making Mango Jam and was frustrated at each step.

First thing was I had my face stuffed in the fridge.  I spotted what I was looking for, Key Lime juice.  I knew that there were no Key Limes in the house, the little golf ball sized things had rolled off into the sunset a long time ago so there would be no "Zest" in the pie.

That's a secret ingredient they don't tell you.  If you don't "Zest" your fruit, your citrus pie recipes won't be as complex tasting.  Its a small thing, only a half to a teaspoon per pie or less, but it really does add a LOT to the taste.

So I pulled the bottle and noticed that it was more than six months out of date.  Giving the bottle a shake, I opened it up and saw some weird looking slick on top.  The juice was tan leaning toward brown.  No thanks, I'll pour this one out.

The other bottle was the same, and there was a strange vacuum pressure thing going on.  Bad.

Ok, change in plans, I'll make Lemon Meringue.  It's really just about the same recipe.  The lemon juice was fresh, bought last week.

Pour out 1/2 cup into a measuring cup and slide that into the refrigerator.

Next, find the sweetened condensed milk. 

After 15 minutes of tearing the place apart, I gave up.  No sweetened condensed milk.  I had used it up making Dulce De Leche, or Caramel Sauce.  Good stuff, Explosively good actually.

Now what?

I went hunting for a recipe that needed no sweetened condensed milk, and I was not going to go out to the supermarket "Just For This".

Annoyed at myself, I found a great recipe that I adapted to use. 

There are actually two separate recipes. 

• The crust was a ready-made graham cracker crust because I was not in the mood to break up graham crackers, add butter, and bake that separately that day.  Shortcut, but it worked.
• The Filling was adapted from this recipe, and there were very few changes other than the way I made it. 
• The Meringue was from memory, and it's truly basic.    "One of the best I have ever tasted!" because it was just two ingredients.

One warning though, if you are making meringue, don't do it on a rainy day.  The meringue will sweat and get "goopy".  Nobody wants a sweaty goopy meringue.  This is best done on a sunny day in a dry house.


First - the Meringue.

• If there is any oil in the mixing bowl, the Meringue will refuse to "inflate".
• Add to the clean mixing bowl, 3 egg whites - COLD! (reserve the yolks for later)
• Add to the clean mixing bowl, 3/4 cup confectioner's sugar.

Using a whisk if you are into punishing yourself, or a stand mixer, beat the mixture to stiff peaks.
You will know when you have stiff peaks when you can fluff up a bit of the meringue and it will stay fluffed.

Note, if you want more Meringue, add egg whites and sugar at 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar to each egg white.  It will scale up, but don't go below 2 eggs.

Store the meringue in the refrigerator until ready, but it will deflate if it has been left too long.


Second, the Pie Filling.

Ingredients:

• 3 egg yolks
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 1/2 cups water (cold)
• 3 tablespoons butter or margarine (room temp is best)
• 2 teaspoons grated lemon peel (optional but recommended)
• 1/2 cup lemon juice

Process:

• To non reactive 3 quart sauce pan, add all of the ingredients at once.
• Turn on stove to medium.
• Begin stirring the mixture with whisk, mixing spoon, or spatula.
• The mixture will thicken at around 20 to 25 minutes.
• When the mixture begins to thicken, it will thicken seemingly instantly.

Third - Assemble the Pie!

• Add the pie filling to the pre-made pie shell leaving a little bit below the top of the crust for the meringue.
• Spoon out the meringue on top of the pie filling.
• Even out the meringue so that it reaches the edges of the pie.
• With a fork, make a few spots where the filling and the meringue will mix.  This optional step will keep the meringue from peeling off of the top of the pie as easily as some pies.

Fourth - Bake the pie at 350 for 8-12 minutes or until the Meringue begins to toast golden brown.
Allow the pie to cool and set in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Bread Machine Mango Jelly Revisited

I found this recipe and used it a couple years in a row. 

It works well with Mangoes and I have used exactly this recipe substituting Cherries or Strawberries in
season in the same amounts and got excellent results as well!  Oh and since it is a bread machine recipe, it's trivial to make.  Kick your shoes off and 1 hour later you have fresh Jam, if you want it hot.

So what's that you say, I'm done?  Not exactly.

There are a couple reasons.

First off, I did a substitution to drive the calorie count down.  Instead of 1 Cup of granulated Sugar, I substituted Stevia at the recommended amount of 1/3 Cup plus 1 Tablespoon.

Why?  The result was a less "cloyingly sweet" Jam.  It turned out slightly tart and sweet at the same time.  I love a good mango jelly/jam/whathaveyou.  But I wanted to make something a bit lighter.  In this case, I saved 774 calories across the three jars.  Each jar was about 6 ounces, so figuring a tablespoon serving, it would bring it down from approximately 50 to approximately 30.  Not exactly Earth-Shattering, but it made me feel better, and it gave me the taste I wanted.

If you want a traditional jam, go full sugar.  The texture and even the taste will be pretty much the same too.

Secondly, it's Mango Season.  Trees all over South Florida and other Northern Hemisphere tropical regions are bearing fruit.  One tree makes an amazing amount of fruit.  Literally by the bucket load.  I have harvested two full buckets from a mature tree, gave away a third to various people, and there are at least one or two more buckets up there just out of reach.

You just can't eat THAT many mangoes. 

The greenest ones I put in the refrigerator to slow down ripening.
The ripest ones went into me, and into this jam, and I know I will make at least another batch to can.
The ones in the middle I split between the fridge and the counter. 

While I really truly enjoy mangoes, even I get tired toward the end of season.

Thirdly, I had a house guest who I sent home with a dozen mangoes.  They should be just about ready to eat now, and this would be a good way to use up some of them if you have a bread machine and want an easy fix, or a big sauce pan and want a bit of a challenge.

Finally, while this is not a Canning Recipe, specifically,  I have made this up in the bread machine and then canned it and the jars were good for the typical 6 months to a year.  All canning recipes can go wrong in storage, so you do so at your own risk.

Since people don't really follow links, I'll reproduce the recipe from the above link here, word for word.


Ingredients:

• 4 Cups chunked ripe Mango pieces.
• 1 Cup Sugar or other granulated sweetener such as Stevia as recommended on the package for substitution.
• 1 Tablespoon of Lemon Juice.
• 1 Package of unsweetened or sugar free Fruit Pectin.

Process:

• Cut up your Mangoes into chunks until you have four cups of the fruit.
• Mash slightly the Mangoes, and add to the bread machine's bucket with impeller blade in place.
• Add 1 Cup of Sugar or sweeteners.
• Add 1 Tablespoon of Lemon Juice.
• Add 1 Packet of SureJell Fruit Pectin.
• Select Jam and Jelly program on your bread machine and press start.
• Alternately, this may be cooked on medium on the stove until the jam begins to set at about 30 minutes.

I did use this recipe to can some Mango Jam for later by boiling the jars and lids to sterilize, then boiling the jars to re-sterilize and set the lids.  With all Canning Recipes, you are on your own to decide how long to store the result.

An Elderly Couple Gets Pulled Over By A Cop

The wife is driving, but she has a bit of a hearing problem.
The officer notifies her that she was doing 38 in a 25 zone.

The wife turns to her husband and asks "What'd he say?"
The husband replies "He says you were speeding!"
The wife turns back to the officer and says "Oh, sorry officer."

The officer goes on; "License and registration please."
The wife again turns to her husband. "What'd he say!?"
The husband, growing irritated, says "He wants to see your LICENSE."
The wife replies, "Oh, sorry officer. Here you go."

The officer inspects her license and comments, "Ah, you're from Brownsville. I'll never forget that city... I had the worst sexual experience of my entire life in Brownsville!"
The wife once more turns to her right and yells "What'd he say!!?"

The husband replies "He says he knows you."

An Engineer Opens A Medical Clinic

An engineer who was unemployed for a long time decided to open a medical clinic. He puts a sign outside the clinic: "A cure for your ailment guaranteed at $500; we'll pay you $1,000 if we fail."

A Doctor thinks this is a good opportunity to earn $1,000 and goes to his clinic.

Doctor: "I have lost my sense of taste."
Engineer: "Nurse, please bring the medicine from box 22 and put 3 drops in the patient's mouth."
Doctor: "This is Gasoline!"
Engineer: "Congratulations! You've got your taste back. That will be $500."

The Doctor gets annoyed and goes back after a couple of days later to recover his money.

Doctor: "I have lost my memory, I cannot remember anything."
Engineer: "Nurse, please bring the medicine from box 22 and put 3 drops in the patient's mouth."
Doctor: "But that is Gasoline!"
Engineer: "Congratulations! You've got your memory back. That will be $500."

The Doctor leaves angrily and comes back after several days, more determined than ever to make his money back.

Doctor: "My eyesight has become weak."
Engineer: "Well, I don't have any medicine for this. Take this $1,000," passing the doctor a $500 note.
Doctor: "But this is $500..."
Engineer: "Congratulations! You've got your vision back! That will be $500."

What's Cookin' Dad? Hedgehogs?

You just can't make this stuff up.

My dog, Rack the McNab SuperDog (TM) has a thing for Hedgehogs.

When I say a "thing" I mean a "I'm going to carry this around the house until it falls off" thing.

Every house that has pets, or rather pets and kids because after a fashion they are the same thing, has toys.  Toys that go everywhere.

I have a dog and a parrot and there are toys, fur, and feathers here.  If you are expecting a 1950s Mrs Cleaver house where everything sparkles I suggest you try the house down the block.  The one where I dropped off the mangoes the other day?  That one.  They have a housekeeper.  I'm too busy trying to live something that passes as a normal life while keeping up to date on technology.

Ever feel like you're out hunting a moving target?  Yo.  That's me.

The other day I was migrating from the dining room where I had my laptop set up, to the big green chair next to the window.  It was late enough after the dog walk that I wanted to push everything away and actually do what passes for relaxation here.  Turn on the TV, set the laptop on the table, plug it in and sit down and I hear....

SQUEEEEEE!

That lump under my butt would be the hedgehog.

That noise called Rack over.  I didn't really mean to call him over, but it was going to happen.  He left his new hedgehog on the chair.  I say "New" because we had found one in a thrift store for a dollar and got it to replace the original hedgehog.  Then there were two.  Recently having the pleasure of a house guest, Craig, bring us two more hedgehogs, we're set for quite a while.  My little monster, Rack, is very gentle with his toys although he does have an unsettling habit of chewing the eyes off the stuffed beasts.

Handing the toy over to my dog with a cheerful "Hedgehog!  You've got a Hedgehog!", I went back to what I was doing not thinking too deeply about it.  Getting goosed by a stuffed toy is one of the hazards of having dogs in the house.

The next day I started cooking.  It was time to make some pork tenderloin for lunches.  Since you can get a really good slice of pork for much less than the price of some really cheap hamburger beef, I go for the pork.  Besides, it can be leaner.  Crock pot cooked to 140F in barbecue sauce and slice in the sauce will finish the pork by bringing the entire pot up to safe temperature and you have a meal better than Mrs Cleaver ever made.

But it has its own challenges.  It makes me hungry enough to chew my leg off.  It perfumes the house with whichever recipe I choose to make for that day, and usually a hint on the air for a day or three after.  It gets the parrot saying Hello every time I walk into the kitchen.  He begs.  Constantly.  I am a soft touch, so I usually toss a bit of fruit at the parrot because if he doesn't get what he wants, he can get loud.

Ear shatteringly loud.  Like Mount Krakatoa loud.  The noise that circled the world four times loud.  All from a pirate parrot bird.  SHADDAP!

But that merely brought Rack into the kitchen snuffling around.  He's looking for handouts as well.  I didn't want to get him started doing that begging thing but I'm used to it.  Practically every time I go into the kitchen, he's on task with the twin brown laser beams.

I turned around and stopped.  "How on Earth did you?".  He had a hedgehog stuck to his collar.

He also wanted some of that pork tenderloin that was swimming in the red Char Siu Barbecue sauce I had made up that morning.

Laughing I said "No matter how creative you are going to be with that toy, I am not giving out samples at this time!".

He merely licked his lips and went back to staring at the crock pot.

A loud "HELLO!" came from the other room.

I freed the toy from Rack's Collar and pet him on the head.  I was wrong thinking that would send him on his way.  He simply sat there and stared me down.

"Sorry, boy, you're out of luck this morning.  This is for lunch!".

It only takes 3 1/2 hours to get a 3 1/2 pound pork tenderloin to cook to temperature. 

Lunch was going to be a good one for me, and a sample for Rack.  Oscar the parrot? Nope.  Not happening.  I didn't have the right vegetables for him.  But we did all enjoy it.

Even the hedgehog.