Best laid plans of mice and men are all f***ed up by cats.

So I woke up this morning all "I'm gonna write, and do some painting, and clean the kitchen, and get that hat pattern posted", but then I opened my bedroom door and found this:

So the cat got dumped out on her fuzzy little butt, I cleaned up the trail of shredded toilet paper, found where she'd hidden the toilet paper roll holder, and now I'm going to eat and play World of Warcraft, because it's all gloomy outside and that just sucked up my will to do something productive for the next few hours.

Recipe: Caprese Salad Extreme

A deli near my house makes a truly awesome caprese salad, but it doesn't seem to be something they make every day, so as my contribution on the Fourth, I sort of reverse-engineered it and added a few touches of my own:

1 1/2 lb mozzarella (the nice fresh squishy stuff or the little balls)
3/4 lb cherry tomatoes
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
6 whole sundried tomatoes, chopped
5 tablespoons chopped fresh basil (or about one-third to half the tube if you buy the stuff I always get)
1/4 large onion, very thinly sliced
2 cloves roasted garlic, chopped (or a big heaping spoonful of the pre-chopped stuff)
1 teaspoon"Italian Seasoning" (I like the Paul Prudhomme Pizza and Pasta Magic)
1/4 teaspoon salt
Oregano and red pepper flakes to taste

Whisk together everything except the onion, cheese, and cherry tomatoes in a large NON-METALLIC bowl (found that out the hard way with previous tomato-based salads). Cut the cheese into cubes and stir in thoroughly, letting rest for a moment. Cut the stems out of the cherry tomatoes and add (if that hard little stem part doesn't bother you like it does me, just stab them a couple of times before tossing them in), followed by onion. Mix thoroughly. For best flavor, cover and let it rest in the fridge overnight before serving.

Of Heroes and Villians

When Heath Ledger died, I went 'oh, that's too bad.' Having seen The Dark Knight, I now feel his death as a great personal loss. This was not campy clownish Joker, this was pure Frank Miller-esque chaos given human form Joker, and it was amazing. I honestly don't think that the next Batman movie can possibly be as good, simply because the Joker is really your classic top-shelf Batman villain, and I don't think anyone else could play him. Honestly, if you define a superhero by his villains, then Batman really is near the top (I'm sorry, but Dr. Strange still wins the villain contest. I mean, Shuma-freaking-Gorath!)

The whole movie was amazing - we went to see it at this awesome theater that's pretty small but very 'golden age of Hollywood' themed and serves actual food and booze. It was like watching it in a big room full of friends - we all cheered and laughed out loud and screamed and when it was over the whole audience burst into applause. I'm kinda glad we didn't go to the IMAX theater for the opening, because I think it just would have been too much for me at that time of morning -I would have been too shaky to drive the half-hour home. (Though I do look forward to going out there to see it again, as I've heard that some scenes were actually filmed especially for IMAX)

And then we went to IHOP, and the waitress asked as we'd finished off our pancakes and waffles, were we interested in dessert.....