The Great Chicken Experiment, Plus RANT!
First things first, though: there’s an interview with me over at Jennifer Rardin’s place. Jennifer is the author of the Jaz Parks series, the first one of which I swallowed whole in less than a day last year. It’s so refreshing to see a human heroine save a vampire’s ass, you know?
Also, the crossword puzzle contest for UK folks is over and done with, but the contest to win an ARC of Night Shift through my website is still going.
It was a long busy weekend here at Casa Saintcrow (I now have a proper kettle and teapot to show for it, though), but I did get a lot of writing done while I was haring off all over hell and creation, including a respectable breaking-of-30K on Weasel Boy. Now I know what happens next, the only trouble is choosing how to tell it to come in under word count. GUH. And trying to do this while Tristan is shouting filthy Alternate-1600s-France slang in my head is a challenge, to say the least.
Now, for the chicken! I am, dear Readers, indulging in an Experiment.
I’m cooking a chicken.
The Selkie told me about something easy and fun to do with fowl. (Hee.) You buy yourself a whole chicken, dot its surface with butter and sprinkle with Mrs. Dash or something (I chose garlic, basil, and a sprig of rosemary from the bush out front) and cook it on high in your crock pot for an hour, then turn it down to low for about seven or eight hours. I’ll pick it apart for dinner (probably with rice and steamed veggies) and have leftover chicken plus stuff to boil in a stock pot for stock. It’s supposed to be ZOMG the best way to cook chicken!
Further bulletins as events warrant. I’m really nervous–this is the first time I’ve cooked a chicken. A virgin poultry voyage, you might say. Just buying the chicken and contemplating cooking it was interesting and terrifying, in equal measure. Not the least because Trader Joe’s was a complete zoo when I was there to buy the, ahem, sacrificial fowl.
What is it about people whose time is so much more important than mine? I mean those people who barge in front in a crowded grocery store, or yell from behind at a stop sign*, or–and here’s my big beef–pay no attention to their fricking kids and let them run wild while the parent (who doesn’t deserve that name, IMHO) is busy yapping on a cell phone to someone named Cathy. At the top of their lungs. While their kids knock things over, run out into the parking lot, scream Mommmymommymommy! at the top of their lungs, and almost get creamed by several shopping carts. My kids would never dream of acting that way, in public or in private–even the 18-year-old. What is WRONG with you people? Just because I’m polite and moving at a slow clip doesn’t mean you need to hit me from behind with your shopping cart, scream at me at a stop sign, OR assume that I’m going to watch out for your little hellspawn (that you haven’t bothered to raise properly) and keep them from being run over when they bolt out into the parking lot while you can’t be bothered to get off your bloody cell phone.
GAH. In other words, I’ve had about enough of mass humanity for a while. Maybe I’m a misanthrope, but that kind of behavior just irritates me to no end, and I’d rather work from home any day of the week so I don’t have to see it. The thing that boggles me is the parents not watching their children. I can’t count the number of times I’ve collared a kid about to run out in front of a vehicle because the parent is too busy yapping on a cell phone to pay any bloody attention. And the parents are invariably mildly thankful but mostly irritated that their call is interrupted. *headbonkety* Jeez. What am I supposed to do, let a six-year-old get hit by a car so you can continue yammering? Don’t you people understand that little ones don’t have the “look before you cross” reflex yet? Don’t you understand that they’re small and hard to see? Don’t you get that it just takes a split second for Something To Happen?
I hate that. I really, really hate it. The advent of the cell phone seemed to transform a lot of people from just mildly annoying to ZOMGWTFBBQLLAMA STOOOOPID and self-centred. *sigh* Or maybe it just made that human propensity easier to spot?
Enough. I’m going to go check on my immolated chicken. And then I’m going to write Weasel Boy and forget about the outside world.
* By the way, you jerkwad in your huge compensating-for-a-little-weewee-Chevy, I stopped because otherwise I would have gotten T-boned by those kids in the Camaro. I saved four or five lives by laying on the brakes, so don’t fricking yell at me from behind. I HOPE YOU GET PILES.
