November 1
Today on the playground we were playing whiffle the mouse and the mouse bounced away.
It bounced under these trees.
I went after the mouse, and I had to crawl through some terribly shady places after that mouse and I found this round white thing.
It was spongy and it stank! It was just sitting there!
It was really something!
November 2
I am going to go back to the playground tonight and see if I can find that round white thing which is spongy plus stinks.
I am taking my Leica.
November 3
I have tremendously good news! I am very slim!
Here is why I am slim: I worked 23 hours a day and lived on turnips at Happy Go Lucky Organic Farm camp this summer!
Maybe Happy Go Lucky Organic Farm Camp wasn't so bad after all.
Even though it wasn't really Organic.
November 4
Now that I am slim this means I get to be in the Kutesy Kittens Kalendar for 2002!
This has been my life's dream to be in the Kutesy Kittens Kalendar, as it is so special.
November 5
Today at school I gave a slide show depicting that white thing in the woods.
Weakie I mean Ms. Wysiwyg says that white thing is a Gasteromycetes giganteum. A gigantic puffball!
Gasteromycetes giganteum
Weakie says puffballs are good! They are good to eat!
Weakie says you chop them up in a pan and you fry them with lots of garlic and butter and they taste exactly like garlic and butter!
Pia was making loud gagging noises!
Then we had a long and extremely boring lesson in mycology and spores and stuff, during which I fell asleep twice and my elbow slid off the desk.
November 6
This afternoon I went back to get that puffball. I brought my Easter basket. Then I found three other puffballs! I went back to the house and got the laundry basket!
Then I found two more puffballs!
However a cow had stepped into one of them so I left it there to rot. The puffball, not the cow.
Now the refrigerator is full of puffballs! I am going to serve a puffball at Thanksgiving! This will surprise everybody!
November 7
I am sitting here at the kitchen table looking through Nini's cookbook What's That Smell in Nini's Kitchen. I am looking for recipes for puffballs.
Snooples and Chessie are singing Frosty the Snowman over and over and over again because that is the only holiday song they know, and they are practicing making Christmas cookies. Their sleeves are rolled up past their elbows and they are wearing little hairnets over their ears. Which is a good thing on account of they have flour and butter and cookie dough all the way up their arms.
Snooples whiskers have little droplets of melted butter hanging off the tips. Chessie has a big blot of flour on top of her hairnet. She does not even realize this.
Here is a whole chapter just for puffballs! Pan-Fried Puffballs With Garlic and Butter. Deep-Fried Puffballs. Puffball Lemongrass Soup. Puffball-Chip Cookies. Puffball Macaroons. Puffball Mayonnaise.
Puffball Bloody Marys. Yuck!
Puffball Whitefish Chowder. Puffball Flambe. Red Cabbage With Puffball Bits. Creme de Puffball. Puffball Pie. Puffball Shavings Floating on Hot Cocoa. Puffballs as a Coffee Substitute... Puffball Mousse. Ha ha ha! Puffball Mousse!
Puffball Surprise.
That's what I will make!
There is a lot of cat fur in that cookie dough.
November 8
For Thanksgiving I am going to make Puffball Surprise!
It is an amazing dish! You take a puffball and you pry out all the worms and you wash it thoroughly and you pat it dry.
Then you roll it in butter and fresh-ground black pepper. Then you roast a bunch of squab legs.
Then you stick roasted squab drumsticks all over the puffball so that it looks like the Pomander From Hell. Then you roast the whole thing for 1 hour at 350F.
Then you serve it surrounded with candied yams and squab giblets and a boat of squab gravy. What the hell are squabs?
November 10
Today Pia bought a large rifle.
November 11
Pia is going deer hunting. She is going deer hunting with those crows.
Pia has bought a blaze orange coat and blaze orange boots and blaze orange socks and blaze orange underwears and blaze orange trousers.
Also a weird hat which looks like a hedge hog only with ear flaps. It is blaze orange.
Also 46 of those little toe-warmer packets.
November 12
It is cold and snowy outside which means Christmas is coming!
Snooples and Chessie are wearing their new knitteled red hats with the pom poms and strings that tie under their chins with little fuzzy balls at the end of those strings even though we are in the kitchen and it is nice and warm.
Ben is playing festive holiday songs on his zither and tapping his foot. We are making popcorn and roasting hot dogs and marshmellows on the stove!
Except for Pia she got up early and took her rifle. Pia has gone target shooting with those crows.
November 13
I am reading about Puffballs. They are very fascinating! When their life cycle is at an end, they blow up. Which is a good idea! Snooples and Chessie are having a giggling fit. I must go investigate.
Uh Oh.
Snooples and Chessie opened up all of Pia's 46 little toe warmer packets. They were tucking them all around Blackie my rat snake who is asleep.
November 14
Pia brought home one of those luggage pull carts like you see stewardesses dragging around at airports.
Pia is out in the yard spray painting that luggage cart blaze orange. I can hear her rattling the Rustoleum can and swearing.
Pia says that luggage cart is for wheeling her deer out of the woods.
I don't think hunters actually use those.
November 15
I am watching Snooples and Chessie while Mom and Dad go Christmas shopping. I am studying for the Entomological Etymology exam.
Last night at dinner Mom and Dad told Pia if she takes that luggage cart into the woods the other hunters will pee themselves laughing and no one will get any deers.
Pia folded her arms and looked sour.
I forgot to say that Pia has a new tattoo. It is a large swirly
I have to go. There was a loud splash in the bathroom.
November 16
The Kutesy Kittens Kalendar lady is coming to the house today!
I am going to have my first photo session for the Kutsey Kittens Kalendar! I am to be Miss August!
November 17
The Kutesy Kittens Kalendar lady came to the house this evening, also a grouchy photographer.
We we had our first photo session for the Kutsey Kittens Kalendar which will suck.
That grouchy photographer, he kept yelling at me.
"Rest your chin on your paw like this! Hold your head sideways! No not like that! Look sweet yet confused! Stop scowling this isn't an Annoyed Kittens Kalendar!"
November 18
That Kutsey Kittens Kalendar definitely will suck be bad.
Whoever heard of a cat wearing bows all over its head? That's what I had to wear, bows all over my head!
Also I have to pretend I am all tangled up in this basket of bows. Which stink like Baby Powder!
November 19
Today at school some of the kids were teasing me they were saying that I am going to be in the Kutesy Kitties Bondage Calendar.
But then the day got better, as we had cookies.
Also those crows played their guitars in the afternoon and they sang a song they wrote about Snooples
Oh, Snooples is a truck-drivin' pussy
Snooples is a truck-drivin' cat
One day she ran down Chessie
And boogered up her chassis
Snooples is a truck drivin' cat
November 20
The Kutsey Kittens lady came back this evening with that damned photographer.
That photographer, he was ordering me all around! I was ready to jump on his balled head! With all 20 claws!
Then Chessie ambles into the room.
That Kutsey Kittens lady she says OH MY WHO IS THIS DARLING LITTLE DUMPLING?
Next thing I know Chessie is in the basket all trussed up in ribbons and I am outside playing whiffle the mouse!
Thanksgiving Day!
Today I served Puffball Surprise! Everybody was very silent! It made quite an impression!
However it did not turn out exactly right, as there were no Squab legs. I had to use a substitute.
November 24
This morning I went to the refrigerator to get a pork roast for Blackie, and all the puffballs were gone.
November 26
It is the first day of deer season. Pia got up at 2 a.m. and took her gun and her luggage cart and went out to the woods.
I worry about all those puffballs in the woods during deer season. What if they get shot or stomped?
November 27
Pia is very smug because yesterday she came back at 8 a.m. wheeling a 150-pound deer with 16 horns all over its head on that luggage carrier.
Mom got a small deer with only 4 horns sticking out of its head.
Today on the way to school, I saw deer hunters everywheres wheeling deers out of the forest on luggage carriers!
November 30
This morning I got up before daylight and I went looking for puffballs so they would not get shot or stomped.
Anyways I did not find a puffball but I found a old fanbelt.