Dorty goes outside; attempts to come back in; discovers: CATBLOCK!

For a while I thought this was general cat obtuseness, but it happens far, far too often for it to be a coincidence. The view out the catflap isn’t even that good. It’s partly obscured from the leavings of slobbery faces and the view is pretty much Porch and Bush. We have many many other windows that show other views like Road or Birdbath. Hell, Nightmere can GO OUTSIDE and view everything up close and personal-like. This is deliberate griefing.

Thing two is this problem:

I have discovered I have opened the LAST jar of strawberry jam, and it is from 2012. That’s fine, it’s still good and all, but there are no REAL flavors left after this. P. kept not making jam because we “had so much left from previous years.” LOOK AT WHAT IS LEFT. And there are MULTIPLE JARS of this nonsense–this is just a sampling. This is like saying, we don’t need guest pillows, there’s loads of cow plops around. WHAT.

Review of remaining jams.

Currant: Delicious but weirdly gelatinous, due to high quantity of naturally occurring pectin in currants. Best melted with wine as a glaze for meat, or diluted with vinegar and used as a mint sauce for lamb. I will commit to this, but it does not solve my peanut butter problems.

Rhubarb: Rhubarb is a devil invention and only fit for doomed livestock that has broken out of its paddock. The only allowable thing that starts inedible and gets WOW with a fuckity load of sugar is cranberries. Related point: where are thou cranjam?

Blk sauce: No, this is not dark matter squeezins, it is blackberry sauce. Delicious, but not blackberry jam or jelly, which we were out of before frost kissed the lawn. As a show of goodwill I vow to use this once we run out of our open container of maple syrup for anything I would put maple syrup on (pancakes, porridge, second-degree burns).

Kiwii: An attempt at fooling me into thinking this is some kind of Hawaiian or Japanese concoction. We all know this is KIWI. A thing that should not be jammed, but only occurring as wheels in fruit salad or eaten out of hand. It should be noted that the creator of this abomination also eats kiwis whole without peeling them. Nice try at fitting in on Earth, Ford Prefect.

Plum: Plum jam tastes okay, and you cannot swing an ikat infinity scarf around here without hitting an Italian plum tree that is usually overladen with fruits and an owner saying, “Dear god, please take some.” One year we got something like fifteen pounds of plums from Plum Tree Park alone. So kudos for thrift and creating what I think of as a Seattle classic, but there is something about these plums…they form a grey scum at the top which makes it difficult to get through the first half of the jar. It’s really daunting for the children, especially. No one wants to open this five years old jam.

Quince: I LOVE quinces in desserts, but this is a similar problem to currants. It is not so great with peanut butter, imo. I used to eat it with cheese, but now cheese is out and so is quince! I will make a note to glaze a turkey breast with it or something.

In conclusion, we are out of jam. Yours in ingratitude, SJ