Before we begin, two quick things:
1. My mom gets her biopsy results back today, so I’m praying for her. 2. Today is Christina’s 40th birthday. Happy Birthday!
Well, I never got around to cooking the rest of those Brussels sprouts, but they’re still in the fridge and I have every intention of using them up this week. Last week we were gone, so the ‘new vegetable’ thing didn’t happen, but this week we’re a regular fruit & vegetable stand. Aside from stocking up on canned stuff at Sam’s, we have giant strawberries, grapes, red bell peppers, avocados, apples, bananas, and a jicama.
If you are unfamiliar with jicama (hic-a-ma), this site can tell you more. A friend at work has brought it sliced raw on a veggie tray, and I like it quite a bit. It’s very mild and wonderfully crunchy – the texture of watermelon rind but the flavor of pea pods. I like jicama, the vegetable, but the downside is that it reminds me of Jicama, the cat.
Long ago when we lived in Maryland and had moved to our second apartment, we felt that our lone cat, Cricket, was becoming a little….uh… mean. We figured it was because she was all alone for 11 hours a day, and maybe she needed some company. We went to some shelter place (I am fuzzy on the details because this was 17 years ago) and picked up a very, very shy cat called Jicama.
This was a complete mistake. I had no idea how to socialize cats, and Lloyd’s only information was from his sister’s childhood method, which was to smack the head of the cat who was being mean. We each sat on either end of the sofa, one of us holding Jicama and the other one repeatedly smacking Cricket on the head whenever she growled. (I am laughing as I type this, yet still horrified at how badly we handled the situation. We were dumb kids.) I think I lasted through 20 minutes of the cat-smacking and then burst into tears, insisting that we take Jicama back. The lady at the shelter must have thought we were the biggest flakes to pass through her doors, and she’d be right.
A couple of weeks later I looked up how to introduce new cats to each other and bought Pfennig at a pet store. (You keep them in separate rooms for a few days and slowly let them get used to the idea of each other.) It worked out much better and after a while Cricket took care of the head-smacking all by herself.
Sorry, Jicama. Sorry, Pfennig.
Brad says
Maybe Cricket didn’t like that you named that cat after a weird root.
Lauren says
Oh yeah, I should have said that the cat was pre-named. When the lady told me Jicama’s name, I believe I kept saying, “What?”
Lady: “Jicama.”
Lauren: “What?
Lady: “Jicama, with a J.”
Lauren: “What?”
Lady: “Like the vegetable?”
Lauren: “….What?”
Lloyd says
You spelled Jamaica wrong, mon.
Peggy says
Ha….I laugh out loud when I picture the scene of the ‘training’. I assume Lloyd was the one doing the smacking.
When my son Matt was 9 months old, he suddenly started waking up in the middle of the night again. After failing at figuring out why he was crying, I gave him a little milk in a bottle. That did the trick. But then he started waking up more & more. The doctor said I just had to let him cry it out. So on a weekend, I let him cry….he
criedscreamed for over 2 hours straight. I cried from downstairs too. After all, all he wanted was a little milk, just a little milk. Maybe I should have just smacked him in the head.Kristi says
Oh, now I get it. I had no idea how the jicama tied into the cat you never kept. Excuse me now while I drink some water to get rid of the jiccups.
Christina says
My cats were surprisingly well disciplined when we were kids! but they all came from the same litters, so there was never any “introducing” involved. Thanks for the Birthday wishes!