Lines Drawn in Starlight

I tried an experiment: this morning I assembled the components of mac & cheese without cooking anything. Dry elbow macaroni, cold grated cheese, cold milk, black pepper, thyme, paprika. I left it to soak in the refrigerator until I got home (late-ish). Baked it for an hour, covered.

It was edible. D thought it was fine. It might be a working recipe with more cheese (I used what was grated, and that was far less than my usual ratio of cheese) including some parmesan cheese (I had it but no time to grate it) and some dry mustard. I think it needs more milk or less cooking time.

One of the lasagna recipes I used to make fairly often introduced me to the idea of not cooking the pasta. If there is enough moisture, it works for the lasagna, quite well.

This is not a good month. /non-sequitur

In June, an orange cat came around my workplace. He was there when I got in, and my no-longer-cowork J -- who used to hate cats, but now has two torties -- was wanting him to become a shop cat. Not really, though. He looked cared for, had a notch in his ear (could have been a fighting notch, or could have been an "I am neutered" marker) and a shaved patch where he must have recently had a little surgery. I put the cat's photo up on the neighborhood blog, and J took him to a friendly nearby vet. I printed up some Found notices and put them around, too.

Well, earlier this week, a woman came around with a Lost flyer... and it was the same cat! My photo, in fact, from the blog. The blog post was how they found him last time. I chatted with her some, and confirmed my assessment that "Rusty" was formerly feral. He tosses off his collar and tags, and goes walk-about often. Can't cramp his style! I think he's interviewing for someone who lets him be his own Tom, instead of trying to make him a house cat. As I told the woman, with the rain he was probably lounging in a nearby house, checking out the scene.

I expect to see Rusty around again. He probably remembers that I picked him up (he was chill about it) and put him into a cardboard box that J then taped shut (and he escaped from on the way to the vet), because he cleared out before I got there on this last wander. Sure enough, he had been by in the early morning, I found out from the crew.

When I was in middle school, we had a local orange tom who belonged to no one. I called him "orange cat" because he didn't belong to me. The lady across the way decided to own him, and she called him Tom Tom, but he wasn't really in agreement. We also had an orange tabby, Ory, so when they squared off at high noon, it was pretty funny to see. Tom Tom had crazy, bugged out eyes. Ory was quite handsome.

It's taken all day for my nose to stop running. :( At least it stopped! This is what I get for letting the cats on the bed when I went to sleep. D kicked them out later, but I still woke up with itchy eyes and congestion. Bleh. And allergy head all day.

Next weekend I will be camping! It's been such a long time that it is taking significant thought to plan it. The campground that we will be at allows (requires, if you want to get a spot) advanced booking & payment online. Only one of the Loops was available, so I think that they must do the other Loops on an in-person, first-come basis. It's been five years since L & I put up a tent in Newhalem. I hope it doesn't rain all night like that last time.

I should not bring my Netbook, but I will bring a paper notebook. It will be too inspiring to be under the trees.

Tonight is a Supermoon. The sky is overcast and sunset comes late. Oh, well.

I'm editing/adding today, which is less about writing and more about rereading what I've written, which is entertaining.

 There are times when my head gets too crowded.

Since I have been here on DW, cross posting to LJ, I have returned to thinking of myself as butterflydreaming. I just realized that I've disconnected with SaV -- that is to say, I see my shadow_and_veil journal on LJ and it feels remote. That's not me.

Y'know, that's actually a good thing. ( Cut to spare you nattering )

I'd like to not be defensive about it, but maybe you'd want to know...
( why I wrote it )