If you’re wondering about the llama, Zoey and the llama are actually getting along great now. They’re true pals.

Zoey is still whining every night. These were taken on two separate nights:

I only have to splash water in his face once or twice a night now, but it’s like he has a sixth sense that knows when I’ve reached my most restful sleep. He usually starts scratching between 5:00 and 6:00 in the morning. Oh buddy…

Now lest you think Zoey is nothing but a pain, let me quickly say what a sweet cat Zoey really is. He’s a total snuggler. When we first got him, he would cradle himself in-between my arm and chest and wrap his front two paws around my forearm. He put himself there—I did nothing to put him there. He still does this from time to time, but he used to do it almost every day. He snuggles with Franny too.

I don’t believe that Zoey would last one day in the wild. Cuteness is his only natural defense. That, and blogability.

I probably should have posted this before Thanksgiving, but oh well. (Plenty of time for Christmas!) My mom made a few changes to the basic stuffing (out of the box) that really make it outstanding. Here are the additional ingredients:

• Three stalks of celery, sliced thin
• One medium onion, diced
• 10-12 link sausages, sliced thin
• Around 6 oz. Macadamia nuts (this is key!)

Sautee all additional ingredients in the butter required for the stuffing (usually half a stick or so), then add the stuffing (12-14 oz.) and chicken broth. Leave on the heat for a little bit and stir to make sure all of the stuffing soaks up some broth. Put in a baking dish and bake at 350 for 5-10 minutes.

I’ll do some experimenting around Christmastime to see if I can make a good recipe from scratch (I’m thinking a nice cornbread leek recipe I saw on Food Network the other day).

It’s rated ARRRR!!!

Anyway, I am addicted to Sid Meier’s Pirates! as of last night. Here’s a compilation clip someone on YouTube made:

Fun, fun stuff. Not only do you have to capture ships and hunt for treasure—you also have to impress the ladies. Attention all ladies: Inigo has come for your hearts. Surrender at once to the passion.

I was just taking a right brain/left brain quiz (even though I already know the results), and one of the questions was whether you preferred dogs, who obey their owners, or cats, who retain their independence. Guess which was the right-brained choice?

For those who don’t know about it, you need to check out Pandora. Basically, you put in a musical artist or even a song that you like and it populates a whole radio station around music that sounds like what you entered. You can enter multiple artists, and you can give it feedback as it goes so that it plays more music that you like and less that you don’t. Here are some radio stations I’ve created:

• Guster, Innocence Mission, Tilly and the Wall
• Vampire Weekend, Decemberists, Frightened Rabbit
• Over the Rhine
• Radiohead, The Cure, Mogwai
• Dropkick Murphys

Aside from David Hasselhoff showing up once on that first station, I’ve had a good experience so far.

Let me preface this by saying that I am by no means an expert in any of the subject I’m about to discuss. If I get something wrong, feel free to gently remind me.

I’ve been fascinated as of late with the Greek word Logos, which literally means “word,” or, with some interpretation, logic or reasoning. It’s where we get the -ology suffix in the English language (words like biology, idiology, and theology). Even though it means “word,” though, it doesn’t refer to the grammatical object—there’s another word for that. Logos had a deeper meaning.

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We taught Zoey some new tricks:

We’ve spent a decent amount of time in the last few weeks raking up leaves around our house. (The house actually has quite a few good-sized trees.) And then they had to go and do this:

You win this time, trees!

I decided to make minestrone soup, since I’ve been cooking just about every day for the past week or so. I gathered all of the materials last night and put all the dry ingredients together (so that I could just dump them into a crock pot before I left for work). Great Northern white beans? Check. Zucchini, carrots, and onion? Check. Minced garlic and basil? Check. Pepe pasta? Check. Oh, wait a second! That last one probably shouldn’t sit in the crock pot all day! Well, it’d be too hard to fish them out, so let’s just see what happens.

That is what happens. Minestrone porridge. I seriously could have eaten this with a fork.

I actually did manage to eat an entire bowl of this, but I couldn’t let Landon and Janelle be subjected to that. It’s now sitting at the bottom of our trash can in our garage. And of course this happens right after the garbage truck has made its weekly pick-up. We’re going to be having a rather unpleasant-smelling garage in a few days here.