Today's Special: Random

I have a few posts I'm working on in my head, but I'm coming up on a deadline at work so when I get home, I'm a bit brain-dead. In the meantime, here's some random thoughts and observations from the last few weeks:

• I felt like the Human Barometer today. My (formerly) broken arm began howling in pain, right along the fault line of the healed fracture. Five minutes later, it was bucketing rain outside. It's not the first time that's happened since we moved to the Middle of Nowhere.
  


• Listening to the news yesterday, I heard something that was nearly unthinkable:
  "The fire at the pygmy processing facility broke out in the early hours of the morning."
  What are they doing with those poor little pygmies and why? Surely that sort of behaviour went out of fashion at least 70 years ago?
  Turns out, it was a PIG MEAT processing facility.
  


• Watching a holiday cyclist battle his way up a hill in the pouring rain with fully loaded pannier bags, I told Peter "No part of that looks remotely like fun to me. How could you spend your holiday doing that? That's not a holiday- that's hard work." Peter's reply: "That's why most of the cyclists are German."
  


• Cattle make the most alarming horror-movie-heavy-breathing sounds I've ever heard. We listened to this while we were meteor-watching Sunday night. Dark Night + Herd of Angus = Disembodied Horror Noises. I told Peter that if I didn't the field was full of cattle, I'd be somewhat alarmed. "Somewhat alarmed?" he said, "I wouldn't be waiting around to find out what was making the noises. I'd be a lot more than somewhat alarmed."
  


• Toby is a great fan of the cattle. He likes to sniff them through the fence and prance along the fence line with his Kong in his mouth. If you want to know where Toby is, you just have to see where the cattle are looking. They are puzzled by and curious about Toby. They're also much more comfortable with him than with people.
  


• I'm re-reading all of the Harry Potter books (half-way through Book 5) and I've been harrassing Peter with questions he finds very annoying.
  "What would be your favourite class? I think I'd like Potions, but not if Snape taught it. Maybe Transfiguration or Charms. I don't know."
  "Which house would you be in? It's OK, you can say Griffyndor - it doesn't make you a cliche if it's true to your personality. I'm a total Hufflepuff."
  "What would your patronus be? I think mine would be a hedgehog. Well, you always say I'm a hedgehog. Or maybe a terrier. You also say I'm a terrier, even though they're not my favourite dogs."
  


• I'm responsible for making dinner for Peter's workshop students. It's a job I actually enjoy and I try to find recipes that I can make the night before, or the morning of the workshop, and then just warm (or finish cooking) when it's dinner time. We're getting a bit burnt out on lasagne and shepherd's pie. Anyone have a good stew or casserole recipe?