Name: Lego Atlantis Monster Crab Clash
Manufacturer: Lego
Model: 8056
Series: Atlantis
Condition: New
Age: 6+
Pieces: 68
Description: Beware the monster crab’s claws! On a dangerous deep-sea mission to recover the orange Atlantis treasure key from the murky depths of the ocean, the heroic diver comes face-to-face with the treasure’s mighty guardian: a giant crab with powerful crushing claws!

• Set includes 1 heroic diver minifigure!
• Collectable orange Atlantis treasure key included; collect them all!
• Features monster crab with snapping claws and moveable legs!

Buy Lego Atlantis Monster Crab Clash 8056

Laydee had a box on tha floor.

So hard gettin all da blood out from under nails.

nawt sew ez 2 git awt of ur teef as well.

Picture by: dunno source Caption by: Bairlycat via Advanced Lol Builder

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Jeraldo wanted nothing more than to be an armadillo. He had seen them on their family’s trip from Mexico, through Texas to Oklahoma where their mother’s brother, Papillo, lived with his four dogs, two wives, Eline and Enerva, and three shotguns. Jeraldo’s mother had stopped at the first sighting between Austin and Round Rock and they all sat there, amazed at the armored creature as it used its extended claws to dig a hole ten times its size near the side of the road. His sister, Adalia, at only three years old, sat perplexed at the two foot long alien gracing their presence and not being able to hold it in any longer, screamed at the top of her lungs with roll upon roll of gleeful laughter.

“Look at how it moves,” his mother had said. “It knows that it is safe with us so it keeps digging as if we are not even here. But if it is scared, do you know what it does?” She had asked this with an upward cadence at the end of her question, turned completely around in the front seat to see her children’s faces. Seeing that her children did not know the answer, she quietly told them. “You see, if it gets too scared and it can’t run away, the little armadillo tucks its head and its legs into its shell, places its tail next to its head and pulls itself into the tightest ball you can imagine. That way, no one can get in and hurt it, you see?” Adalia had squealed with excitement. “Mami, I want to see the ball animal. Can we make it ball?” Her mother had said no, but not accepting that as a viable answer, Adalia had rolled down the window and thrown a plastic cube at it, smacking it right on the back of the shell. “Dios mio, Adalia!” her mother had yelled but the creature simply looked up, smelled the cube that had fallen to its side and continued digging. Jeraldo just shook his head, looked at the creature. Sensing something, the armadillo had paused, looked up from its ever-expanding hole, its nose covered in dirt and torn roots. For a full minute, it met Jeraldo’s eyes and they sat, watching each other, communicating child to creature, the kind of communication that adults have more often than not lost in the ridiculous toil of taxes and 8-5 workdays. Through eons of time they traveled, creature leading child through the phantasms of moments when man lived in unison with his surroundings, through the soil burrows of the armadillo past and present, across dens where their children lay awaiting their meals, into the depths of the Earth where only silence reigns and the warm bodies of armadillo mothers wrap themselves tightly around their babies. Safety, warmth, history, love. Jeraldo had sensed all of it, caught it and sent it coursing through his veins. The armadillo had lifted its head higher, curled its lips into a tender smile and all the days when Jeraldo felt alone as if no one understood him were gone, all the days of crying in the back of the school yard because the other boys were teasing him melted away, all the moments at home when he hated his father for leaving him, for leaving them, disappeared. He had put his palms to the window, pressed them tightly against the glass, wished that it would burst, that he could leave and live with his newly found friend and just get away. The armadillo had shaken its head and begun digging again.

Their mother had started the car again and Adalia had fallen fast asleep. “Are you okay, hijo?” she had asked, looking in the rearview mirror. “Si,” Jeraldo had curtly answered but he hadn’t been. He had watched the armadillo one last time, taken in the claws, the pink snout, the furry belly. Most of all, he had studied the shell, the nine lines across the top, the dark grooves.

As they had driven away towards Round Rock, he had begun constructing his own armor and had looked back to his friend one last time who had stopped digging to watch them drive away.

At first, like a reasonable adult, I thought these shoes were hideous:

Yes, these shoes have claws. Deal with it.

But THEN, I scrolled down and saw the soles:

OMG! Pads on your feet! Like a kitty! Mrow!

The thought of walking around with PADS on my FEET just makes me want to never stop squeeing! I really need pads on my feet. Like, really really. So if you ever come across shoes that do NOT look as though they belong to a very sooty Abominable Snowman, but DO have pads on the feet, I demand that you let me know immediately. (Hat-tip to the fabulous Ashley for directing me to the English Russia site!)

Soft Claws

I’ve used these several times but stopped after we thought we had our scratching problems solved with our two cats. They stay on for a while, but do eventually come off. It can be a pain to get them on the cats because they don’t like it. The glue also dries up quickly.

Purchased today and found they have improved them with “cleats” on the inside and a “soft cuff”. Not sure what that means, but I’ve got to put them on one of the cats for a while until she figures things out. Cost = $23.00 with tax.

One of the acquisitions from a recent trip to Balance Rock Farm was several pounds of chicken feet. Balance Rock seemed surprised when I called prior to slaughter and asked them to save the feet, remarking that they had never had such a request before, but Pete and Jen’s Backyard Birds routinely pack up the feet for sale.

Why would a person buy chicken feet, which do not have a lot of meat and look a little frightening, especially with the sharp nails still attached? One of the most easy to swallow uses (no pun intended!) is stock. Chicken feet have the right blend of fat, meat, cartilage, and bone to make wonderful stock for soups, stews, and risottos. But I had another dish in mind, a dish that would really celebrate the fowl foot in all of its oddness.

First, chicken feet require quite a bit of prep work. You have to clean them, by soaking them for at least half an hour, changing the water regularly, if your feet are just coming off the chicken, which mine were. If you buy chicken feet in a store or at a place like Pete and Jen’s, they come cleaned beforehand, but my feet, fresh from slaughter, still had the yellow skin-like substance that had to be removed.

Then I also had to remove the sharp toenails, which I found easiest to do with kitchen shears, although occasionally, a toenail would go shooting across the room. The Hub, watching me with amusement, begged me to leave a few claws with the nails intact for shock value. Then, the little brown calloused parts of the feet have to be removed, especially from the larger, older chicken feet. Last, the feet need to be blanched for a final cleaning. Watching chicken feet boil is really a site. Bill Buford has this to say about it:

Chicken feet are a vivid sight—like human hands without a thumb, curled up and knuckly—and the first time I saw them, bobbing in their giant vat, they looked as though they were attached to the arms of so many people, clawing at the churning water, trying to climb out, the bubbling pot a portal from Hell . . .

I decided to try two different methods for cooking the feet. If you have ever been to a dim sum restaurant, you might have seen chicken claws on the menu. This is usually a braised dish in spicy sauce that you eat with your fingers, spitting out the little bones. I decided to do a dish inspired by the dim sum menu option, but the whole concept of eating little pieces of bony chicken coated in sauce and then spitting out the bones reminded me of buffalo wings, which I decided to make my second dish.

For the braised wings, I placed them in a pot with fresh water mixed with soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, gochujang (a Korean hot pepper paste), and brown sugar. I simmered these for about an hour and a half until they puffed up. Once the feet were soft, I removed them from the pot and then reduced my braising liquid to a syrup-like consistency, returning the feat to the sauce just before serving.

These were so much fun to eat. There isn’t a lot of meat on them, so you have to do a blend of gnawing and sucking. There are a lot of little bones that you might bite off, suck, and then spit back out. The sauce was delicious—a perfect blend of salty savoriness and sweet spiciness. Like buffalo wings, you eat them primarily because of the sauce and the literal finger-licking goodness. My “claws” were no exception.

My actual buffalo claws were more of a disappointment. I cooked these in the same manner as buffalo wings, frying them and then coating in a sauce of butter and Texas Pete’s. The problem is that claws, unlike wings, don’t have enough meat to get tender when you fry them, and really require a braise to puff up the meat that it there, rendering them edible. These claws were so tough that really, you could only suck off the sauce and throw the rest out.

I think my friends enjoyed the claws more than they expected. We ate most of the braised ones, and almost everybody ate more than one claw. The person who probably liked them least was the person I expected to like them most. My friend Desiree, who is from Singapore, is accustomed to seeing chicken claws on dim sum and Chinese menus. Turns out, she never liked them to begin with. But she did say that mine were similar to dim sum claws.

The Hub and I got together with a couple of friends to have a Babette’s Feast in celebration of food and friendship. In the movie, which you should immediately go out and rent if you have not yet seen it, Babette (whom there will be more about in subsequent posts) makes a turtle soup from a gargantuan sea tortoise. I had it in my mind to imitate Babette with a gorgeous snapping turtle soup, but the price was prohibitive ($21/lb. for humane snapping turtle), especially for a girl from South Carolina where we catch these shelled rascals and cook them for free. So I turned to Fergus Henderson instead.

I haven’t actually made any of his soups, but they are perfect for autumn, and so my Babette’s feast became the ideal opportunity to delve into another dimension of the nose-to-tail philosophy.

Henderson’s description of the Leek, Potato, and Oyster soup I eventually settled on ultimately won me over:

You will need a blender for the recipe, as part of the joy of the dish is the smooth velvety soup within which lurks the oyster.

What’s not to love about the idea of an oyster lurking in a creamy bowl of soup?

What made this dish special, besides its origins in the mind of the Master himself, was my homemade stock made from chicken feet. Homemade stock is a must in the kitchen of any serious cook. The taste far exceeds anything from a Swanson box or can, and the process is almost mind-numbingly easy. Just throw your aromatics (carrots, celery, onion, and garlic) into a big stock pot or dutch oven, and add your carcass parts. Boil, skim occasionally, and revel in the delectable smells emanating from your kitchen.

You can use whatever chicken parts you have on hand to make stock. I happened to have a bunch of leftover claws from a romp out to Balance Rock Farm, and the blend of meat, fat, bones, and cartilage make claws the perfect base for a marvelous chicken stock.

Chicken claws have a fair bit of fat on them so you will want to skim the top every 20 or 30 minutes or so, but otherwise, just let the stock simmer for a few hours while you, I don’t know, grade midterms and write blog posts. Then, I strained my stock twice through my chiniois.

As for the soup, I followed the Master’s recipe pretty precisely, although I did cut the recipe in half and add only one oyster to each bowl of soup, considering this was a starter dish to an already-extravagant feast.

Ingredients
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 good leeks, minimally trimmed to keep all the green, washed, and sliced
1 onion, peeled and sliced
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
2-3 potatoes (depending on size), peeled and chopped
2 quarts chicken stock
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 medium Pacific oysters (it is best you shuck, these yourself, as you want to catch every last drop of oyster juice in a bowl)

Directions
In a pan large enough to take all the ingredients, melt the butter and sweat your leeks, onion, and garlic, avoiding any browning. When these are giving, add the potato and cook with the leek mixture for 8 minutes, again avoiding browning. Then add the stock and bring to a gentle boil. When the potato is cooked, season with salt and pepper. Now puree the soup in a blender and return it to a clean pan on the heat. Just before eating add the oyster liquor to the soup and place two oysters in each soup bowl. Pour the hot soup over the oysters and eat.

This is a delicious soup, and the oyster just makes the dish. Over the past few months, I have actually gotten a lot more adept at shucking oysters than when the Hub and I first attempted.

I served the soup at room temperature so as to not cook the oyster and in order to fully savor the salty, silky oyster texture. Oysters, however, as I discovered at this dinner, are not for everyone. One of my friends actually threw her oyster away. She will remain unnamed so as to forestall any public flogging. For another aficionado’s take on this gorgeous dish (which is really best suited as a starter), check out the ever-envious Nose to Tail at Home.

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Ha ha. The following picture of Esmerelda as a baby makes me laugh. Look at those silly little bug eyes and baby face.

NOW look at her! She’s a heavy, razor clawed dinosaur! I wonder if I could get her to stay still on a scale. She’s got to be at least twenty pounds…

I’ve got a little warning for anyone considering an iguana, they get BIG, they get STRONG, they need SPACE, and they have little razor blade CLAWS. Some may even bite you if you make them angry and I’m glad to say Esmerelda doesn’t have much of a temper, because that would HURT.

I’ve also got a little tip for anyone who currently has a young iguana. Don’t let them spend a lot of time on top of your head! Because when they get big and really heavy, they still think that your head is there hangout and not only does it hurt when they try to use their claws to climb up your face, but it also hurts your neck once they’re up for a while. Ha ha. I speak from experience!

Yesterday evening I decided to give Esmerelda another bath since she’s having her shed, but in the process of bringing her into the bathroom, she decided she wanted to climb up my head and one of her claws actually got snagged in my face, right beneath my eye, and she yanked it out before I had the chance to do it. OUCH! I also got a nice little scratch down my forehead. Note to self: Clip her nails BEFORE taking her out.

Then of course, I couldn’t get her OFF my head, so I ended up having to step into the tub, get on my knees, and put my head down onto the surface of the tub so that she could walk off. It must have looked ridiculous, but there was no other easy way.

So think about this if you’re considering an iguana, are you willing to look like a crazy person lying in an empty tub with an enormous lizard on your head? Because it might just come to that or something like it.

upLARK’s famous Gurren-Lagann: Viral is now in stock with the supplier! Extremely Limited Stock! Don’t miss out!!!

Price: $150 NZD

Arrival Date: 1 Left w/Suppliers!

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Please check the “Information” post for shipping costs and payment methods.

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Some fatass ate all of my weight watchers ice cream.  WTF.  I swear, if I find out who it was I’m gonna call them fatty names and make them cry.  I bet it was Captain Claws.  He’s always trying to do stuff to piss me off. Stuff like clawing my face off when I try to give him monster kisses and opening the door to the bathroom when I’m using the toilet.  Seriously, little cat dude has issues.  When others aren’t looking, he totally loves me.  Anyway, I bet he was like:

ooooooooooo mom’s not here I’m gonna eat all her ice cream so that she’s forced to eat the real ice cream and get fat.  Once I get her fat enough I’m gonna trip her and so she falls and knocks herself out.  Then I’ll tie her up and see how much SHE likes monster kisses and having food shoved in her face only to be told NO THIS IS NOT FOR KITTIES ESPECIALLY ONES NAME CAPTAIN CLAWS.

This is not a face of innocence

I’ll be all fat and roly-poly-like grunting and wobbling around, not able to reach my feet to untie them, while blubbering:

but mommy doesn’t taunt you with food you just always think the food is for you and you can’t eat human food because it will poison you and I want you to LIVE not DIE because I LOVE YOU SO MUCH  I saved you from the tough streets of rural Alabama

Then he’ll slowly start kneading my face with his paws, you know like cats do when they think they’re making bread, just as he get’s his face right next to my nose

I interrupt this post to tell you that B has informed me that I ate all of my weight watchers ice cream in a blind fit of PMS this past weekend.

I still say he's not totally innocent......he's up to something.....I know it

]]> http://rockitloveitliveit.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/cat-583-me-1/ Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:08:53 +0000 isimma http://rockitloveitliveit.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/cat-583-me-1/

Fine. The cat may have won more fights than I have  but it doesn’t matter how many fights one wins, it really comes down to who wins the war. I’m confident that I’ve won the war.

Penny’s scratching has been an issue for me in the past. She’s torn up the leaves on my little palm tree, scratched up one of the couches and has done quite a number to my arms. In preparation for our new (expensive) couch, I’ve decided to teach her who’s boss. I bought softpaws.

I set up shop in the living room. Attempt: unsuccessful

Alright, so my first attempt at applying the caps ended with a gash across my cheek and I only managed to clip 2 claws. I had to leave this one to the professionals. She went to the vet tonight et voila:

Pennysnacks showing off her manicure

super close up

They seem to be working, although it has only been a few hours. These softpaws may be the greatest invention ever. My couch may owe it’s life to them.