Might I recommend a lovely high quality sound machine? It will not only block out unwanted aural distractions ( and we all know too well how annoying unwanted aural distractions can be, now don’t we? ) but when a co-worker comes to you to go over a report and you can barely suppress your distain for the putrid obscenity she has just handed you, you can tap a button and have your baleful silence accentuated with the quiet and ominous sound of crickets chirping.
Methinks Cartooniverse is still a tad under the influence… But ain’t he cute when he’s schnockered?? 
Bwahahahahah…that is funny. I’m just sick enough to actually try this out. Because that’s the way I am. Sometimes people don’t “get” my humor. I don’t know why…
Lovely idea, but I misstated - my “office” is, in fact, a cubicle. A cubicle with short walls, because whoever ordered them (way back whenever) decided the short walls would encourage communication. We hates them. :mad:
I stand corrected Swampy. The Boiled Peanuts recipe is much more complicated than I thought. It’s way more than:
Boiled Peanuts:
- Take some peanuts.
- Boil them.
It’s more like:
Boiled Peanuts:
- Take some green peanuts.
- Boil the crap out of them in salty water.
- If you want them to be even saltier, let them sit in the salty water when you’re done boiling them.
Heh, my chirrens started school last week! Hooray, quiet house! My kindergartener brought home a paper bag from school last week. She had to draw a self portrait (basically a head with arms and legs) on the bag and put her favorite candy, her favorite toy, and something in her favorite color! The teacher also sent an outline of a hand, and on the fingers, I had to write things about her personality, and on the palm, I had to write the things that I wanted her to learn that year!
Swampy, I’m glad you aren’t getting flooded out! Maybe Katrina will send some rain our way.
My Monday wasn’t so great, 'cause I had jury duty today. I was picked, but only had to hear one case, yay. (Public intoxication)
That’s all the excitement in my life so far. Oh yeah, I’m going to the laundromat in a few minutes. Lucky me.
Sneezy
See, there’s more to it than you thought. Once a recipe reaches three or more steps, it becomes a complicated recipe. Boiled (or “bald” as we say down south) peanuts are good eats. Even if somebody who shall be nameless says otherwise. 
It’s important to let em cool. The boogers are real hot when they get done. Fingers can get burned. They also added to the general overall juvenility of last Saturday’s doin’s. In addition to many <snerks> about butt and weinies, there were many <snerks> about goobers. Sad to say, sophistication does not run very high at most of the parties at the swampcave.
It stopped raining for now. It won’t be for long though. The clouds are black lookin’ and just full of more rain. I should go check the pool and maybe drain a couple inches out of it just in case. Can’t have water getting over the top of the skimmer, now can we?
I just made a delicious dinner of sausage & peppers. But that’s not the exciting part. The exciting part is…
the peppers were fresh, from my own garden! Woohoo! They were so good and yummy…
Since you are harrassing swampy about boiled peanuts, Rue, I will assume that Katcha survived the first day of kindergarten and was not eaten by bears. So, did he like it?
I,too, was coming in to harrass swampy about boiled peanuts since the recipe is pretty much “Boil peanuts. Don’t forget the salt.” So they have to be green? A mere technicality. (On preview, I see you’re trying to defend yourself, swampy, but it really boils down to [tee hee] two steps and is therefore not complex.)
Did anyone else notice that it was only the Canadians who objected to school starting before Labor Day? Does Canada even celebrate Labor Day in September? I thought everyone but the good ol’ USofA celebrated it May 1. Not that I think starting school before Labor Day is acceptable and/or normal. I thought there was an immutable law dictating that the start of school in the US follow Labor Day. Somewhere along the line, they changed that law.
sneezy, sounds like you got the short version of Rue’s questionnaire. I also enjoyed Rue’s response. I think tacking it on to the Little Woman’s response would have been the equivalent of me fullfilling my dream of writing a joke performance appraisal and the actual, official version. Someday, I’ll have the time. ::Le siiiiigh::
Ashes is back!! (OK - you were here last week, but awful quiet. Now it sounds like you’ve ingested the normal dose of that caffeine you deny ingesting.)
Oh, and Lissla too!!! Sounds like you were subjected to far more stress than you deserved. Three cheers for Quasi Daughter!!! And after you give her cake, could you send her over here? My refrigerator still needs to be more organized.
Weekend was much calmer than the previous 2 as I was by myself. Alone. In my house. Well, actually I went out quite a bit, but it was all voluntary. Also, I have about 100 baby coleuses and begonias for a plant give-away in September. Don’t ask. Also, I am baby-sitting about 100 other plant starts. Again, don’t ask.
Haven’t had dinner yet, so I’ll stop babbling. For now.
GT
Missed your exciting news!!! Yay!!! Aren’t fresh peppers wonnnnderful?
GT
And what would the official reaction be if you applied removeable wall additions to the cubicle demi-walls? Physical and aural dividers? Just a thought.
Not hard to find or make so they look commercially manufactured. 
Hey, my kid excelled at Stage Crew in the Drama Department and she is now in her second year at Cornell. Not that she got a scholarship for it, because we are not Needy enough, but still. Do not diss the Stage Crew. They can see in the dark and know how to create feedback and play hell with your spots if you do. You want to find your props when you need them, don’t you? And have that chair you’re supposed to drop into in the right place when you drop, eh?
I hope your kid survived kindergarten. We do not have the bear problem here so much, though the centipede thing can be touchy. Better if they don’t wear shoes.
Also, I would like to note that I now want boiled peanuts.
Tomorrow I’m going to make Butter Chicken, with real (from a jar) butter chicken sauce. I’m a great cook.
I’m also **on vacation[/b! Yay!
Driving Husband will probably be over soon. I should cook something.
Back in the very dark ages, (around 1965) when I was in the Air Force, one of the civilians I worked with made them at work. Swampy, baby, sweety, you know I would never say or do anything to hurt you. Also, I’d hate to upset you, so cover your eyes while I say something to eveyone else, Ok?
To the best of my recollection, boiled peanuts are perfectly gross!
Flipping through my Burnout Manual to see what I’ve written.
Either Soupo’s teacher is fresh meat on the frontlines or this letter is a CYA procedure.
Wonder how human beings discovered that elephants like peanuts.
NO FAIR!!!
Rue wasn’t supposed to post until Tuesday! And then, what do I find? Two freaking pages to read, and now I’ll be late to work.
You people have no consideration.
Sinuses? Mine were once a mite full’n’blocked up and I happened to be taking a shower using a gel/shampoo that I’d never tried before but got talked into by my hairdresser (who, in my defence, was a babe and could have sold fridges to Eskimos, as long as they were straight Eskimos; and in passing I find it odd the way the typical straight man’s instinct to please babes functions in spite of the statistical 0.00% to fifteen DPs’ chance of gettin’ some. Anyway), and my sinuses seem to have gone “Ick! Smelly!” and started secreting like crazy in spite of there being no way to vent. I though the little feckers were going to explode. Ow.
I very seldom moan in pain in the shower.
As to bear insurance, it’s my perception that bears are extremely tough and capable and all-around generally in as little need of insurance as any of God’s little lifeforms. Besides, I wouldn’t want to try and collect the premia (looks around to see if anyone noticed the plural form). I’m open to correction, natch.
Boiled peanuts are one of those southern foods I’ll never understand. They are, as you say, all smooshy and yucky. Peanuts are much better roasted, which ain’t all that tricky either. Boiling peanuts just messes up good peanuts.
Something else I don’t get is hush puppies. What in hell is the point of those things? Is bread not good enough for you people? Sorry, I forgot; decent Italian bread isn’t available south of New Jersey. I’m starting to notice a kind of soft, gooshy pointlessnes theme to southern food, and I’m sure I’m not alone.
Don’t get me started on that “cream gravy” stuff. Its predicated on a vile lie, fer cryin’ out loud - there’s no cream in it, and it ain’t gravy. Cream gravy, sawmill gravy, country gravy, whatever you call it it’s unnecessary and disgusting. Look, chicken fried steak is a wonderful invention. It gives you a way to use up all that cube steak (read: hamburger stuff make up of odd scraps and gristle you otherwise wouldn’t eat) and it’s quite tasty. Why on earth would anybody take something decent like that and screw it up by slathering it with that nasty, disgusting “gravy”? It’s disgusting. And nasty.
Weirdos.
Obviously I need to teach people how to cook. One cannot eat chicken fried steak without sawmill gravy. It simply is not done. Hushpuppies, if done right, are little bites of cornmeal and onion crunchy goodness. Boiled peanuts must be allowed to cool down a bit before eating, then they are not mushy. I feel as if I am surrounded by Philistines and I left my slingshot at home.
The sky looks all tornado-like. I don’t like that. Plus it was way too warm at 4:30 AM, when I awoke and walked out on my backporch. It should not be 83F at that time of morning ever. The last time that happened we had horrible storms and tornados all around the place. I do not like it at all!
Sorry to be crabby earlier. I should have known that I had the solution right here in my own power. I just click my shoes together three times, er, not that solution.
I just wait until I get to work before reading! Then I’m not late.
But it is so hard when you see a Rue story to wait…must have willpower…