Last night in a completely random move we put some chicken wings on the grill.
(Wings tossed in salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder. Cooked over hardwood chunk charcoal. Then dipped in either Famous Dave's Carolina bbq or the hot version of Cowntown sauce.)
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And now, for the rest of the story....
Ironically, the chicken wings are actually part of our efforts to get the new kittens on a raw diet. One little guy puts away a whole wing to himself while his brother still only eating meat if pulled off bone. As I was getting a couple out to defrost I was like..."Hey, these are perfectly good food." So a bunch more went into the defrosting bowl of water.
Yesterday was also a new stage of life around here. Our financial situation changed drastically as the GF came home by 8:10am. Texted me that the hospital had shut down her lab, effective immediately, everyone go home. (Nothing sinister, just that the lab wasn't making the money they had hoped.) So, while we have both been seriously talking about funding the next step in our lives, and just how much this current job might kill me from stress...now, we have to re-evaluate.
There I am out cooking up the wings on the grill while the GF in house prepping a mozzarella/fresh tomato/fresh basil salad. I say outloud, "You do realize we are eating cat food right?" Then I started to laugh. The laugh went a little dark, and according to the GF it went on WAYYYYY too long. She even was like, "Uhm, that's kinda scary."
Turns out, I had completely inadvertently tapped into a childhood neurosis my mother had trained me on. My mother, a divorced mother of three working as hard as she could, had a fear. Something, that at the time I just heard, it never 'caused' fear in me. She was constantly saying that 'we'll be reduced to living off cat food'. Or if it wasn't us it was the stories of 'all the old ladies who are so broke they have to eat cat food'.
To my mom, using my now adult brain with some analytical skills, that was the symbol of ultimate failure. That was when you had screwed up everything so badly (it was implied that this was caused, not that it just happened) that you had completely wasted your life. That (as Catholics it was also implied) you had squandered your chances and wasted everything.
So, there you go. Some simple little chicken wings, on a grill. At the right time in your life...can really F'n screw with your head!!!!
No worries there. Sounds like your cats are eating better than some people I know.
I had already planned on giving paella a try in it sometime, but now that I see it can be done I most certainly will!
