No kidding…

Sometimes as a family we find ourselves having pretty ludicrous conversations.  Yesterday at lunch, we found ourselves talking about what would happen if two different creatures of similar species managed to procreate together.  You know, like when a male donkey mates with a female horse.

  Eventually, out comes a mule.

How this conversation came about is that Carrie was trying to recall the acronym for remembering biological classifications.   And how that thread started, I can’t dredge out of my grey matter.  I would need more than acronym to summon that from the recesses.

Anyhow, the acronym for remembering biological classifications usually starts with the words “King Phillip.”  For example, King Philip Came Over For Good Soup (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.)  Another one Evan found on the Interweb was “King Philip Can Often Find Good Sex.”  King Philip was quite the guy, apparently, rather a randy gourmand.

So one thing led to another and we found ourselves wondering what would happen if a human mated with a chimpanzee, since chimps are our closest relatives in the animal world.  Apparently, according to some website or another, we Hales weren’t the first to think of that possibility and the offspring has been named even though it has not yet existed that we know of.  A Human/Chimpanzee is apparently going to be a Manpanzee once someone manages to get man and chimp together.  Then, letting our imaginations go wild, we decided that if Olive, the pug, fell in love with a chimp, she would have a Pugpanzee.  Personally, I think it is a good thing that Olive has been spayed.

We decided that though it would be very tall, the Giraffe/Human variation wouldn’t really make a good basketball player because they would be more neck than leg.  But we liked the name:  Girman.

Then there’s the Manoose, that is Man with Moose and the Manilla, that is Man with Gorilla.  One of those could also be called a Gorman.  My particular favorite is the Humantelope – Human and Antelope, of course.  And there’s the Mankey – Human and Monkey.

Oh!  (I almost forgot) the Humanatee!  That is the Human and the Manatee together at last.  Greg’s contribution.

Well, it’s a good thing we finished eating because it could go on and on and on…   But when you really think about it, we humans, as “intelligent” beings, will probably possess the ability to make some of those combinations possible in the future.  It will kind of make the question about what came first, the chicken or the egg, rather irrelevant.

But speaking of eggs, we got home on Wednesday afternoon to find a dozen eggs on our doormat, a gift from our neighbors the Caldwells who raise and nurture chickens.  We have some great neighbors of the purely human variety!

Textures are us....

I decided to jump on the texture bandwagon today and join Texture Tuesday at the Kim Klassen cafe.  It's fun playing with texture.  

And while I'm at it, why not hook up to Tuesday Muse at A Rural Journal?

Eggies: a photo essay…

On one of our recent plane trips, I came across a description of the product Eggies in the Sky Mall Magazine.  The idea of it blew me away.  I could have hardboiled eggs for breakfast without having to deal with the shell.  I like having a hardboiled egg for breakfast but picking the shell off before my second cup of coffee is not the best.  Intrigued, I put it in the back of my mind to go on their website when I got home.  Of course, I forgot.

But the other day, I had to stop at Bed, Bath & Beyond to pick up a new shower curtain liner and there they were.  I think that this is the “Beyond” that the store is talking about…Eggies!  I threw caution to the wind and picked up a box of Eggies.

In case you want to buy Eggies yourself, this is the box to look for.

And here it is:  An Eggie.  It consists of four parts.  A bottom and a top and a screw thing to hold them together and then a little lid to keep the water out.

Then you need eggs.  I used large, brown, cage free eggs for my Eggies, but I think any egg would do.  

The next step, after you have your eggs ready and your Eggie assembled, is to crack the eggs and try to get them to go into the hole at the top of the Eggie.  Depending on the size of your yolk, this can be a challenge.  Sometimes you have to kind of poke the yolk through the hole and the white runs down the side of the Eggie a bit.  Also, it is a good thing if you can try not to get any shell in through the hole.  I was about 85% successful.

Next the filled Eggie goes into a pot of warm water.

Next you have to boil your Eggies until they are done.  Here they are boiling away happily.

Finished Eggies.  I’m pretty sure either I didn’t get one of my screw thingys on tight enough or I didn’t clean the egg white off the side of the Eggie well enough but that’s why they don’t look so neat.

Loosened and released, this is what your hardboiled egg looks like.  They do come out flat on one side.  Okay, so they aren’t really pretty but they taste fine.  I am planning to do some experimenting in the future.  Apparently, you can season them before you cook them.  A fine idea for a busy morning!