Tin Foil Hat Cat

Dear Fat Pete & Princess Normal,

Tonight I got to do some cooking! Well, sort of. You see, Er Indoors & me went over to Mom & Pop's for another farewell dinner. And Mom always likes it that I'm eager to lend a hand in the kitchen.

Princess and Pete, as good cooks yourselves, you would have loved it. Mom is like poetry in motion in a kitchen and she just knows how things work and "eyeballs" ingredients. Me, I have to taste and measure, measure and taste. Not only was she making our dinner, she was also making a SECOND dinner for her elderly mother who lives with them. And is quite demanding.

Mom's mom popped out at one point. "I don't like cumin," she complained.

"You're not GETTING cumin mommy," replied Mom, "that's for our guests".

"Jesus Christ, that woman can smell spices from fifty feet away," Mom muttered to me.

The cumin was for our taco mince. Mom had that all cooked and ready, and was just whipping up some salsa. This was to go into some ready-prepared taco bowls she had made. She had used a taco-bowl-mold and told me you just shove a regular tortilla in there and bake it at 140c for about 10 minutes.

She then crumbled some tortilla chips (about a handful) and put them in the bottom of the bowl, to stop the bottom going soggy. This was followed by some grated cheese, then salsa, then more grated cheese, then the mince, then sour cream and lettuce.

She made it look so easy. And it was beautiful. And you get to EAT THE BOWL. I loved it. I'm going to have to do it myself. Also I was having great fun in the kitchen with Mom. She gave me an apron she had stolen from her time working in B&Q - so I got to swan about in an apron that said, "Hi! My Name Is M....!" on it.

Needless to say, Er Indoors got a picture.

For dessert, it was banana splits, which were equally amazing, loaded with coconut milk ice-cream and fruit and Mom's homemade vanilla essence. (Just lots of vanilla pods sitting in vodka to make it apparently).

I do hope you two are taking notes. I certainly was.

After that it was back to Pop and Er Indoors, who were helping by sitting in the living room and staying out of the way. They were watching "Archer" and Mom explained that, until she watched the show, she didn't know what a snowball was.

"I mean, I know what a snowball is. I just didn't know what a 'SNOWBALL' is."

We knew what she meant. And then she explained to us what it means.

Seriously. You don't want to know. No matter how disgusting you think it might be, it's actually worse. Step away from urbandictionary.com.

Er Indoors then piped up. "Do you know what a 'monkeyface' is?" she asked. Someone in the office, "who lives in Fife" had told her.

And then she described a practice so utterly foul, depraved and revolting that you wonder how people in Fife breed.

Moving on from such topics, Mom & Pop railed against President Honey-Boo-Boo and speculated as to where he might go from here. Mom is hopeful that he and his entire hateful brood will go down but worries where things will go next. It was time to move on to a lighter subject: cats.

Mom's cat Zuzu, has found a toad in their back yard and loves pulling it out from its home under the shed and tormenting it. This led Mom to rush out there a couple of days ago and shouting out loud in front of her neighbours, "WILL YOU STOP MOLESTING THAT TOAD?!?"

"Gosh, I hope that's not a thing on urbandictionary.com as well," I said.

"It would explain the looks I get from the neighbours these days," replied Pop. "Oooh, you're into 'molesting the toad' are ya?"

Er Indoors described our boys. She described Jasper as very un-cat-like, which is fair. He is rubbish at catting. He just doesn't know how to cat. He can't catch things, he's not very good at cleaning himself, and he looks like he would appreciate a stepladder instead of having to JUMP up on things all the time.

"He's like this fat, hairy little man who lives with us," said Er Indoors. Meanwhile, she described Punky as "the sort of person who would wear a tin foil hat."

This is also fair. Nervous of everyone, and suspicious of everything, Punky would undoubtedly live in a trailer in the desert if he were a person. He would sniff suspiciously at mice and only eat them if he were sure they didn't contain implants from the NSA.

Mind you, Pop is a bit like that himself. He loves and knows technology but does not trust it in the hands of governments and bureacrats. So it was with great reluctance that he conceded to a selfie with Mom, Er Indoors and me at the end of the evening.

It had been requested by an old friend of all of ours in Australia. She wanted to know how we were all doing and how we looked now. And - as you might have gathered - Pop never publishes his picture on the net.

But he sighed and gave in. He'd always had a soft spot for Aussie Jo, and anyway, Er Indoors promised that it would be sent in a private mail only and NOT put on social media.

And so, all you get for today is a picture of our Tin Foil Hat Cat. I could have posted that picture of Mom & Pop but then I'd have had to kill you. And you two have taco bowls to make.

S.