Of Chickens and Eggs

Are Diamonds Really a Girl's Best Friend?

Or is a girls best friend the person that gives the diamonds? Diamonds are nice, especially when they arrive with a promise....awwwwwwww. My friend Bumble popped the question to his matchdotcom girl, and she said yes. Here's a snap of the ring he emailed me with.

Oh Bumble you done good.

Normally I'm ever the cynic when it comes to engagements but not this time. I'm thrilled for them both and hope they have a wonderful, long healthy life together. And Bumble...Welcome back to the wonderful world of blogging!

You can Take the Girl Out of California

I've said it before but it bears repeating, I'm a city girl living in the sticks. And I'm not going to suggest that California didn't have it's share of rural areas, because it did. I just didn't live there. I lived and grew up close to San Francisco. I'm probably one of the few people that could relate to the movie Colma the Musical on a personal level. I did however have the benefit of growing up in an Italian neighborhood, and they raised chickens, rabbits and other small creatures the law at the time allowed. All which were painstakingly, but lovingly prepared in the stove located in garage, because no self respecting Italian woman would risk dirtying the oven in the kitchen. People might see that! The kitchen was for show, like the living room, except it wasn't hermetrically sealed in plastic.

Now I was a kid then, and paid little attention because my parents bought their chicken, eggs and other items from the grocery store. As I got older the laws changed and the chickens, rabbits and other small creatures disappeared from the neighborhood. However I digress.

Yesterday, I went to our local market to pick up a few things. The usual, milk, eggs, rice....things on sale. I came home to find our local "egg lady" standing in my driveway. She proclaimed the hens were laying and she had too many. "Damn" I muttered under my breath, and quickly explained that I already bought eggs. Undetterred she started pulling my bags out of the back of the van and carried them to the front door as though running a sprint. Silently I cursed myself since now I'd have to invite her in, as I made my way to the door.

Naturally she followed me into the house, sitting the bags ontop of the kitchen table, then she started pulling things out, putting them away. My head then was ready to explode because I HATE that with a passion. I know, she was just being helpful, but it just grated on my nerves. Then she took out a dish from the cabinet (after opening and closing several) and started putting the eggs I just bought inside it and left it on the counter.

All the while she never stopped chatting about how they were getting a new goat, and about the chickens, most of which I tuned out. I reached for the eggs and put them into the fridge (they wouldn't fit on any shelves but I figured I'd deal with that later when I heard her ask in an incredulous tone, "whatever are you doing that for?" "Ummm," I stammered, "I always put eggs in the refrigerator."

For craps sake woman, my mother put her eggs in the refrigerator, as did her mother before her, before that the freaking fridge hadn't been invented yet!

"Why?" she asked in the same tone, "they don't come out of the chicken's butt cold." I changed the subject and having put all the groceries away, she asked about the eggs but I politely refused. She left, saying she'd try the people down the street. After she departed and I breathed a sigh of relief I briefly pondered the subject of eggs and chickens. Not about which came first but about other perplexing notions. Like do eggs really come out of a chickens butt? Or do they pop out somewhere else, I know nothing about chicken anatomy for all I know they could come out their mouths, but if Foghorn Leghorn cartoons are right, they sit on the eggs. I would assume they come out that way. But like women, isn't there another hole? Thanks to Google, I now know in fact there is only one exit area on a chicken. I'll probably never think of chickens the same way again.

The second question that came to mind, which is much more important, must they be refrigerated? That's a little more difficult to answer half the websites say yes, the other half say no, there's lots of anecdotal evidence saying they don't but I'm not so sure that applies to eggs you buy at the store.

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