Lizard and goat cheese laundry...

I know...2 posts in one day...but, I have a lot to share...

When I was walking home in the rain from Snap Snap Friday evening...I found my stomach growling. Because of the clouds and the drizzle, instead of the smells from every one of the restaurants I walked by instantly evaporating, it was being held close in...the tendrils of garlic, spices, and fish wrapping themselves around my nose gently trying to pull me into their respective eateries. I felt like I was in a huge kitchen, and found myself composing gourmet meals in my head. I also knew full well that I had a counter top loaded with onions, squash, chilies, avocados, and potatoes at home, just begging me to cook them...they've been begging me for quite some time now.

In fact, every time I do the dishes, I look at them all just staring up at me daring me to eat them before they go bad...

Knife in hand, music in the background found me dicing up one purple onion, a sweet potato, and yellow squash and tossing them all into a pan with olive oil and the tips of some hot red peppers Megan gave me last week...I also added some Braggs liquid aminoes and spices, and cooked them all together.

The purples, oranges, yellows and whites of these veggies were the most amazing fall color combination...and filling the waiting taco shells made me feel all comforted, and taken care of (even though the picture doesn't quite show it...)

I also topped each taco with raw goats cheese and popped them in the oven to bake for about 20 minutes on a low heat. When the cheese was melted and tacos nice and hot and baked, I pulled them out, filled them up the rest of the way with tomatoes and avocado...

And Voila! Dinner...

It was good, nutritious and filling...but I have a small confession to make. I think goats cheese taste like armpits. I know that this may suggest that I have actually tasted an armpit...but that's not true. I also know I'm supposed to be all evolved and Goats cheese is supposed to be all gourmet and fantastic, and yet...it's so armpitty. I actually only bought the cheese because my mother had just been raving about raw sheep's cheese, and I thought it was the same thing...only realizing after I got it home and bit into a big armpit, that I misunderstood...Sheep. Not Goat.

Damn.

And it wasn't cheap...so I am making myself eat it because I don't want to waste my money or good edible food.

Armpit or no.

While folding my laundry I decided that I would finally change my Spring/Summer duvet and pillows over for my Fall/Winter duvet and pillows (since officially Fall was earlier this week) and noticed there's a largish lizard in my washing machine.

Seriously.

It scared me to death.

Only now? I don't know what to do. I obviously can't move forward on the washing, but I can't get it out...because, I am afraid to touch it. The lizard and I are having a stand off apparently. I keep wondering how it got in there in the first place, and I keep going down and checking to see if it's found it's way out...and now I'm going to have to try to bribe Rich or someone else to come over and rescue me. Either that or put some sort of lizard approved ladder for it to climb up.

Maybe I can lure it out with some goats cheese...

**Update**

The lizard it outside! So, I thought I would put on some thick gloves and grab it and try not to scream as I felt it writhe around in my hand...and then I thought maybe if I put a piece of material in the washer it would climb out...but then there would be a lizard running around in my house. Then I thought if I put a pillowcase in there, it would climb in and then I could scoop it up and take it out.

Well, I put the pillowcase in there and opened it, and then chased the little guy around the agitator with a rolled up sock (lots of dirty laundry being involved here if you noticed) and it climbed right in! Holy crap!! I scooped it up and listened to it scrabble around in the pillowcase with it's tiny lizard toenails and took it outside to dump it out...and then it got stuck in the extra flap, and I thought, heck...it will crawl out eventually...but what if it doesn't? So, I figured out where it was and I finally got it out! SO...I saved the lizard, it's no longer in my house...and the laundry is washing as we speak...and I hope when I take it out to put it in the dryer there's not another lizard in there...because I will just scream.

Oh...And, I met the most extraordinary person tonight at the shop! I stayed open a little longer than I normally do because I had some things to finish up...and in walked Robert, and we started chit-chatting and that lasted a long while (because you might as well know that I can talk the ear off a lamp post) it was a delightful way to end a rough week. If you come to check out the blog Robert...thank you for reminding me that there's still magic in the world, and how lucky I am to meet such amazing people.