Last call for the next Triffid Ranch lecture

We’re looking at a pretty good chance for desperately needed rain tonight and tomorrow. With luck, tomorrow should be dribbly, drizzly, and potentially torrential. What better weather, then, to come out to the Seagoville Public Library for a lecture on raising carnivorous plants in North Texas?

Infodump

Lots of interesting bits of information this day, so hang on:

Numero uno, the recent television interviews have scared quite a few online friends who’ve never heard my voice before now. Apparently, I don’t sound thuggish enough. To make matters worse, the Czarina and I are now being compared more often than before to a certain fictional power couple:

Personally, I’m extremely insulted. My eyebrows are white, not red. Besides, although the Czarina looks really good in a pillbox hat, her voice is much deeper than this. (And that sound you just heard was of the Czarina’s elbows sliding out of their sheathes, drooling venom on the floor.)

Numero two-o, never knock serendipity. At the same time that Tillamook reminds us all that it’s National Vanilla Milkshake Day, I got into quite the interesting discussion with an Armenian co-worker at the Day Job about vanilla versus mesquite flavorings. She knew as much about the historic uses of mesquite as most of my fellow Americans, which began and ended with using mesquite wood for meat smoking. With that in mind, it’s time to drag out the ice cream maker, pick up a bottle of mesquite bean syrup, and try mesquite ice cream as an alternative to vanilla. (The plan, in a few years, is to have enough greenhouse space to grow a Vanilla tahitiensis orchid for my own personal use. If you’ve ever seen the stunning V. tahitiensis on display at Gunter’s Orchids in Richardson, you’ll understand why this is such a tall order. Much like a Vanda orchid, Vanilla is a vining indeterminate orchid, and those vines grow to be as big around as a man’s leg. When someone asks about buying one from Gunter’s, the crew asks “How many feet do you want?”, and cuts off a suitable segment for home rooting.)

Numero three-o, you know you’re charting odd terrain when Popular Science magazine gets involved in the discussion of the hottest pepper in the world. Personally, as addicted as I am to hot peppers, I just remember when the 2011 ZestFest ran in Irving last January, and the publisher of Chili Pepper magazine had to be hospitalized for a reaction to too much Bhut Jolokia. It’s a tough call as to whether having a quote from one of the great philosophers of the Twentieth Century on your crematory urn is a compliment or an insult.