Baking for Venom One

It's been a busy bunch of days. I've been doing a lot of writing and typing, so forgive the long silences.
All my babies are doing wonderfully, they all ate this past Friday (except for Barbossa.
Tomorrow I'll be doing something quite interesting. My sister bought me two baking molds, one in the shape of an alligator and the other one of a snake, so I'm going to bake some cookies for the Venom One team. If you don't know who these people are, my Gods you are missing out! They are the division of the fire department that will come to your rescue if you get bitten by a venomous snake. They fly to anywhere in the country, toting antivenin, ready to see you through the horrible experience.
Apart from that, I've also adopted two of my snakes from Lisa, a member of the unit. She gave me CocoRosie, my darling, and Coral, my lightning bolt.
So, yes, I'll be sending them some yummy cute stuff to eat. I have to remember to double or triple the recipes I use. They are fire-fighters, after all.

Reluctant Reptile

I am going to attempt something crazy with Barbossa tonight. My sister was mandated to get two live pinkies instead of just one and I will try to tempt reluctant reptile to eat. He can't possibly be afraid of a pinkie, right? Stay tuned and find out.

We might be acquiring a gecko that has gout. He needs a home and people who will give him his medication (which he has to take for the rest of his life). I have no problem with taking care of him, on the contrary, but I asked my sister to make sure he is stable and that he eats regularly, because I don not want a tragedy on my hands. not after Maat. So we'll see. My mom has seen it and she says he is adorable.

Responsibilities

My sister came yesterday with the news that one of the snakes at the center where she works is starving. STARVING. In captivity. It boggles my mind how something like this can happen. Well, maybe not so much because I know who runs the reptile division. The young man (I won't name names although I should) has said many times, and I quote "I hate reptiles". And yet, no one fires him, no one asks him for his feeding schedules, which is good for him because he doesn't keep any, no one does anything. Two snakes have already died in his care. How many more of them does it require for his supervisors to take charge of the situation?
My sister comes day after day, week after week telling me "well, he left without feeding them today" and I seethe at the words. I get stomach-aches of guilt if I am one day late in feeding my babies. We are keeping them in cages with the hope that we can give them safer lives, we trade freedom for steady meals. I just...I don't understand the mistreatment. If you don't care one iota for the poor creatures, then quit.
I told my sister that if they want, I can take care of the starving snake for a few weeks until she is back to the right weight, but I doubt they'll allow that. I have a freezer full of mice and patience by the bucket-full to coax her back into eating.

*whoo* Deep breath.

My precious ones are all doing beautifully (except for Ms. Coral who remains MIA). Topkapi has shed and looks like a movie star, Catherine Zeta-Jones style, while Barbossa is still mid-way through the process.
I took Damascus out yesterday and he is looking so chunky. Beautiful. I just want to snuggle against him, but he pulls back in disgust, a "human, away!" look in his eye.
Oh, well I must manage with my unrequited love.

Happy Halloween!

Today's the day when ghosts and ghouls come out to play. I hope you have enough candy stocked up!
Today is my favorite day of the year. There's just something about Halloween that makes me supremely happy. It is the Pagan new year, Samhain (pronounced Sow-in), that's part of it, but it also has a naughty gaiety about it that is truly enjoyable.
I am dressing up as Cleopatra and my sister is going as a glitzy Robin Hood, with sequins and everything.
I've been trying to figure out a costume for at least one of the snakes, but you have no idea how hard it is to fashion one when the model has no arms or legs!

I had to feed Topkapi last night because Friday she refused the mouse I offered her. Since I had attempted to give it to Coral, it obviously had her smell on it. Topkapi was shocked. How dare I give her a secondhand mouse?! As soon as she took one whiff of it she retreated into her hiding spot and nothing would tempt her to eat. Yesterday, however, with a brand new mouse she had absolutely no problem.
These animals are seriously spoiled.

Norse God

So yesterday, when my sister came home from work, she brought a little surprise with her. Yes, I've got another baby snake! A beautiful baby corn snake who is now sharing a cage with Maat. He is a little bit bigger that she is, but they are getting along fabulously, and actually, Maat seems incredibly interested in him. Hopefully, when she sees him eat she'll be tempted to follow suit.
His name is Odin. We don't really know if he really is a male, but for now, we'll give him that name. My sister named him. Since we already have an Egyptian goddess, why not add a Norse god into the mix?

He was brought to the wildlife center because he was "too aggressive". OK, this animal is not aggressive, but if you don't know how to handle snakes correctly, then yes he can can get frisky. The family had bought it for their young kid (mistake number one) and the poor snake kept biting him or her.
Snakes are not kid-friendly. At least not for regular kids. If the child is patient and careful, and most importantly, LOVES snakes, then sure, it could work out well. But if the kid just wants a pet, get him something furry or fluffy that will be tolerant of children's behaviours. A snake most definitely will not.

Fear Tactics

I took Coral out last night. Mainly because I wanted to see her, but the fact that my sister is scared of her doesn't really hurt. It's quite amusing, because she is not usually scared of snakes, but my personal striped lightning-bolt makes her queasy. Something I take full advantage of whenever I get the chance.

My baby was her usual crazy self, lunging at everything. What I tell my sister is that Coral is a big bluffer. She might lunge at you, but her mouth is closed, she is not hissing and she doesn't attempt to bite. At all.
I'm on to her, so I just hold on while she squirms and does her fear-mongering routine. Now she's also gotten into the habit of moving the tip of her tail really fast, creating the sound of a rattle. You are not, nor will ever be, a rattlesnake Coral. Ever.

Musical Snake

Today's been a pretty dull snake day. I had a voice lesson this morning, so I didn't take Topkapi out. She was not too thrilled. but I made it up to her in the afternoon.
I took her out and placed her around my sister's neck while I finished some muffins I was making. She was playing the guitar (my sister, not the snake, although how cute would that be?) and Topkapi was extremely interested in the vibrations coming off the instrument. She kept stretching herself out to reach the strings. Adorable.

This is what I was baking:

Orange muffins

1/2 cup and 2 tbsp. butter
1 3/4 cups and 2 tbsp. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. orange zest
3 1/4 cups flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 1/4 cups orange juice

Beat butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, add orange zest. Sift lour, baking powder and salt together. Pour flour mixture in parts to the butter mixture, alternating with the orange juice.
Pour into prepared muffin pans. Bake at 350 F. for 20-25 minutes.

Ducky

I just came back from a voice lesson. Jesus I am tired.
Tomorrow I have another one and then I'm heading over to see the concert of one of my teacher's students.
Which means I won't be able to feed my snake babies tomorrow. And THAT means that there will be a lot of reptilian attitude to deal with. Topkapi already thinks my feeding schedule is crap so she is not going to be ecstatic about a further delay. They are going to be sooo pissed.

So, my sister brought home a baby duck yesterday from the wildlife center. We are going to find him a momma duck who'll adopt him. He is just the cutest, noisiest, most huggable thing in the world. I'm a bit concerned that he'll get seriously imprinted on humans, but we're doing what we can. I can hear him peeping for attention as I write this. Must..resist...the...cuteness.

Religious Freedom

I went to see "The Last Exorcism" yesterday. I am a sucker for scary movies, if you haven't realized it by now. My sister wasn't working so I asked her if she wanted to go with me to the movies, but she sheepishly said no. She, on the other hand, is really terrified of scary movies. Fair enough. I went by myself.

Overall, I liked the movie. It is not nearly scary enough, but it is an interesting premise.
The main character, Reverend Cotton, was a child preacher who grew up so used to the whole idea of God that he found himself an adult lacking faith in his own preachings. He had performed tons of exorcisms, but believed in none of them. The whole movie is filmed documentary style, with an actual cameraman following the Reverend along while he tries to show the world that exorcisms are scams and that the people who perform them are frauds.
We follow him to a house in Louisiana, where a young woman has been supposedly possessed by a demon. I don't want to give anything away, beacuse it is a movie worth seeing, but there are several twists and turns that I, as the audience, didn't see coming and which were quite refreshing.
I was, however, a little disappointed at the ending. That's becoming kind of the norm these days, and I am left wondering why. In a lot of the books I've recently read and in a lot of the movies I've recently seen, the endings seemed to be thrown together at the last minute and held in place with clothepins. I can imagine the writers and directors praying to their respective gods that no one would blow too hard on their creations and unravel them.
The ending was crap, which sucked because I really liked the movie.
Something else that bothered me was the use of magical symbols in the ending scenes.
As a pagan, more specifically a ceremonial magician, I was a bit on edge when I saw pentacles and triquetras drawn on walls as symbols representing the devil and Satan worship. An upside-down pentacle is not a problem because that truly is the sign of Satanists, but when you put a right-side up one next to it, you're bashing my religion. I am not a Satan worshiper because I don't believe in Satan or Jesus. I respect everyone who does, however, and I would never go around misusing THEIR religious symbols.
Maybe I am being too picky, but my religion has been persecuted by every other religion for a very, very long time, and I don't think we need to give the Christian and Jewish fanatics out there more ammunition. They already call us Satan worshippers, blasphemers, evil, damned, etc. I have people making the sign of the cross at me when I go walking around my neighborhood with my pentacle on. Why should I be accosted like that when they get to wear their crosses and Stars of David whenever and wherever they want?
Please do your research before you use one of our symbols.
Thus ends MY preaching.

Reasons for Sibling Homicide

I'm going to kill my sister.

OK, you probably need a bit more information. For a few days now, pretty much since the commercials started, she's been bugging me to go see "Vampires Suck". She wore me down and I agreed to go see it. I had to go to the library yesterday, so I invited her to go afterwards.
I just...I don't know where to begin. It's a bit hard to make fun of the Twilight movies because they are ridiculous all on their own, so I really can't blame the parody too much. But seriously, did this movie really need to exist? I could have happily lived out the rest of my life without having experienced it. Again, the same goes for the whole Twilight thing.
And people were actually laughing all the way throughout! It was not funny, none of it! Halfway through I was seriously considering how I could manage to hit myself unconscious so the time would pass quickly.
I will give my sister credit in that she also did not laugh once. As soon as the credits began she and I made a bee line for the door, regardless of the little clips in between the names. That, at least, calmed my urge to throttle her for making me sit through that.
The one thing about the movie that was moderately amusing was how the main actress did a perfect imitation of Kirsten (or however the hell you spell her name) Stewart's psychotic mannerisms.

Please, I urge you, do not, I repeat DO NOT see this movie.

Awwww...

Maat has shed and she looks impossibly cute. I can't get enough of looking at her beauty and gawking like a moron at how precious she is. I tried again today with a pinkie and still nothing, I will try again a few hours from now and if she doesn't take it I'll get my sister to bring a cricket from the wildlife center when she goes to work on Sunday. Sometimes baby corn snakes prefer crickets when they first start eating, the are smaller, easier for them to swallow, and it provides the same nutrients.
Tybalt ate his live pinkie yesterday without issue. I guess he is set on continuing my soul's progress to hell. Is it bad that it doesn't bother me quite as much anymore? I think it is.

Everyone else is dandy. Coral has been quite active for the past few days. I think she might be hungry since she did not eat last week. She'll get her mouse tomorrow, although I'm sure she would like it today. Sorry to disappoint, Coral.

Addition to Family

I have another snake! My mom came home today with Barbossa's mice and a tiny (I mean tiny), beautiful corn snake. She is shedding, but I can already see how gorgeous her coloring is and how sweet she's going to be. I say she, but I really don't know if my new baby is a female or male. When she gets older I'll sex her and fix the pronouns accordingly. No name yet, I'll try to pick one that can apply to either sex. She is sooooo cute!
Thank the Gods I had an extra tank, an extra lamp and thermometer and hydrometer that my sister got for me, so I was pretty much all set. I'll see if she can swallow the same fare that Talulah and Damascus eats, she looks so little, but she can probably handle it. I'll let her shed and get adjusted for a few days and then I'll try to feed her.

Yesterday, my sister and I went to see "Inception". It was very good. For the first half hour or so I was a bit concerned that the movie was going to be a lot of undoubtedly cool special effects, but nothing more. As the story progressed, however, it stopped being so much about visual as about plot, which made it a great movie. It can get pretty complex at points, I can imagine the writers with pulsing migraines while they thought it out. The ending is evil. Go watch it and I'm sure you'll agree.

Famous Snake

All the babies have hatched at the center. I think there were six of them in total, with two eggs that were not fertilized. My sister says that they are really feisty, striking at everything that moves around them. They still haven't shed, like most snakelings do, so they probably won't eat yet. Hopefully they are drinking water, though.
Yesterday, they had "Lizard Day" at the wildlife center, which is a day where you can bring you lizards and showcase them, with the chance of winning some fun herpetological prizes ie. heat lamps, magazine subscriptions, feeding tongs, etc. I didn't go because lizards are really not my thing. My sister was working so she got to see some cool monitor lizards and iguanas.
They are going to have "Snake Day" in August, and of course I will be there cheering for my ophidian friends. I never take any of my babies because they get needlessly stressed, but a lot of people take their beautiful, unique specimens in the hopes of winning "best in show". You get to see a lot of cool snakes.
Last year, Venom One brought a pair of black mambas in a huge cage so people could get relatively close to them. They were incredible. The year before, which is even cooler, they did a presentation with the black mamba that was in the movie "Kill Bill" (volume two, I think). A movie star snake!

I finished "The Swan Thieves" a few days ago. If you are interested in a review, head over to my other page by clicking on the link on the right called The Auburn Haired Magician.

Snakelings

My sister called a few hours ago to tell me that the first Burmese baby had hatched! She said he is very cute, green and brown. I wonder if any of the babies will be albino, like their daddy. I hope so.
Unfortunately, in the state of Florida you need a permit to have a Burmese python, so I can't get one. Otherwise, you can imagine how fast I would have made it to the center this morning.
It's so frustrating, especially when I know both of the parents and have handled the father quite a bit. Oh well, hopefully they go to good homes.

I just finished baking banana bread. It's a little different from the recipe I usually use, but I was getting a bit bored. This one uses more bananas.

Here's the recipe:

2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups mashed bananas

Sift flour, add baking powder, salt. In another bowl, beat butter and sugar. Add cinnamon, vanilla extract, eggs. Add the bananas. Mix well. Add the flour mixture, until just blended. Bake at 350 F. for an hour.

Amusing Children

I almost wrote autistic children. Jeez.

I went yesterday to help at the wildlife center. The snakes look a bit better than they did last time. Mostly, it's because my sister took it upon herself to arrange the cages so that they had more and better hiding spots. Nothing makes a snake more anxious than being constantly visible to anything that passes by their cage.
While I was cleaning, checking for feces, etc. a man and his two daughters walk up to the reptile hut and start looking at the snakes. At that moment I was working on the pine snake cage. The smallest girl asks me why I have keys and why I am opening the door to the cages. I told her that I was making sure everyone had water, was okay and had a clean cage. She seemed very interested. She asked me if the snake would see if she put her hat on (she had one of those really floppy sun hats), I told her no, the snake could not see the hat. She proceeded to put it on anyways, I guess to make sure I wasn't lying. Not bad, find things out for yourself, not because someone tells you it's so.
The older girl told me that she had seen a black snake, just like the Indigo that's in the center, I asked her, knowing how rare these snakes are, if it was as big as the one in the museum. Behind her, her father made a negating gesture with his head. She said, well, no not quite that big. It was very amusing.

Barbossa ate today. They were really crazy mice. One of them kept jumping all over the cage. Finally I had to grab him with the feeding tongs so that Barbossa could get him. Cruel, but it must be done.

Independence Day

I'm going to keep it short today because apart from being Independence Day, it is also my sister's birthday. She turned 22. Ha, she's old!
Wait...that makes me even older. Damn it.

I baked her a Sacher Torte using one of my grandmother's recipe, so I cannot share it. Sorry. But it turned out tasty, so it is a good recipe.
Barbossa also got his mice today, so he's having a good day.

Yesterday we watched "Shutter Island" and let me tell you that is one freaky movie. I highly recommend it, but it is a tough movie in more ways than one. Leonardo DiCaprio of course does a wonderful job, as usual, and so does Ben Kingsley as the head psychiatrist. It's a movie that looks predictable, but it really is not. It tricked us, and we're pretty quick at catching twists in movies. Watch it, you'll see what I mean.

Feeding Frenzy Friday Part 14

Everyone that was supposed to eat today, ate.
Coral decided that she needed to keep her coils wrapped around my hand while she ate, so I was sitting there with half her body loosely holding on to me, waiting for her to finish swallowing the mouse. At least she seems to trust me enough to let me touch her while she eats. Thank the Gods she is smart enough to know she doesn't need to constrict the mouse, because otherwise I would have had a few unpleasant moments with her coils. She's little, but if she can kill a mouse with the pressure, it's bound to hurt a bit.
I gave Damascus two mice to keep him happy, and he was greedily expecting the third one.

SO, they decided to put the carpet python down. Another vet saw her and found tumors in her head so it was deemed the right choice to euthanize her. Poor baby, but it is better than her starving to death.
There was a huge argument, a ridiculous one, between my sister and the "reptile keeper" (my disdain for this boy warrants the quotation marks). He wanted to skin the snake after she died. He's done it before, never successfully preserving the skin because he is an idiot who can't even read an instruction manual, but this time it really was ridiculous. He should not be allowed to keep the skin after NOT taking care of the animal while she was alive. He want to put it on display in the museum! How disrespectful is that to the poor snake! Let her rest in peace. But I really can't expect much from a guy who likes to go hunting. Ponder that for a second, someone who works at a wild animal rehabilitation facility likes to go shooting wild animals on his free time.
The hypocrisy is overwhelming.

Finally my sister won. Her skin will not be a trophy for the person who failed to take care of her. Some justice exists in the world.

Doors and Shops

That's Barbossa trying to get into my room. He doesn't realize just how big he is. He thinks "well, my head fits, so I'll be fine". I really have to keep an eye on him or he could get completely stuck, and then what the hell do I do? Can you imagine, taking the door off it's hinges so I can rescue Barbossa?
I actually had to do that, but with the library's closet door. That was when I first got him and I mistakenly thought he was a wise old snake and knew better that to try to get his big coils through a tiny, little, space. Thank the Gods it was only the closet door.

A bit of profile.

I had to bake the same cookies I baked last week, again yesterday. My sister insisted. They have become a favorite of hers, although she always tells me that none of the cookies are as good as the ones I made for Christmas years ago. These were chocolate and vanilla pinwheel cookies that I have not been able to reproduce, mainly because I have no idea where I got the recipe from. I have tried different pinwheel recipes for my sister to taste, but none of them compare to the mythical Christmas ones. I didn't taste them all those years ago (I rarely try what I bake), so I have no clue what I can add to make them the same. I know the recipe came from a magazine, probably one of my mom's Victoria or Country Living issues, but she has soooo many that I am daunted by the task of going through all of them. If any of you have great pinwheel cookie recipes, I'd be glad to try them out.
By the way, I have an Etsy account where you can order pretty much all I bake, even if it's not posted. My shop is called "Carabosse's Bakeshop", you can type it into Google and it comes up, or go directly to Etsy.
If you see something you like, in the shop or here in the blog, don't be shy, I don't bite...much.

Our Hot Saturday

Barbossa finished shedding yesterday, and he ate two mice with gusto. Right now, he is curled up in a wicker basket he has in his cage, sleeping off the meal. It's such a great feeling to have all my snake babies fed. Relief for an already anxious mind.

I still don't know what's going to happen to the carpet python that's in the center my sister works at. She has not eaten, but she is being walked every day. It's fantastic that she's getting the care that she needs, but now that she is moving around and burning calories she needs fuel. I gave my sister Pedialyte to take to work, but she's not sure if the snake drank any of it. What she really needs now is fluids injected into her system, but the "bosses" are not sure if that's the best option. No, letting an animal starve seems much better. Morons.
Apparently another vet checked her out and saw some black gunk in the poor snake's mouth, and she said "Oh, this doesn't look good". Period. No game plan, treatment options, nothing, she just made the observation a three-year-old could have made and then moved on to the next victim. Where's the protocol of swabs to be examined, blood-work drawn up? Isn't it a rehab facility, or am I hallucinating again?

Yesterday my sister and I were planning on going to the movies, but when we checked what was playing, we decided not to go to the mall. There really wasn't much worthwhile. She wanted to see "Get Him to the Greek", but since she would have had to knock me unconscious, gag me, and then drag me to get me in the theater to see it, she reconsidered. We stayed home and watched scary movies instead. Ha, I win.
We watched "The Wolfman", which we'd recently bought and had already seen. I think I'm getting old because I don't remember if I wrote anything about it. To be safe all I'm going to say is it's pretty good.
We also watched "The Exorcism of Emily Rose", which is one of my favorite scary movies. It's just very smart and different from your run-of-the-mill exorcism stories. It's also based on true events which makes it even freakier.

We also had a bit of trouble with our air-conditioner. It stopped working. Let me tell you, Miami heat indoors is not fun. We went to the pool to cool off, and then we had Coconut Mojitos. Jealous?
The air-conditioner is now fixed, thank the Gods.

Improvisations

I just came back from a voice lesson and I haven't had a chance to handle any of my babies yet. My teacher (an amazing one, by the way) wants me to put together a recital, to get me back on my feet again. It's been a while since I've performed, for more than one reason, but I trust myself enough to know that I will be just fine when I get up there. I know how to deal with performer's anxiety...and hopefully I did not just jinx myself. The last thing I need is to hear the introduction to a song and faint, or fall on the floor in a seizure. The drama...

Explain this to me, my sister has asked me to bake a pecan pie. In June. I bought all the ingredients yesterday, but I still can't get around the fact that she wants a pecan pie on the first day of summer. I don't have corn syrup, though, so I am going to make one that doesn't require it. Improvisation is one of my skills.

Barbossa has still not shed, and neither has Coral. She is still blessedly in her cage, and has not attempted to escape again. Really, I promise, her cage is not substandard at all. It is actually a beautiful one, with clean mulch and fresh water. What's the problem, Coral? I am really not that bad, you could do worse.

Ok, I was almost mauled by blue jays.
I was minding my own business, baking, when I see a big blue jay land on the ledge outside the kitchen window. I thought "ah, how cute". I kept going on with my business. After three or four times of this, I thought, either the bird smells the pie already or he's a spy contracted to track me down. Since I have not committed any crimes against the avian population, I went outside to see what was going on. Below the ledge we have a bush, and there was a little ball of blue feathers. A baby blue jay. I knelt down beside it and picked it up to make sure that is was fine. Of course, it let out a blood curdling cry that had the parents on me in less than a second. I got pecked all over. I examined the baby, and he seemed fine but was still too small to fly. I looked all around for a sign of a nest and nothing. If the baby were laying in a safer place I would have left it, but I knew that as soon as I let any of our dogs out it would be inside some one's mouth very quickly.
I went back inside, put on a hat, because being pecked in the head is not fun, and brought out a container to place him in. I think the parents would have torn me to pieces if they had been able. Granted, I was birdnapping their baby.
So now he is on the big table we have outside, in the container, where he is at least safer. I left food outside for the parents to eat and to feed to the baby, and I can see them and hear them from the computer. They are really not happy, but I think they and I would be a lot less happy if the baby was torn to shreds. We'll see what happens.