Hassenpfeffer

We spent Sunday working in the yard, and at the end of the evening, I dragged a tarp out into the future garden plot. The plan was to stake the tarp down and let it weaken the thick bermuda grass so that we have more of a chance of cutting through it to start our garden beds. As I was explaining my plan to MB, I noticed some weird fluffy gray stuff on the ground. I scuffed at it with my foot, and it started moving. I instantly knew what was up.

Meet Yard Bunny:


Yard Bunny came around every few days before Indiana moved in, and has been seen several times since Indy's homecoming. And now it seems that Yard Bunny has done her part to uphold the stereotypes about rabbits:



Yard Bunny is either the unluckiest rabbit in the neighborhood and had her babies in a yard that would soon belong to a dog, or she's dumb and had her babies in the yard even though Indy was already here. Either way, we have a nest of small, defenseless infant rabbits in a yard patrolled by a rambunctious dog. And to make matters worse, Indy was with us when we made the discovery, and his instincts were shouting, "I can haz bunneh sammitch?"

We hustled him back inside and hoped that he would forget about the juicy, juicy bunnies, but we knew there wouldn't be much chance of that. He did okay on Monday morning, and even Monday at lunch when he and I were out in the yard. And then, Monday night came around. MB and I let Indy out into the yard (against my better judgement) while we carried out a bunch of wine bottles I saved to recycle from a charity dinner at work.

Sacrificing our reputation for the sake of the planet.

When I finished with the recycling and went back into the yard, MB was standing in the garden plot, looking grim. "You don't want to come back here," he said. "You should go inside." Oh, God. "Is it dead?" I asked. "No," came the answer. Worse?

No, this was apparently the luckiest unlucky rabbit in the history of rabbits. Indy got one of the babies out of the nest while we weren't paying attention, but he didn't gobble it. He didn't bite it, maim it, pour A1 on it and chow down. He picked it up in his mouth a few times and dropped it, but when I got back there, it was definitely intact. Unfortunately, when a dog picks up a baby rabbit, the baby rabbit screams a high-pitched little scream. So now Indy is pretty sure we are hiding a nest of juicy, juicy squeaky toys in the backyard, and he loves squeaky toys more than any other toys in the whole wide world. Oy.

I tried picking up the tiny rabbit--barely larger than a mouse--with a paper towel, because I didn't want my manky human smell all over it in addition to the lovely aroma of our dog's slobber, but the little thing was so rubbery and limp that I couldn't be sure I was holding it gently enough. I finally abandoned the paper towel and just picked it up. It was so cold I was sure it was dead, but then it moved. I could see its delicate little claws and hamster-like paws. Its eyes were still closed tight, its fur a soft, fine dusting that only covered its top half. I saw the navel on its tiny naked belly. I did the only thing I could think of and tucked the baby back into the nest with the others, and covered the hollow with a handful of cut grass.

Evilducky had given me a good-sized roll of rabbit fence, designed to keep rabbits out of gardens, but it's all we had to put up to keep the rabbits in and the dog out.



This fence was just the thing. Indy has not been able to get at the juicy bunnies again, and when I checked on them after my Pilates class Tuesday evening, a new layer of insulating mama fur had been added to the top of the nest. I was so relieved. And then, as I was stepping over the fence to go in the house, I caught my toe on the top wire and totally bit it. Life really is a comedy.


Wiggly bunnies:  painfully adorable but hard to photograph

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria! *

Reading:  The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory

Playing:  the Decemberists mix I got from Heather Feather

This just in...

My pets are insanely cute:




Also, there's a new post over at the gardening blog.

One of the funniest videos I've seen on the internet in a while

An engineers' guide to cats:

Photo Friday

View the entire Photo Friday collection on Flickr.

lolkitters of the week

Click the photo to vote for Kitters!

View the collected weekly lolkitters on Flickr.

They were very clever, the ladies of the night *

Forgive me for my slackerness of late...raising a puppy is sort of kicking our asses. Don't get me wrong, we're loving it, but Indiana goes to bed at 9 PM and gets up to go for his first walk of the day anywhere from 5:00 to 5:15 AM, and thus, his humans are pretty beat by 9 PM and have to drag their wore-out selves out of bed at 5 or 5:15 in the morning. Mommy.

I honestly don't know how you parents of actual human children do this, man. I've got a somewhat lazy, pampered housecat and a rather clever dog. Should be easy, right? Except I turn my back for 30 seconds to get water for somebody, and when I turn around again, Kitters is winding up for a go at pounding Indy's head.

Since Indy seems a little young to spend an entire day alone with no potty breaks, I've been coming home at lunch during the week to let him out. It's super inconvenient and not great for my gas tank, but I find that the time with him is really enjoyable. I've always loved the feeling of moving against the flow as the rest of the world steadily goes forward with their regular workday. The half-hour Indy and I carve out of every day has started to be something I look forward to. We play a little fetch and work on his tricks, but mostly I stand around eating a sandwich while he rolls around in the grass and gnaws on sticks and snuffles at leaves and eats violets and just generally is the most doggish dog he can be.

Today I was struck with a weird contradictory set of feelings--sad that for two months this sweet, happy little guy had to sit in a cage all day at a shelter that was so understaffed they didn't even have dogwalkers, and that nobody picked him; and so very glad that nobody picked him so that we could. And I'm saying all this after he peed on the kitchen floor today while I was in the shower, so you know I really mean it.




Reading:  The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory

Playing:  the mix I made for Heather Feather

* One of the guys on Ghost Hunters said this tonight and I nearly fell over laughing.

This blessedness of life sometimes brings me to my knees *

Life has been pretty kickass these last few days. I spent Thursday and Friday at a wetlands education workshop with my friend S, which was a blast. Learned lots of cool stuff, met some cool people, and spent some time outside on two beautiful days. I came back feeling really recharged.

Adding to the fabulousness, there was an earthquake on Friday morning. As it was going on and I was waking up, I thought, "Damn, S's house shakes a lot in the wind." Then, "No, that's gotta be a mine blast." Then, "No WAIT. EARTHQUAKE." As I came fully awake, my phone rang and it was the bibliophile, and as soon as I saw her number on the caller ID, I knew for certain it had been an earthquake. Why else would she be calling me at 5:30 AM (4:30 her time)??

On Saturday, I spent the whole work day in workshops with 15 extremely awesome 4th - 6th grade girls. We studied optical illusions and made silly putty and slime and wired circuits and built bridges out of straws and paperclips. The girls were amazing. They were enthusiastic, intelligent, and basically proved that inquiry-based learning can be fantastic. While making slime (glue + water + a spoonful of saturated borax solution), one of the girls asked why adding an additional liquid to the glue / water mix makes it less liquidy. Then, when one group got done assembling their circuit, they asked, "What would happen if we took our stuff and hooked it up to the other group's stuff?" So we let them hook two circuit kits together. By the end, they had hooked all seven circuit kits into a giant loop and got the buzzers to work.

After that they spent nearly an hour assembling their bridges, which were then tested to see how many marbles they could hold suspended in a bucket before collapsing. The winning bridge (prize:  bragging rights) held 147 marbles -- all the marbles we had. The girls were ecstatic, and I left work remembering why I love my job and feeling inspired to keep looking for new programs and new ideas to keep kids engaged in this crazy world of ours.

Oh, and last night? Kitters came into the kitchen to sing for his supper, and Indy followed. He sat down about 12 inches away from the cat, and nobody tried to eat anybody else's face! Miracle!


Here's a semi-crappy video of Indy giving MB a high five and a handshake. He's been living with us for six days, people. My friends who have dogs tell me this means we're in trouble:

Photo Friday

View the entire Photo Friday collection on Flickr.

lolkitters of the week

Click the photo to vote for Kitters!

View the collected weekly lolkitters on Flickr.

Almost famous

A photo I sent to Things Look Like Things got posted! Squee!

So far, so good

Even though he has already caused me to do things that are against my personal code of ethics, such as get up before dawn to take brisk walks (Dude, 5:15 is fucking early as far as I'm concerned) and go to the store in my workout clothes (post weekly Pilates asskicking class, in search of training treats), I'm pretty fond of Small Stuff so far. I found an obedience class for him, starting the second week of May. He's already sitting on command and starting to learn "down." Because his poo sample tested positive for Giardia, we had to give him a bath and start him on two new medicines. Getting a puppy into a bath is a pretty ridiculous affair, really. There's lots of talk about how FUN it is in the bath! Oh, so FUN! Look how much fun I'm having, don't you want to come in here, too? And then it's all about how FANCY this fella is, how GOOD, how HANDSOME, how he just might be the best! puppy! ever! The best part of the bath, honestly, was the note on the side of the shampoo bottle advising us to "Block all escape routes first. Once your pet is wet and slippery, he instantly becomes faster and smarter than you."

All told, bathing a dog is much easier than bathing a cat. Easier than bathing our cat, anyway. Bathing Kitters is sort of like trying to wrap a jackhammer up in a towel--it never stops moving, and you just have to hope it doesn't nail you with the pointy part. Indy did well, and got to have a nice walk after, and had some weird, runny medicine that he ate on bread after I nearly spilled it all on the floor.

Once Indy was out of the tub and back downstairs, Kitters came into the bathroom to investigate. "Ah," he was clearly saying, "you subjected the New One to the nefarious water torture chamber. As it should be, Pinky, as it should be. Carry on."




Reading:  Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank (and other words of delicate Southern wisdom) by Celia Rivenbark

Playing:  a copy of the mix CD I made for my dear friend Heather Feather

Possibly the best Discovery Channel commercial ever (and they've had some good ones):

We named the dog Indiana *

Blogfolk, meet Indiana Bones. Indy for short, of course.


MB and I went to Petsmart on Sunday to get two pet gates and came home with a puppy. One of the local animal shelters had brought a half dozen adoptable dogs in for the day, and Indy was one of them. He's allegedly part black Lab and part Chow, and is supposed to be about 4 months old. He loves people, even kids, and likes other dogs a lot. He has some food guarding tendencies when the food is in a dog dish, but he'll eat out of our hands just fine. (He'll be going to obedience school ASAP and we've already started a training program to eliminate his food guarding behaviors.)

He is fuzzy and cute, and only a little smelly.


There's an episode of Firefly in which the characters bring a herd of contraband cattle to a border planet. River says, about the cows, "They weren't cows inside. They were waiting to be, but they forgot. Now they see sky, and they remember what they are." Right after I took this picture, Indy seemed to remember that he is a dog. He started leaping and rolling, rubbing his back on the grass and joyfully biting the heads off of violets. It was heartbreakingly sweet.


MB and I are pretty besotted. Kitters, as expected, is less than amused:

"Woman, what the HELL is that thing in the kitchen?!"

Planting a seed

I grew up in the city, but my parents had a pretty respectable vegetable garden in their large backyard. There's a photo in the family album of me at about 12 months old, a blue plastic hoe in my hands, "helping" my dad get the garden ready for planting. I don't know what they grew in those early days, but by the time I was in elementary school, they planted corn, green beans, and tomatoes. They experimented with other crops, to varying degrees of success. One year, Mom planted a small watermelon patch, and by the end of the summer the things were plotting world domination. Potatoes always seemed to go in too late and come out too early, never getting much large than seed potato size. The yard had be leveled with fill from a dump, so it was full of rocks. When my cousins and I complained that we were bored, my mom would offer us a quarter for every gallon ice cream bucket we filled with rocks from the garden. Surprisingly, all kind of interesting pursuits always came to mind before the bucket was full. I don't honestly know if we ever earned a single quarter.

My mother babysat a girl who was a year younger than me. Her father lived out in the country and kept apple trees. He invited us to collect apples, and so we did. My mom canned jar after jar of apple sauce, some with cinnamon turning the sauce pink. I think the same guy gave my mom a few raspberry and blackberry canes one spring. She planted them in a small plot by the fence, and while the raspberries quickly gave up the ghost, the tame blackberries thrived. They were moved to the back corner of the garden the following spring, and in years to come grew into a thicket four or five feet deep and ten or twelve feet wide. Mom collected the berries all summer, freezing them in buckets and ziploc bags. When berry season was over, she ran all the berries through her food strainer again and again until all the juice and pulp had been extracted. Then she made dozens of jars of blackberry jam. I never learned to like raw blackberries (too many seeds) but I still love blackberry jam. Just writing this down has awakened scent memories long forgotten--the smell of the crushed fruit, of the strained-out seeds, the aroma of the juice and pulp cooking on the stove.

Tomatoes also went through the strainer, and Mom canned tomato juice to use as a base for soup and cooking meat through the year. Ears of corn were sealed in ziplocs, either on the cob or just the sliced-off kernels. Green beans were soaked in the sink, snapped into manageable pieces, and sealed in Ball jars. I can still call up the sound of snapping beans and the way I'd see a sink full of beans behind my eyelids when I went to bed after a long bean snapping stint. I always knew that when I had a yard of my own, I'd have a garden, too.

When we moved into our last apartment, I was initially excited about the tiny yardlet in back, and succumbed to visions of a tiny vegetable patch. But then the reality of neighbors throwing cigarettes and trash over the balcony upstairs, the lack of an outdoor faucet, and the yard man's slash and burn style of lawn grooming all came together and showed me reality. I amassed a pretty huge collection of houseplants, but never put anything much in the ground. Then we found this house, and I knew immediately where I'd put the vegetable patch if we managed to buy the place. Once our offer was accepted and we set a closing date, MB and I started talking about what we'd plant in our garden, how we'd fence it off from the dog we wanted to get. It won't ever be the huge corn / bean / tomato / blackberry extravaganza that my parents pulled off year after year, but I think it'll be pretty fabulous anyway. And since we've never done this before, I'm sure there will be lots of ridiculous missteps, too. If you want to follow us on our gardening journey, you can visit me over at my new sideblog, Pardon the Garden. (Don't worry, I'll still be posting normal stuff right here.) My homie J Dog announced that she was starting a gardening blog the very day I decided to start mine, and with several years of gardening experience under her belt, I'm betting hers will be pretty cool to read:  J's Snappy Garden.

Happy Spring, everyone!

Photo Friday

View the entire Photo Friday collection on Flickr.

lolkitters of the week

View the collected weekly lolkitters on Flickr.

Memery, all alone in the moonlight

Swiped from Charlotte.

1. What is your occupation? science geek, nontraditional educator

2. What color are your socks right now? No socks at the moment

3. What are you listening to right now? The Deadliest Catch on TV. I freaking love this show.

4. What is the last thing you ate? a Dove dark chocolate raspberry caramel

5. Can you drive stick shift? Not that I'm aware

6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? yellow

7. Last person you spoke to on the phone? MB

8. What’s your favorite yoga pose? downward dog split

9. How old are you today? 27

10. Favorite drink? favorite every day drink = milk, favorite special drink = chai lattes

11. What is your favorite sport to watch? professional football

12. Have you ever dyed your hair? I dyed the ends of my hair blue once, then got on a plane to London. When I got off the plane, the dye was gone. Just gone. Weirdest damn thing.

13. Pets? just this guy

14. Favorite cake? cheesecake!

15. Last movie you saw? 27 Dresses. It was better than expected!

16. Favorite day of the year? It varies year to year, of course. I always look forward to Thanksmas.

17. How do you vent anger? Sometimes I have to write it out. Other times I can just be pissed off for a little while and then I get over it.

18. What was your favorite toy as a child? Hmmm...I guess my teddy bear, Kissy Bear

19. Autumn or spring? Autumn all the way

20. Hugs or kisses? Depends on the person giving them, to be honest

21. Cherry or blueberry? Cherry, unless we're talking muffins

22. Living arrangements? I live in a house with my husband and our large fluffy cat.

23. Last time you cried? There were a few anecdotes in the book I finished today that made me feel a little teary.

24. What is on the floor of your closet? Neatly arranged shoes, and a basket of shoes. I don't really have that many pairs, though.

25. Who is the friend you’ve had the longest? I met the bibliophile in Kindergarten.

26. Favorite smell? rain

27. Who or what inspires you? people who work to make a difference in the world

28. What are you afraid of? losing my loved ones

29. Hamburgers? sometimes

30. Favorite car? I'm pretty fond of my CR-V.

31. Number of keys on your key ring? Personal:  five Work:  four, plus about ten more that I only use occasionally and keep in my desk drawer

32. How many years at your current job? Full time 2 years and three months, super part time 6 years before that

33. Favorite day of the week? depends on the week

34. How many countries have you lived in? Just the US, though I've visited England and Canada

35. Dream job? writer


Reading:  Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank (and other words of delicate Southern wisdom) by Celia Rivenbark

Playing:  a little Cake, a little Live, a little Godsmack, and some Decemberists

They should put this in the brochure

If anybody ever needs people to go on record stating that marriage can be awesome, I'll be the first in line. Seriously. That's not to say every day is good or every day is easy. Yesterday, for example, was kind of sucky and kind of hard, but I get the feeling that has less to do with marriage and more to do with the fact that no two human beings can live in the same house and be in agreement about everything, every single day. Sooner or later, somebody's going to wake up in a pissy mood, and somebody else is going to take it personally. It's just a fact, man.

That said, today was a good day, an easy day. We came home from work, I fed the cat, and then we cooked together, which worked out well since MB is a good cook and I am an ace potato peeler. We made plans to start our compost pile this weekend, and to maybe get some more accoutrements* to prepare for adopting a dog. We sat on the couch together and puttered around on our computers while watching a DVD of The Dog Whisperer that I grabbed for MB at the library on my way home. Then, he made me laugh until I was gasping, until my stomach hurt, until tears were literally pouring down my cheeks, by threatening to lick my face as revenge for licking his hand.

Sensible? Nope. Mature? Hell, no. Hilarious? God, yes. And to think, if all goes as planned, I get to keep him forever.



Reading:  Free for All:  Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangsters in the Public Library by Don Borchert

Playing:  Secret Samadhi by Live (sound warning) (showing my age, no doubt...it's so very late-90s rock. First video not entirely work safe.)





*according to Google, this word can be Anglicized as "accouterments." Is it just me, or does that make the word sound incredibly filthy?

Edited to add:  as of 10:59 PM, my Google Reader has exactly ZERO backlogged posts in it. ZEEEROOOOH. I'm going to bed before anybody gets all uppity and posts something.

The Photobucket Meme

Stolen from Profgrrrrl.

DIRECTIONS:

1. Go to Photobucket
2. Type in your answer to the question in the “search” box.
3. Use only the first page.
4. Insert the picture into your Blog.


1. What is your relationship status?

2. What is your current mood?

3. Who is your Favorite Band/Artist?

4. What is your favorite movie?

5. What kind of pet do you have?

6. Where do you live?

7. Where do you work?

8. What do you look like?

9. What do you drive?

10. What did you do last night?

11. What is your favorite TV show?

12. Describe yourself:

13. What are you doing today?

14. What is your name?

+ +

15. What is your favorite candy?

16. What is your favorite drink?

You. Yes, you.

Alison, the oft-linked of late and fabulous, gave me a You Make My Day award recently (which, obviously, made my day). I do feel bad about the aspirated toast, though. ;)



The rules:

1. Write a post with links to five blogs that make your day.
2. Acknowledge the post of the person who gave you the award.
3. Display the “You Make My Day Award” logo.
4. Tell the award winners that they have won by commenting on their blogs or emailing them the news.

I wanted to really give this some thought, so it's taken me a few days to collect five posts.

(1)  Black Sheeped for this gorgeous post about thunderstorms.

(2)  My homie J Dogg for taking her accidentally unshaven self to a job interview.

(3)  The hilarious Chick, who I'm proud to call my friend in real life, for sharing her son Boy Child's thoughts on bears.

(4)  Gerbil, another real-life friend and one of the best yarn-spinners I know--both literally and figuratively--for sharing the story of her stepdad and the groundhog.

(5)  And finally, Jonniker. She writes about washing her underpants and hairy-pitted yoga instructors, once accidentally cleaned her garage in a thong in plain sight of the neighbors (no, really) and her musical tastes are even more eclectic than mine (she caught my eye by quoting the Decemberists, Johnny Cash, and Rusted Root within 20 posts).


Ladies, you make my day. Thanks for being you!


Reading:  Free for All:  Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangsters in the Public Library by Don Borchert

Playing:  Pressure Chief by Cake

Photo Friday

View the entire Photo Friday collection on Flickr.

lolkitters of the week

Click the photo to vote for Kitters!

View the collected weekly lolkitters on Flickr.

Good cop, bad cop

Good things:

I spent a few hours cleaning the office this week, expecting to find my mp3 player, which has been lost since the weekend we moved in. When it didn't turn up, I was vastly bummed. But then MB poked around a little, checked a few places I'd checked, then went upstairs and immediately found my mp3 player in my laptop bag, where I now remember stowing it so it wouldn't be lying around when we had contractors in the house. Yay!

The stitching project that's been missing since Easter turned up. This is especially good, since I only have about a month to finish it.

Spring has fully kicked winter's ass, after a long and protracted back-and-forth. Flowers are blooming, birds are making a ruckus, and we've had two good thunderstorms already.

A situation at work that looked like it was going to turn into me getting totally screwed over resolved itself with zero drama. Sweet relief.


Bad things:

Well, there's just one thing, but it's a big one. We have a beautiful holly tree beside the house. It's the only tree on the property, and it's lovely. However, it was planted RIGHT NEXT TO the fence, and its branches are growing through and over and under power lines. The power company left us a notice saying they'd be sending a crew around to cut the tree back, but I know that the companies they hire usually butcher the trees they cut. I emailed a local horticulture expert that I know through work, and he confirmed my fears. The guys the power company has hired this year are even worse than usual.

I wanted to get some quotes from tree trimmers, since if we pay to have the work done, we can call the power company and tell them not to send their crew. I got one quote from a really nice guy who gave me a price, then called back two minutes later and told me that in his professional opinion, we might as well just get rid of the tree. He says it's so close to the lines that we'll have to pay to get it trimmed every year of the tree's life, and that the bigger it gets, the more it'll cost. He recommended just letting the power company come and top the tree, and then paying to get the remnant removed.

I know he's right--the tree is just about directly under the lines--but it's breaking my heart anyway.


Reading:  Free for All:  Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangsters in the Public Library by Don Borchert

Playing:  Pressure Chief by Cake

The movie meme

This meme has been going around, and it's new to me, so I stole it from the fabulous Alison at Party of 3:

The rules:

* Pick 10 (or so) of your favorite movies.
* Find, remember, or look up a quote from each movie.
* Post them here for everyone to guess.
* Strike it out (I'm going to turn them green instead) when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
* NO googling or cheating by doing an online search. Cheaters never prosper.
* Commenters should share the fun and only guess one movie.

1.  "This happens to be a Nocturne. You know, Frederic fucking Chopin."

My homegirl M knew that this was from the fantastic film Tombstone. She's my huckleberry.


2.  "Do you think they are using the same wind we are using?"

Blogapotamus Rex knew that this line came from The Princess Bride. She's smiling because she knows something you don't know. (She is not left-handed either.)


3.  "Really? I live in Queens. Did you put that together yourself, Einstein, or have you got a team of monkeys working around the clock on this?"

Alison fingered The Usual Suspects. Back when she was picking beans in Guatemala, they used to make coffee right off the trees.


4.  "With Mars your ruler in the ascendancy, you will get wiped out in a freak napalming incident and Helen says bollocks to you."

Daisy Jo made my day by picking this out as a quote from Sliding Doors, the movie MB and I watched on our first date. Daisy Jo remembers what the Monty Python boys always say...


5.  "I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How have you been?"

Blogapotamus Rex identified this as a line from the superb Grosse Pointe Blank. She doesn't want to join your little club. She's a lone wolf, lone gunman, get it?


6.  "Well, Pete, it's a fool who looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart."

I can't believe this one went last, but rabidmonkey finally picked it as a quote from the wonderful O Brother Where Art Thou. She has seen things that are not to be believed, like a cow on top of a cotton shed.


7.  "The All-Father wove the skein of your life a long time ago. Go and hide in a hole if you wish, but you won't live one instant longer. Your fate is fixed. Fear profits a man nothing."

My favorite otaku knew that this is a line from The Thirteenth Warrior. She is an ambassador, dammit! She is supposed to talk to people!


8.  "You whine like a mule. You are still alive."

Hoochie M also picked this one out, from Robin Hood:  Prince of Thieves. She's going to cut your heart out with a spoon!


9.  "The ratio of people to cake is too big."

Bianca knew that this muttered complaint is from Office Space. She asked for a mai tai, and you gave her a piña colada. She might put strychnine in the guacamole.


10.  "Chevy didn't make a 327 in '55, the 327 didn't come out till '62. And it wasn't offered in the Bel Air with a four-barrel carb 'til '64. However, in 1964, the correct ignition timing would be four degrees before top-dead-center."

Bianca also nailed this line from My Cousin Vinny. She wants you to imagine that you're a deer. You put your little deer lips down to the cool, clear water...