Nano-Sapiens: Carter and the Saint Patrick's Day Stew
This week, Carter continues his exploration of human customs with St. Patrick's Day! And we have critter pictures!
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day (in two weeks)
This week has been a little odd, since I spent Sunday through Thursday recovering from a random anaphylactic reaction. My wonderful coworkers and Tod made sure that I didn’t eat by myself and took the correct amount of antihistamines before eating, which was very sweet. I am feeling much better and very cared for (true friendship is having a friend that is fasting sit with you when you eat to make sure you don’t die). However, likely due to the stress of that, Tod got sick later this week, but is starting to pluck up now. So, this weekend has been a lot of resting, recovering, and determining how I am going to safely eat. And I get a start a new med which will hopefully reduce the chances of these random anaphylactic reactions. Yay, modern medicine.
Therefore, today we present another cute story because the world needs more cuteness and less stress. Join us for a new installment of a Carter the first Newfie Nano-Sapiens and his adventures discovering human holidays. And after that, we have a few words from our own critters.
Carter and the Saint Patrick's Day Stew
Veronica settled her orange tabby Maine Coon cat body against the cool tiles of the kitchen counter. In most human households, cats, even ones raised to sapiency via nanotech shots, weren’t allowed on the kitchen counter. However, today, this particular Nano-Sapiens cat was supervising two children in preparing a Saint Patrick’s Day meal.
Veronica watched the two aforementioned children enter the room.
Carter came in first, his big, Newfie face pushing the door open, his black, fluffy, long fur standing out against the clean, sparkling kitchen. Kathy, his little dark-skinned human shadow, followed behind him. Carter was Veronica’s adopted child, while Kathy was the offspring of the two graduate students who had helped create Nano-Sapiens.
Seeing her, Carter bounded forward, his English voice coming from his collar with its distinctive blue LED. “Mom, I hear we get to make dinner today!”
Veronica tilted her head, her own collar translating her impeccable feline words. “Which is Irish stew. We shall be making it with mutton.”
Kathy walked up next to Carter, her shoulder just above his, and rested her arm along his back. “Oh, that sounds delicious.”
As the two got closer, Veronica noticed Carter had, as normal, had his stuffed sheep toy with him. For months Veronica and the graduate students had worried, because the only word he would say was “sheep”.
“Dear, why don’t you put your sheep in the corner? There’s a little pile of kibble bags. You can put it on top. It’ll be safe and dry. And it’ll stay clean.”
Carter ambled over and dropped his stuffed toy onto the pile of bags. “Are you sure? I still need it to sleep. You remember what happened when Benjamin and I forgot it.”
Veronica and Kathy exchanged a glance. They remembered what Carter and Kathy’s brother had gotten into. Veronica replied, “Yes, Carter. It’ll be fine.”
Kathy scratched Carter behind his ears as he rejoined them. “It’ll be fine, fuzzy cousin. We have to keep everything clean while we cook for Saint Patrick’s Day.”
This time, the Newfie cocked his head. “Another saint? How many do you have?”
Kathy and Veronica exchanged another look and laughed. Then, in unison, they replied.
“A lot.”
Veronica continued the explanation, though.
“Saint Patrick lived in the fifth century. He was a saint who was a missionary in Ireland. He’s supposed to have died on the seventeenth, so that’s why we have Saint Patrick’s Day on the seventeenth.”
She could see Carter mull this over. And as he was thinking, she decided it would be good to start preparations. Veronica had Kathy and Carter bring her the ingredients still in the refrigerator. In this case, the mutton.
Dropping the thankfully sealed, drool-covered package into Kathy’s waiting hands, Carter pushed over a chair that Kathy climbed up on. It looked like these two had done this sort of thing before. She wondered what sort of mischief they got into that she never heard about. Well, mischief is to be expected of someone from a family of cats.
She sat and oversaw Kathy while she cut up the mutton for stew meat. Veronica would never admit it, even to herself, but having a human around with opposable thumbs made certain things much easier.
She made sure to keep Kathy from sticking her pointer finger along the top of the knife. For some reason, humans really like to do that, and it really wasn’t safe since it made the knife harder to control.
The stew meat cut up, she and Kathy pushed the tray to one side. Carter looked at his front paws up onto the counter and used his big nose to move an empty pan over towards the two girls. The pan was followed by a big bowl of four potatoes and two large fennel bulbs.
While Kathy chopped them, Veronica explained, “We cut the potatoes into thick slices. And the two fennel bulbs, we cut up into smaller pieces. We use brown Russet potatoes. Otherwise, the stew will need potato starch to thicken. Onions aren’t really good for Nano-Sapiens, so we’re using the fennel bulbs, not the fronds, instead of onions.”
Kathy poked at one of the fennel bulbs. “It does seem sort of oniony.”
She cut off a teeny piece and tasted it, passing another tiny sliver to Carter. “Oh, it doesn’t have that strong licorice taste like the fronds have.”
Veronica gave a human nod. “Very good. Always know your ingredients.”
While they talked, Carter collapsed onto the floor in a manner only a Newfie could do. He gave a big, sad Newfie sigh. “Momma, I wanna help more.”
Veronica gave a wink to Kathy and pulled a towel over the nearby tray of carrots.
“Carter, dear, we forgot to get carrots. Could you get some from the garden?”
Carter bounced excitedly to his paws. “Helping! Garden! Digging! Yes, Mom!”
He started to run from the room and skidded to a stop almost before he even started.
“What am I supposed to get again?”
Kathy giggled. “Carter, you’re getting us carrots from the garden, please.”
The Newfie shook his face, drool flying excitedly around the kitchen. “Oh, yeah. Thanks.”
Watching him go, Veronica repressed a shudder and whispered, “Drool is love.”
Carter ran out of the room again. This time, actually making it out of the room.
Veronica watched as Kathy finished the potatoes and fennel bulbs.
Then Kathy pulled over the parsley, wrinkling her nose as she washed it and started cutting it up. “This we put on the side. Right? Because it’s a garnish, and some people don’t like it. Mama says it tastes like soap.”
Veronica laughed and said, “Yes. It’s not true for everybody, or we wouldn’t use it at all. But we put it on the side.”
She made an exception and let Kathy climb up on the counter in order to get the salt and pepper out of the cabinet. They put salt and pepper on all the ingredients except the parsley. And the yet-to-be-delivered carrots.
Speaking of which, Veronica raised her voice, her collar dutifully translating it from a yowl into English. “Carter, dear, do you have the carrots yet?”
A big thunk from the kitchen door answered her.
Her son, covered in dirt and bits and pieces of various kinds of garden vegetables, most of which weren’t carrots, backed into the kitchen. The door bounced off him and finally revealed a huge mass of carrots, way more than one would need unless they were serving an entire regiment of Space Marines.
Veronica decided she would be a little more in touch with her Nano-Sapiens cat side and decided it was below her to worry about all the dirt on the floor. The floor, after all, was actually below her.
Kathy, on the other hand, giggled and leaped off the cabinet, something Veronica, again, decided to ignore.
Through her giggles, Kathy thanked the Newfie. “Thanks, Carter.”
The two of them managed to get some of the carrots into the sink. Veronica started running water over them to clean them off.
Carter and Kathy cleaned the floor and Carter. Carter wasn’t really good at it, but Nano-Sapiens households had discovered they could pull the cleaning heads off of a dust mop and a mop made out of strings and yarn. And those worked pretty well for the Newfie.
The cleaning didn’t quite get up to cat standards, but who, other than cats, did?
Everything clean once again, Kathy climbed back up onto her chair and removed the tops from the cleaned carrots. She placed them aside since she thought her mom wanted to try something with them.
The rest of the carrots she cleaned. Carrots she cut up. The remaining huge mass of carrots that Carter had brought in were still on the floor, this time sitting on top of a plastic bag to keep from getting the floor dirty again.
“Now,” said Veronica, “we need to layer the potatoes, the meat, and the veggies. We start and end with potatoes.”
Carter, who had had his front paws up on the cabinet to watch, gave Kathy’s cheek a wet, soft Newfie sniff, making her laugh. He asked, “Why?”
Veronica stopped for a second, thinking. “I don’t know.”
She looked at Kathy. “Kathy, you sometimes cook with your mom and dad. Do you know why?”
Kathy shook her small, dark head, her hair flying out around her with the vigor of the movement. “No.”
They all looked at each other, gave their respective species-specific shrugs, and went back to layering potatoes, meat, and veggies. They layered it up in the pot, and then filled the pot with water.
Then Veronica and Kathy made Carter get down off the cabinet while they turned on the stove to start the water boiling.
While waiting for the water to boil, Carter and Kathy, being kids, started to get bored. Before they could get into mischief with the carrots or something worse, Veronica distracted them.
“Do you two know why we wear green on Saint Patrick’s Day?”
Kathy gave another head shake, causing her hair to fly around yet again. Carter had a Newfie of distress on his face.
“Green? We have to wear green?”
Veronica suppressed a cat laugh and said, “Yes, dear. Saint Patrick used the three leaves of the green shamrock to teach the Holy Trinity while he was a missionary. So people wear green on Saint Patrick’s Day. Although the tradition started in America and migrated to Ireland.”
Carter mulled this over while Kathy and Veronica lowered the heat on the now boiling pot to a simmer. They placed the lid on the pot, and they both climbed down to where Carter was still considering the idea of green for Saint Patrick’s Day.
Turns out he understood the idea, but his face showed his distress.
“I don’t have anything green. What am I gonna do?”
Veronica let her cat laugh out, and Kathy giggled again.
Veronica told Kathy, “Why don’t you take Carter and find some green fabric? When you get it back, I’ll help—well, I’ll help you figure out how he can wear it. I’ll stay and watch the stew.”
After the two kids left the room, Veronica thought she’d have to warn Edmund and Raihana that their little girl and my little boy may have really messed up the house in their search for green fabric.
With that thought, she jumped up, being careful to keep at a safe distance from the stove, and lay down. She went to sleep with her eyes open, watching the cooking stew.
She woke up as the door burst open, with two kids running in at full speed. The clatter of Newfie paw claws and the pounding of human feet let her know who it was. The two kids were dragging a length of green fabric behind them. Veronica didn’t know where they found it and kept herself from asking, just in case she didn’t want to know.
She looked at the clock. Still fifteen minutes of the one and a half hours for cooking mutton. The pot was still not boiling over, so she jumped down and joined Kathy and Carter, considering the fabric and the dog.
Finally, she and Kathy put one end of the fabric in Carter’s mouth. From his mouth, they ran it along his left side, behind his head, then back under, between his front legs, around his back torso, and then along his right side to rejoin the fabric in his mouth.
Then Veronica had Kathy tie it.
She purred. “There you go. Now you’ve got something green to wear for Saint Patrick’s Day.”
Carter bounced around the kitchen, trying out his new clothing.
Veronica had Kathy pull the top off the stew and check the meat and potatoes.
“Aunt Veronica, I think it’s done.”
“Okay, dear. Pull out a little bit of potato, meat, and the veggies into a bowl for us.”
Carter quit bouncing around and jumped his front legs onto the cabinet so he could watch. “Do we get to try some?”
She shook her orange mane, fluffing it out in the heat from the stove. “Of course, silly. The cooks always try the dish to make sure it came out properly.”
As the little girl pulled the meat out, Kathy asked Veronica, “What is mutton?”
Veronica replied, almost without thinking, “It’s sheep, an older lamb.”
Carter’s ears perked up in that floppy eared Newfie way. His blocky head swiveled over to look at the corner of the room to check on his toy.
His stuffed sheep was still lying on top of the pile of kibble bags.
“If we run low, please don’t cook my toy. I can’t sleep without it.”
Chaos Critter Pictures
During the week, all of the Chaos Critters were having a group nap in the living room. So, Tod took pictures of course.
Chaos Tip of the Week
Remember, pause for paws and keep your teeth to yourself. After all, critters are better cuddled than creating mischief, although they are good at both. And naps are even better!
Chaos Question of the Week
What is the one food that you hate that your loved ones can’t stand? How do you compromise on having it in the house, or do you?
~Anna and Tod
More Nano-Sapiens!
Don’t be caught napping, do you want to know more about Carter and his pals?
How did a Maine Coon cat become Carter’s mom?
How did Kathy’s parents, Edmund and Raihana, meet?
These questions and more are answered in “Peer Review Parenting” part of Raconteur Press’ anthology Or All Will Burn! Buy it for the chaos and share it with a graduate student in your life!
Available on Amazon! https://www.amazon.com/Will-Burn-Raconteur-Press-Anthologies-ebook/dp/B0CKX6KXVR
Our story is preceded in the book by our friend J. Kenton Pierce. Like us, his story features chosen family!
For other Nano-Sapiens adventures check out our author’s page at https://amazon.com/author/casasent