|
|
By Amber, on September 5, 2010, at 8:00 pm It appears that sometime early last week, a vortex opened up above our house, and it has been spilling chaos all over our tidy life. We’re just trying to ride it out in good humor, hoping that this week will be better.
Wednesday afternoon: a Dior counter makeover that left me looking like a caricature of a fortune teller, followed by an increasingly frantic 40-minute search of every closet, cabinet, and cranny in the house for a cat that had seemingly vanished into thin air. I finally found her here:
She had crawled under the coffee table, where there is considerable open space, and slipped through the 4″ gap between the top of the drawer and the underside of the table. Finding herself stuck in the drawer — presumably all day, as her food was untouched — she didn’t even have the good sense to meow while I tore through the house looking for her. I guess she was comfortable. As for me, I think I lost a few years from my natural lifespan.
Thursday morning: got in the car at 5:15 to head for the gym and found it unresponsive. It cost half a day, but we got a new battery and got our money back on the one we had bought just 18 months ago. Lesson learned: buy a brand that can afford to advertise.
Friday: in the morning, a GFCI in the master bathroom tripped and wouldn’t reset, which doesn’t give you a nice feeling as you prepare to leave the house for the day. By the afternoon, one of the sinks in that bathroom had spontaneously broken:
Saturday: I woke up to a dead Litter Robot and a short trail of brown pawprints. We just bought the darn thing a month ago, and since Sweet Pea was in jail part of that time, it has been used for a total of maybe two weeks. Of course this happened on a holiday weekend, so there is no reaching customer service until Tuesday. We have the world’s most expensive scoop-it-yourself litterbox.
Oh, and then there is the mildew and the cracked windshield. Just more items for our to-do list.
However, it is still a holiday weekend. Today we had our usual Sunday brunch, tonight we are excited to try a restaurant where we’ve never eaten, and tomorrow we are sleeping late and then making one of our favorite breakfasts. We’ll also be crossing our fingers that life (and the cat) will take it easy on us this week!
By Amber, on August 26, 2010, at 10:00 pm Here comes trouble…
I bailed out Her Biteness today. On the way home she tried to get me to stop at an elementary school and let her ‘play’ with some children. When I refused, she tried to convince me that it would be fun to knock over a Petsmart. I told her she would have to find a more appropriate outlet for the things she learned from the other inmates in kitty jail.
She harassed her toys for a while and then curled up in her favorite chair to rest.
At least I think that’s what she’s doing…
 “Leave me alone, human. I need silence while I plot my next deed.”
She may be a criminal, but she’s our little criminal, and we’re glad to have her back.
By Amber, on August 17, 2010, at 10:00 pm Sweet Pea is already a criminal. Mark said he would be proud if it weren’t for that girl that she mauled.
Wait, let me back up. We took her to our vet yesterday for a wellness checkup, spay confirmation, and rabies vaccine. I picked the absolute worst appointment time, as we happened to be there when Angry Cat’s cousin was in an exam room, and another client was leaving with a fairly unhappy cat. So even though Sweet Pea should have been primed for the Worst Vet Visit Ever, she was pretty compliant when it was her turn. She got some blood drawn and received an x-ray of her hips because she limps slightly (turns out she is missing the ball and socket connection in her right hip and the associated femur is shortened! Could be from surgery or a birth abnormality).
Before administering the rabies and distemper vaccines, the vet attempted to shave a small spot on Sweet Pea’s belly so she could find the spay scar to be sure. Unfortunately the clippers turned our sweet little kitty into a tornado of teeth, and the vet tech was on the business end. Since the rabies vaccine was still in the syringe and we have no prior vaccination paperwork for the cat, the vet is legally required to hold her for ten days for observation. *facepalm*
We left the vet’s office somewhat in shock, without our shiny new cat. So I did the only thing I could under the circumstances — I baked a cake.
This is adapted from Warren Brown’s chocolate pound cake from his CakeLove book.
Dry ingredients:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (as always, I used Double-Dutch Dark Cocoa)
- 2 tbsp turbinado sugar
- 1 tsp potato starch
- 1/4 tsp vanilla powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp espresso powder (just a hint of coffee flavor can ruin a dessert for me; you will not taste coffee in this cake)
Liquid ingredients:
- 4 oz sour cream
- 3/4 cup + 4 tbsp whole milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Creaming ingredients:
- 8 oz (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 3 cups granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 3 tbsp heavy cream
Preheat the oven to 350F, with the rack in the middle. Whisk the dry ingredients together in one bowl and the liquid ingredients in another. In your mixer, cream the butter and sugar, then add the eggs (individually, fully incorporating each one) and the cream at low speed.
Starting and ending with the dry ingredients, add the dry and liquid ingredients alternately in 3-5 additions each. Work quickly and don’t wait for everything to be fully mixed between additions. Stop the mixer and make sure everything on the sides and in the bottom is churned up, then mix at medium speed for about 20 seconds so the batter becomes uniform.
Pour into a greased 12-cup Bundt pan, level with a spatula, and bake for 50-60 minutes until the center no longer jiggles and a toothpick or skewer comes out cleanish. (When the cake cools, it will have the typical poundcake crust on the outside, and the inside will be super-dense and moist.)
What’s a cake without frosting? So I made some cream cheese frosting and served it on the side. (I actually bought the cream cheese and mascarpone when we went to Whole Foods a few days ago for chorizo and had to occupy ourselves while they made a batch for us. Nice strategy, Whole Foods — we bought a LOT more than chorizo!) This recipe comes from Joy of Baking:
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
- 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
- 8 oz mascarpone cheese, room temperature
- 3/4 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup powdered sugar
Combine the cheeses until smooth. Add the vanilla and powdered sugar, mix until smooth. In a separate bowl, whip the cream until stiff peaks form. Gently add the whipped cream to the cheese blend in several additions, then refrigerate for an hour or two if it needs to set up.
The verdict? Overwhelming approval. Duh. This should last us a few more days, and then I will bake something else to distract us from the remaining six days of the kitty-shaped hole in our life.
By Amber, on August 15, 2010, at 8:00 pm I’m playing hooky tomorrow. Here’s why:
 That’s Sweet Pea, the newest member of our household! (You’ll never guess who chose her name.)
 We fell in love with her on Petfinder.com last weekend and tried to bribe the shelter into holding her a week until we could pick her up, but they won’t hold animals. I stayed at work as long as I could stand it on Friday and then headed down to League City to pick her up!
She is gradually acclimating to us and to her new home. She has spent most of her time hiding on a comfortable chair in the dining area. She does not appreciate closed doors — she was pretty sure there was something good in the closet under the stairs:
Sorry kitty, nothing but cleaning supplies and storage.
She is about two years old and seems to be a great cat — playful and affectionate. She spent a while socializing with us this afternoon and seems to be getting much more comfortable, but I think we wore her out, because eventually she headed back to her chair. Tomorrow she’ll get introduced to our vet for her wellness checkup.
|
|
