BLOOD HEIR releases tomorrow. Well, the ebook releases tomorrow. The print was a little earlier, so everyone could have better chances of reading it on release day. But the ebook is the big release. That reminds me, I will put a spoiler post up tomorrow. Please refrain from spoilering until then. Be strong. 🙂
Normally I would be in knots about it, but it’s self-published, so the anxiety level is way down. If it doesn’t do well, the only people who will disappointed are Gordon and I and our lovely agency. But despite the lack of anxiety, there is still an uptick in things that need to be done on top of regular writing.
We are busy. Busy, busy. When we are not working on something, we are thinking about working on something. It doesn’t help that I have a side project which is helpfully eating my brain.
As you know, we have a number of animals. This is one of them.
Her name is Salem. She is 16 years old and she is a bad cat.
She swats other animals at random. She tries to sharpen claws on the furniture even though there are 6 cat scratching posts right next to her. And if there is food left on the island, she will knock it down. She will eat some of it and then the dogs will finish it off. She knocked down pizza boxes. She knocked down rotisserie chicken which was cooling off so it could be refrigerated. We spent very anxious 24 hours because the dogs had eaten some of it and chicken bones are not good for the dogs.
So all food has to be either refrigerated, or if it’s take out that everyone is still munching on, placed into microwave or the oven. She hasn’t figured out how to open the oven yet.
Yesterday Gordon was kind of down. Not depressed really but just not his usual self. We had a Texas blizzard and a fire in the fireplace and even that failed to cheer him up.
So about 7:30 in the evening I had a brilliant idea. I would make chocolate chip cookies. Nobody can be that sad while eating chocolate chip cookies. I have this awesome fool proof recipe that makes chewy cookies, just like he likes. I turn on my oven to 375 to preheat, I get all of my ingredients, all the while thinking about a scene I want to write, I mix the white and brown sugar with flour, and then I smell the smell and the smell says “Plastic is melting!” and “Hi, I’m toxic!”
I turn the oven off and I open all of the windows. The air is freezing. The temperature in the kitchen plummets.
Kid 1 runs in. “What’s going on?”
Me: Remember how we ordered Chinese yesterday? I just melted the lot of it in the oven.
Yep. I had cooked the Chinese food plastic containers. The day before was the cleaning day, where we scrub everything. I had scrubbed the inside of the oven. I had sprayed it the night before and then resprayed it that morning and I spent about 30 minutes and a lot of elbow grease cleaning it. The tradition is, on cleaning day we get take out, because nobody wants to cook and make the kitchen dirty.
We had Chinese. We put it in the oven to hide it from Salem. We forgot about it.
So she gets a garbage bag. We get masks. I open the oven. A cloud of toxic fumes erupts. I grab container and shove them in the garbage bag, all except the last one, which literally melts and falls apart as soon as I grab it.
We shut the oven, wait for fumes to dissipate, and I open the oven again and start shoveling the food that fell out of the container out with a spatula.
It took a lot of time and scrubbing in the frigid kitchen. The oven is finally clean. I cooked the cookies in the other oven – we have two because this house is fancy – and they were delicious.
I hope that damn scene was worth all the trouble.
Someone knowledgeable recommends pinning bubble wrap to the furniture areas that cats like to claw. They do not like it.
Good luck and thank you so much for the update.
Thank you, need that!
My sofa is completely encased in claw-proof adhesive plastic sheets. It’s pretty ugly, but I was desperate. There’s one little part I didn’t cover, and wouldn’t you know, she found it. She’s not as bad as Salem, from the sound of it, but I do call her “Miss Creant” (miscreant) for a reason!
A bit nostalgic to see the old house with the floors and the boards that Angus chewed up.
I call jinx! As I a reading about ‘bad cat’, my eight month old Aussie upchucks on the couch. Luckily it’s leather so clean up is not too bad.
My mom used to love to tell this story…
Mom and I have to head out to run some errands and my dad and two oldest brothers were due to come back for lunch, so mom made some ham, lettuce, mayonnaise sandwiches. Might have had tomatoes, because those people are weird and like them. Anyway, mom and I come home hours later and still see the sandwiches sitting on the island counter where we had left them. Dad and boys come home for dinner and mom asks why they didn’t eat the sandwiches. Dad asks if she had looked at the sandwiches. She looks in them, and all that’s there is lettuce and mayo (tomatoes?) but no meat.
We had a two-tiered island. Inner/highest tier was cooking space and stove cooktop. Lower tier wrapped around it and that’s where we sat to eat dinner. My (little) dog had jumped onto a chair, climbed up to the first tier then climbed up to the second tier, pulled the saran wrap off the sandwiches and pulled the ham out without disturbing the lettuce and possibly tomatoes. She did that on every sandwich. Needless to say, we never left stuff out on the island again.
My dog did this but with Swiss chocolates hahaha! My dad came back from a business trip from Zurich with Swiss chocolates. Yay! We went to church and left the opened bag on our kitchen counter. We came back from church to find our kitchen littered with opened wrappers all over the kitchen floor and no chocolate. Before the kitchen was remodeled, the kitchen had two doors and we always shut the dog in the kitchen when we were out of the house–we didn’t trust him to roam free when we were not home. Milou (the dog) somehow figured out how to jump onto the chair and table of our eating alcove that was right next to the counter where the bag of chocolates was. Then I’m guessing he tipped over the bag while sniffing or trying to get at it. Half of the chocolates spilled out across the floor from the bag. He then proceeded to methodically unwrap each wrapper and eat the chocolate. We don’t know how he managed this because dogs don’t have thumbs! He also didn’t seem to have any adverse reaction to his chocolate spree because he lived to the ripe old age of 15.
We joked that he was generous enough to leave us half the bag of chocolates.
I had a cat who would eat biscuit tops. If we left the biscuits out, in the morning we would find topless biscuits with tiny bites taken out. She only liked the tops, left the rest of the biscuit alone.
Our Husky was a beautiful, sweet, and clever Very Bad Dog. She used to open the refrigerator and help herself when we were at work. She would knock over and bounce bungee-corded (racoon proofed) trash cans until they popped open.
Once I was making chicken cacciatore and realized I had no garlic. I left the sauteed chicken on the stove and ran to the store. The dogs were in the back yard, door closed. Got home to find the pan on the floor, the chicken gone, dogs in the back yard, and the door closed. Never did find the chicken bones.
I was traveling and taking some pastries to my sister in NY. It’s a typical Haitian treat that my cousin made specially for her, which I was to put very carefully in my carry-on with orders to hand deliver.
They were in a plastic container, with the lid screwed tight and taped for good measure, AND gift-wrapped (it was this past holidays).
I happen to forget the container outside, BUT it was on top of a small enclosure and well, it was taped shut…. did I mention wrapped?
Needless to say i did not find not even a hair of treat, nor hide of the culprit…
Please see pictures from said container in the morning and the culprit (when he finally showed up)…
We also have a Very Bad Cat. If it’s possible to destroy a thing, she will. We had a cat stabile — a scratching post with little mice and balls hanging from it that rotated. We brought her and her sister home from the shelter and within two weeks she had chewed off every mouse and ball. Within a month, we had learned to keep our shoes hidden or she would eat the laces. Scratching the couch instead of the scratching post? Check. Stealing any and all available food? Check. Constantly climbing where she shouldn’t and knocking things off? Check.
I was letting my hair grow out a bit before the pandemic lockdowns started. Now I haven’t had a haircut in over two years and my hair is down to my middle back. Are you seeing where this is going?
Yes, I now have to wrap my hair before going to bed because I have woken up too many times with her eating it.
We have two other cats, a tabby I have had since he was a kitten, and her sister we adopted with her. Both are three times her size and weight — she’s tiny, roughly six pounds, and they are big cats to start, and on the pudgy side — and she has no problems beating them up.
I named her Uschi at first, because she’s a primarily black tortoiseshell and looks like a little black bear and Uschi is a German nickname for Ursula. After she destroyed the stabile and started on a blanket my friend knit for me, we added a sobriquet. She’s Uschi the Morrigan.
And at midnight exactly, she starts crying for me to come to bed so she can curl up on my chest and purr so loudly the neighbors can hear it until she falls asleep.
If she wakes up and I’m not in the room, she will cry. And she likes to fall asleep touching me somehow. Here you can see she’s not much bigger than my foot. And if she weren’t so loving and adorable, we’d have murdered her 1000 times by now.
She’s adorable….cat love requires sacrifice, your furniture, other belongings, in your case your hair, and pain from tripping over them, but it’s all worth it when they cuddle on you.
If I didn’t agree, I wouldn’t live with three. Certainly not after events like cleaning up her sister’s diarrhea today. Calico Jill expels the vilest, stinkiest poop and no one can figure out why. And once in a while, she does it on the floor.
She (Jill) secured my husband for herself. She has her very own box on his desk where she sleeps all day.
Could be a food sensitivity. After 9 years of the cat puking every meal, having lifetime diarrhea, and always dirty ears, I saw a chart on a cat food site that said all were signs of food sensitivities…he no longer gets chicken anything and I no longer deal with his bodily fluid messes.
You should be glad she is only 6 pounds. I had a part Himalayan that was 25 pounds that liked to do the exact thing to me at bed time and when the alarm was just about to go off in the morning.
Ah so sorry to hear about the oven misadventure. At least you had chocolate chip cookies at the end if it! Yummy.
Hubby is a bit ill (not COVID and he’s on the mend), my wisdom tooth has decided that it has no more wisdom to dispense snd wants out. Just called my dentist snd the next available appt is the end of Feb. The door handle on our over the oven microwave broke this morning. The microwave is 20 years old and nobody makes replacement parts for it anymore. Replacing it will be costly as sizing is different now and adjustments have to be made. I had high hopes for 2021 but so far not so good. Sigh.
On the good news side your book is coming out tomorrow and I am looking forward to it 😁📖
P.S. playing in boxes in not a punishment for bad kitties 😉. Salem is very cute though 😸
My Mum put a plastik container into the oven and turned it in, what a mess 🙄
Could be worse, have you heard about the guy that hid his newly
purchased Glock pistol in the oven?
Yep, he forgot, and turned the oven on.
The pistol was loaded, but I don’t think the cartridges went off.
I do not think things like that is covered by warranty. 🙂
Salem looks adorably evil. This is why I live in fear of things being in the oven and always check before turning it on. Glad the cookies got made in the end though!
Any chance you would be willing to share this awesome foolproof chewy cookie recipe? 🙂
Also on Blood Heir… I just finished reading it leaving out any spoilery commentary all I can say is I need MOARR
Lol. I feel you about the cat. Oh man, your cat looks just like mine.. I’ve had two that looked like that, one died about 11 years ago, and the other one is alive and about 10 years old. He’s feisty. He’s able to open up cupboard doors and anything with a latch.. He’s a pain in my ass. We got him from the animal shelter and tried to make him an indoor cat. No such luck. He got very good at stalking the door and rushing out when I least expected it. Darn cat. We finally caved in, and I get presents on my back doorstep. He head butts me on the head when he wants attention and affection. But no regrets on getting him.
I was eating dinner with my friend Claudia. She has a smalldog named Kenny. We had chicken wings.
Afterwards we cleaned up and put the wing bones in 2 plastic bags, tied tight. Put the bags in bottom of garbage can and tighten the lid of the garbage can. Went into another room to watch movie. Came out later to gets drinks. Found out that Kenny managed to open garbage can and found the bags with wings.There were bones everywhere. Kenny was so happy he solved the garbage can mystery. We had to sit on the floor and count all the bones to make sure Kenny didn’t eat any of them. He didn’t.
Never got to watch the rest of the movie.
Smart pets are wonderful and tiring. They keep you on your toes.
Pre-ordered Blood Heirs from Bank Street books in Mystic ,Connecticut.
Talked with lovely woman named Kate.
She said a lot of people have ordered the book.
Will get book with signed book plate probably later this week, fingers crossed.
Congratulations.
The book will be a great success.
So glad you have second oven so you could make awesome chocolate chip cookies.
Actually there’s a couple items that help prevent cats from scratching their favorite spots, like the corners of sofas. One is clear plastic film that you tape over the area, and others are straight scratching posts attached to the sofas. But below are a couple of possibilities. I’m surprised to see so many options cropping up on Amazon now.
For avoiding getting on counters (or certain rooms), there’s a product called SSSCAT with a motion sensor that will blow compressed air with a loud sort of hissing sound. It’s completely harmless except it does scare the bejeezus out of some cats (makes for some hilarious youtube videos), so it works on those, but that depends on owner’s comfort level. My old senior volunteer, who’s cat name was changed to Trouble, used this and she used to say it worked like a charm the first time and that was it.
https://www.amazon.com/PetSafe-Deterrent-Activated-Repellent-Environmentally/dp/B0721735K9/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=scaat&qid=1610388423&sr=8-2
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Panther+Armor/page/F522D340-AC1A-421D-9C94-656FF1BA3D3B?ref_=ast_bln
https://www.amazon.com/Navaris-Scratch-Mats-Sofa-Shield/dp/B07K6RQXXJ/ref=sr_1_8?crid=6DJ87OPWH0X1&dchild=1&keywords=cat+scratching+sofa+guard&qid=1610388177&sprefix=cat+scratching+sofa%2Caps%2C237&sr=8-8
Dear favorite authors,
I just wanted say, “Today’s the day!!” Even though tomorrow is the day, here on the West Coast usually ebooks make it today. I feel like doing a dance, freaking out a little. It’s not the first time. You’ve been spoiling us this year, every year, with completed works of delicious escape. I have never, ever been disappointed. I wanted to thank you. Thank you so much for these little lifelines of loveliness in our lives. Thank you for putting your thoughts and daily life adventures out here, into our hands and hearts.
You’re awesome. It’s delightful. I heard this show on This American Life last weekend and this little guy they showcase made me think of today, today. I feel just like him, squealy and exuberant; you folks did that. I love you for it.
Very most fond wishes,
Sara
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/692/the-show-of-delights/act-two-20
Why I miss ovens with knobs … I used to remove the knob when there was something in the oven so I couldn’t turn it on.
That is so smart! With the modern ovens, you could tape a note up over the controls.
Basement cat…
This is an artist who immortalizes her cats in her paintings. One will be very familiar to you and your cat 🐈⬛ 💕 I hope you enjoy!
https://pin.it/4abLz7c
My husband and I used to keep our takeout pizza in the oven, to keep it warmer in case we came back for another slice. Several years ago, we had forgotten to put the pizza away at the end of the night and turned the oven on broil the next evening to sear some tuna steaks. Spoiler: we did not have tuna that night, we spent a very chilly evening airing out the house, and we no longer keep our pizza in the oven.
I have Baba Yaga, who actually belongs to the smart dog. We put leftovers in the oven always…because otherwise Baba Yaga knocks the food off the counter to share with her pal.
Baba Yaga is 13. We’ve done this for 13 years. We automatically turn the oven on and open the door and check for food. Not only leftovers but also “I’m not hungry right now, I’ll put this plate in the oven for later.”. I think I’ve missed maybe 3 times in the past few years… Seriously overcooked a steak, melted a rotisserie chicken and charged some pizza boxes.
Before we had Baba Yaga, we had the old dog. He NEVER was a counter grazer unless we had take out pizza. Then he couldn’t help himself.
Aw, sorry about the mess but thank you for the laugh! I’m glad you still baked cookies afterwards, though. Homemade cookies make everything better.
So excited for BLOOD HEIR!!
Everything you said summarizes my thoughts exactly!
my cat generally doesn’t knock things off, but he has learned that the way to an HEB rotisserie bird (he is a fiend for the rotisserie turkey) is to shove it off the table to crack open the plastic dome/shell, like a mighty eagle dropping a turtle from a great height. so it goes into protective custodyin the microwave, and if i forget to hide it i will soon hear the dreaded plastic scrabbling noises followed by a crash.
I laugh because I have done similar stuff. Thank you for the reminder about Blood Heir. Omg! I’m so excited! You two and your menagerie and your writing make being an adult doable. For me, anyway. Home Gordon is feeling better today.
Ohhhh can’t wait for the scene, also thank goodness you caught it on time before it got worse. As naughty as Salem is, I can’t help but find her glorious <3
Hey, I’m sure we’d all be volunteers in helping you judge whether the scene was worth it…. just share!!!!
Or, you know, share the cookie recipe?
It is so nice to see that your life is just like mine except that I don’t have a fancy two oven kitchen. In fact I only have one burner that works 100% and another burner that works 50%. That’s OK. I have a great book to read on my Kindle tomorrow.
Oh I feel your pain. Oven cleaning is the worst. I cleaned mine before Thanksgiving. It was clean for one day.
Do you ever use the oven cleaning setting? It takes forever but you don’t have to use any spray and at the end all you have is a a pile of ash you wipe out with a damp paper towel. If you have electronic settings sometimes they will get fried.
I am so excited for the Blood Heir release. Double checked my pre-order. Love living on the west coast becuase I get it at 9pm tonight. Kids get zombie mom tomorrow.
Both of my libraries bought a copy at my request so at least one of them automatically put it on hold for me. It says “pre-release Jan 11” so I woke up at 330 this morning to just check. Hasn’t “arrived” yet but I got sucked into reading the overdrive sample of 3 chapters. So kids get zombie mom today too.
I wish you great success. Haven’t looked forward to a book release so much since Harry Potter.
The first book I read in the KD world was Iron & Magic so I have been longing for number two for a long time but I have an inkling that I will long for Ryder 2 more. No pressure just saying I am enthusiastic for all your 2021 writing endeavors.
I forgot to mention that when I double-checked my pre-order on Amazon for the Kindle book the title was marked as an “Editor’s Choice”, so congrats.
Recipe? Please?
That isn’t a demon cat. That is Her Imperial Feline Majesty and you shall show her the correct amount of respect, hoomin!
On another note I was discussing tomorrow’s book with a friend and said I hope Julie wipes the streets up with Moloch. He asks if it would be wrong to ask her to prepare him (Moloch) properly and feed him to an orphanage. He thinks it would be a fitting end to a god that eats children.
It would be very fitting!
I’m afraid it might be terrible for the orphans’ health, though…
So, ah, about this chewy chocolate chip recipe… how exactly do you manage it without without a tub of Toll House? I’ve never yet managed it making the dough from scratch.
I’m so sorry for your misfortune with the furry monster and at the same time laughing myself sick. Nice to know that someone else has this problem. When cooking I put the teakettle & pans of water on hot burners as I finish. This is to keep one of my own furry monsters from jumping on a hot eye. My husband can see into the kitchen from his chair. More than once I’ve heard a high pitched scream of “DOC!” because Doc has decided its his job to sample whatever is cooking. He too has pulled a package of cooling chicken to the floor. To keep them out of the trash we bought an automated trashcan. Wave your hand over the pretty red flashing light and it opens. Frankie likes pretty flashing lights. I looked over to see just his eyes and ears over the top of the trashcan as he swatted the light when it flashed. I also saw the look of delight on his furry mug when the top opened. Few days later I came home to see Pansy sitting next to the trash. I joined her in staring at the trashcan. When I called for Fwankie a very soft plaintive cry came out of the trash. He doesn’t like that flashing light anymore.
Lol! I love you guys. I just snort-laughed visualizing that pandemonium.
The bad cat is very beautiful.
I had a moment like that years ago. It was an “OMG the in-laws are 5 MINUTES from my house!” I made the mistake of telling my kids that I didn’t care what they did as long as the kitchen looked clean while I frantically vacuumed.
The visit went well, however the next night when I was going to bake some smothered pork chops, I discovered where all the kids plastic cereal bowls had been hidden. Lol
Is there such a thing as a NOT bad cat? I have never seen one. Go Dogs!
Yes, my Himalayan, Ruffie. Best cat ever. Died at 20 years of age.
We named him Little Light because he was dumped at my old job at the same time our sweet Yowyuh (aka Tub of Butter) was dying of old age. LL was the prettiest 10 month old cat with a tail that was bigger than him. Everyday for 6 years, he required a daily blood sacrifice from both of us. My legs looked like I shaved drunk and blindfolded. My husband’s legs looked like he got into a fight with the weed whacker and lost. I once asked my husband if he thinks we would’ve kept Light if he wasn’t as pretty, and my husband replied ‘yes’ immediately. Ummm sure, now LL stopped his daily drive-bys and we feel bad since we can see he’s transitioned to bring an old cat. I hope we have at least another 10 more years with him and know we will always have the scars. Seriously, he mauled my wrists about 2 months before the bar exam and people would look at me and look away. I didn’t pet him again till after the exam because I didn’t want to risk losing the use of my hand. Most of his claw marks have faded but I still have a 3 inch long scar on my wrist.
This is his Venus flytrap pose.
I put a plastic laundry basket (full of laundry) on the big heating vent in my apartment. Came back home to a melted laundry basket, little runnels of plastic down in the vent, and toxic air. Surprisingly, the laundry was OK…go figure.
Butttttt…..uuuuummmmm we all kind of need the recipe to fool proof cookies… mainly cuz now I want cookies.
5am Tuesday in Oz … yesssssss my book is here. 🤓
Thank you for the laugh, the best way to start the day, especially these days.
LOL I have a cat like that too. I put a greasy skillet and spatula in the oven once to keep it from my cat and melted part of my spatula handle before I remembered it was in there 🤣. The crap we put up with for our cats…
We are now in the midst of a Mississippi Blizzard. It looks a lot like a Texas one. I plan to read Blood Heir as I wait for the temp to rise. Thanks for all your family does to make me happy 😊
When I moved two times ago, I plastic wrapped the rotisserie engine to the inside of the grill.
By the time several months had gone by, the move was accomplished, we had mostly recovered, and it was summer, we decided we wanted a steak.
Husband goes out, turns on the grill (propane that I had gotten refilled and reconnected without bothering to look INTO the grill) he also fails to look INTO the grill.
Several minutes later, toxic smell, melted plastic all over grill, we decide to have cereal for dinner…
Ahhh. Salem reminds me of our gray menace, Aliah. (Named after the Dune character) Aliah’s mission in life was to conduct gravity experiments with anything left out upon a horizontal surface. If she was unhappy with the amount of affection, food, or “I’m a cat–I don’t need a reason!” she’d clear off the tables, counters, and whatever she could reach.
We came home from work one day to discover she’d managed to get into our TV cabinet (A fancy full wall number with deep bookshelf storage–full of movies and knick knacks) and dump everything out onto the floor. She sprawled over the widest shelf and surveyed the debris with proud, sleepy eyes. We got rid of the cabinet and went minimalist in self defense.
She was the worst in my office. Close her out? She’d barf on my office chair. Leave the cat door open at night? Everything would be on the floor by morning. (Visitors used to ask me if our house was haunted because of all the crashing. I still crack up over that.)
Despite that, she was an amazing, affectionate companion that got along with both of our dogs and three other cats. She passed away in 2016 and I still miss her.
To be fair? I do not miss the puke on my office chair.
I’m looking forward to the new book! Happy Book Birthday in case I forget.
when is the audiobook coming out? i only consume audio
Hello Jessicake
While BLOOD HEIR has already been recorded, the files have to be approved and processed by Audible before they can appear on their site. Due to the large volume of audio books, Audible has been taking longer than usual to process the files. We expect the audio to be available within 3-4 weeks of the release 🙂
Thanks for this. I came for this very answer.
I’ve done the oven thing but with melted Pyrex dish lids lol. I used to live in an apartment where my roommate insisted I could use the oven to store my extra Pyrex dishes and glassware. I thought that concept was really weird, because our kitchen already had plenty of storage. (Later I learned apparently this was common back in the day and my grandma in France used to do this a lot). However, whenever I wanted to use the oven, I kept forgetting about the Pyrex dishes in there. So I would turn it on to pre-heat it, and then the smell of melting burning plastic would make me me remember, only it was too late. The glassware was fine of course, so all I destroyed were the lids haha. I destroyed lids twice this way before I finally insisted to my roommate to find room for my Pyrex dishes in the cabinets, because I wasn’t going to remember to remove my Pyrex dishes from the oven. Luckily there was no food involved because storing food in the oven is just not something I’d do, regardless of cats trying to steal food lol.
I checked. The Sacramento Public Library bought 15 copies. I think you’ll be okay. (Purchases are based on card holder recommendations to buy).
My black cat Vecna is the same age, but she cares only about sleeping on the bed, next to my deaf white furry naked midget cat, and chilling in the bathroom next to the baseboard heater. She only ever gets testy when another cat invades her personal bubble.
Don’t blame the cat. Don’t blame the scene. It was a common brain fart. I am sorry you had to have it happen AFTER you cleaned the oven, rather than before.
Back in my early 20s I made a lot of bread from scratch. The most stable temperature in my apartment was inside the oven, so that’s where I’d put my dough to rise. And this typically worked well because I had a long time to think about preheating the oven. Of course I eventually flaked and preheated the oven too soon. Being young and low on funds all my mixing bowls were plastic. So, like you, I had the definition of “hot mess” in my oven. This also took place in Texas, so perhaps Texas ovens are just cursed.
The only plastic mixing bowl in the house now is something my husband brought into our marriage; we only use it to hold popcorn. And about a week ago my husband temporarily stored something in the oven (that should not hang out there) and was mystified later why I had placed a blank sticky note across the oven controls. 😂
Lol!!! I thought I was the only genius who hides food from the cat in the oven!!! Over 25 years and 3 cats, I am now very well trained in checking the oven before turning it on!
As for the garbage, our first cat, the Empress of all things was the most beautiful Russian Blue with the softest and Silkiest fur I have ever seen and the most evil heart to go with it. She managed to open a raccoon- proof garbage can meant to be used outdoors in camping areas!!!!
From a person who loves to bake and has survived college cohabitations I strongly advise tinfoil. Just put a layer on the bottom of the oven and leave it there. Messes get stuck to the foil, accidents end up on the foil and whenever you need to clean simply change the foil. I have spent the last 4 years trying to convince my mother this is superior to cleaning the oven every few months or dealing with the smoke alarm every time she tries to bake.
Careful. Newer ovens have the heating units directly under that area. From experience, I have found it melts the foil and is near impossible to get off. Stinks too.
I’m so sorry, but I am so relieved we are not the only ones with a counter cat. We’ve tried everything suggested to us to keep him off the counter. Tin foil doesn’t faze him, water bottles never worked, yelling kind of works but who wants to do that? So we also resort to putting things in the microwave or oven. Once we started that, he only jumps up on the counter when we are in bed…you can’t hear him jump up but he’s a bit….tubby and you can definitely hear him jump down.
I see your scratched furniture and raise you random patches of scratched carpet and rugs.
I’m so excited for Blood Heir!
My library’s copy of BLOOD HEIR arrived today. My personal copy, for some reason, which I ordered from Amazon in early December, is not scheduled to arrive until January 25.
I seem to have the worst luck ordering IA books in print; Banks Books from which I ordered EMERALD BLAZE on the date they were mentioned, didn’t ship it until 2 weeks after release date, and it took me emailing them to ask if/when they were going to ship it to get them to process it. Whine whine I would like some cheese with that please.
At least I will be first on the holds list at work when it is ready!
Crossing my fingers for your new release.
Hoping its success reinforces House Andrews positive views of self-publishing. *Hug*
OMG that’s terrible – I feel really bad about laughing at this post but I can’t help it!
Pets are a source of so much chaos and so much hilarity! I remember one Christmas my parents’ Sheltie dragged the ham right off the dining room table (and broke the platter in the process); my mom retrieved the ham and served it in sandwiches to company the next day. When my sisters and I confronted her, slightly horrified, her response was, “What? I cut the tooth marks off!”
We have a cat that will eat ANYTHING. Plastic, bread, salad, you name it. So we also can’t leave food (even wrapped food, like a loaf of bread) out on a counter. The cat’s name is Gracie, so we call the cupboard where we keep food out of her reach “the Gracie cupboard.”
I had a similar oven melting incident many years ago thanks to my mom. I moved in with my parents about 20 years ago to help them out as they were getting older. One of the things I took over was all of the cooking duties but I would sometimes call my mom to preheat the oven for me when I was on my way home from work. Well my whole life Mom had always stored stuff in the oven, odd sized pots and pans, cakes or pies she baked, food we were still eating to protect it from the dogs. It was drilled into our heads as children you always check the oven before turning it on. So one day on my way home I call and ask Mom to preheat the oven for me. When I get to the front porch about 20 minutes later I smell the most awful chemical smell and can hear the smoke detectors going off. I look through the window and see both of my parents sitting in the living room watching TV and reading the news paper. I get the door open and a cloud of smoke billows out. The dogs and cats are going nuts, the alarms are blaring, the house is filled with smoke and there they just sit. I run into the kitchen an black smoke is just pouring out of the oven. When I open the door flames shoot out and I have to grab the fire extinguisher to put it out. I then run around the house opening doors and windows and turning fans on. The entire time my parents are still sitting in the living room looking at me like I have lost my mind. Finally I ask them ‘What the hell” why were they just sitting there. Not only did they not notice the smoke but they thought the smoke alarms were a neighbors car alarm and they couldn’t figure out why the pets were acting strange. That morning my mom had baked a pineapple upside-down cake to go with the supper I was going to make. She put it in a Tupperware container and then put it in the oven to store after the over had cooled down. That afternoon she completely forgot about it and didn’t follow the rule of checking before turning on the over and not only managed to melt the contained but set it and the cake on fire. I had to replace the stove because after trying everything I could think of for almost two weeks I couldn’t get all of the melted plastic out of the oven. I installed monitored smoke detectors and inside cameras after that so I could keep an eye on them, They still managed to set the microwave on fire a few years later by forgetting to put any water into the cup of Ramen soup they were making and putting in for 20 minutes instead of 2 minutes it called for but at least I was home for that incident. Had to replace the microware after that one too. I miss them and their craziness every day now that they are gone.
Sorry about the oven. Hope Gordon feels better.
Got my print edition. LOVED it! Done within 24hrs. Argh(frustrated groan)want more.
Thank you!!
My brother’s dog got into one of his boys’ Christmas stockings and ate about 10 packages of mixed flavors of Hubba Bubba bubblegum. First issue is, the dog pooped rainbows. Second issue, my brother had to follow him around the yard and use a gloved hand to grab the bubblegum and pull as it was coming out of Snicker’s butt. Think holding one end of your gum in your teeth and stretching out the other end. My dog has had two very expensive vet stays for her grazing habits and proceeded to fool everyone with her cute look and turned into a rabid wolverine on crack and attacked the vet, who said she was a “little bit feisty” and to please bring her home.
A couple months ago during lockdown we were having jacket potatoes. Four potatoes, and one exploded. All over the oven. It was funny as heck at first sight but then I had to clean it and it was NOT funny AT ALL! Thing is we pricked them despite in 40 & 60 years neither my mum nor I had ever encountered exploded potato. Because they say if you pierce it they won’t blow up. They lie!!! Potatoes are dangerous!
I’m thinking Salem took her name seriously and decided to live up to it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I had two cats, both tabbies and brother and sister, who loved to jump on the kitchen table and either eat what was on someone’s plate, or lick the milk out of my dad’s cereal bowl. They would play with yarn if someone was knitting or crocheting. My mom would tap them on the nose with her needle.
What was really interesting was my female waited to go to the bathroom in the litterbox when my dad would start eating breakfast. She did it in retaliation of my dad.
I feel your pain. I have three cats, the littlest on has three legs and does not not the meaning of the word Fear. She regularly chases my Tom (who is at least 4 times her size) around the house, and she is the most terrible food thief. We cannot leave ANYTHING edible on the worktops, it all has to be hidden (cupboards, oven, microwave, etc). She isn’t particular about what she nicks, she even ate half my iced donut when I turned my back to make a cup of tea. On Sunday she ran off with the cooked meat for our dinner … for some reason she has to take her spoils off the worktop, across the kitchen, down the hall, up two flights of stairs, across the landing, into our bedroom, then under the bed!!!
As I was reading the comments, I heard a crash upstairs. My dog had pulled the container of dog biscuits off the table. He ate a few and went to his kennel when I was coming up the stairs. He knew he was in trouble.
He eats anything on the table he can reach unsupervised. He mostly leaves anything on the counter and stove alone. It is the garbage that we have the most trouble with. We have a trashcan with a step lid, but we have to set something on top to keep him out.
He is an almost 5 year old keeshond, so a 35 pound fluff ball. Think a pomeranian scaled up. He looks like he is fat because of the fluff, but he is pretty lean.
Love your writing. I, too, have a bad cat. I also have a spare room which is closed off so I can use it for cooling stuff off I have cooked. That makes me happy and the cat frustrated.😀
If that won’t cheer Gordon up….. I’m sure another batch of chocolate chip cookies will do it! 🙂
Well at least your home life is taking your mind off of work.
Will you ever have time to tell us what is going on with Elana and Hugh? I mean the herbs are mysteriously dying. It’s like that old TV show Cliff Hanger. You left them with an unknown. ( yes I just reread Iron and Magic in prep for Julie’s story)
I have less than 12 hours before my copy drops. So sad my last patient canceled tomorrow. Guess I’ll just have to use some earn time. It’ll be awesome. Best thing to look forward to since going on vacation is out. 😁
Lol omg I did something similar yesterday. My husband was water proofing his boots by putting them in the oven on low (I think it’s to dry out the water proofing stuff). He tells me he left them in there with the oven off until they cooled down. Couple hours later I go to preheat the oven for dinner at 400 degrees. Smell something horrible. Remembered the boots. Husband gets burned trying to take them out. Fun times.
Oh noooo! Evil kitty still got you! Woe!
On the other hand, Blood Heir! Yaaaay! I was just thinking that if I went to sleep NOW, I could wake up just after midnight and get to start reading.
This is a flawless plan. Foolproof.
Ouch! I know the feeling. Christmas Eve, I set up the coffee pot for in the morning. Christmas morning I turned it on while everyone is getting drinks and getting ready for gifts. I came out of the bathroom ready for my first cup to see I forgot to put the pot underneath to catch it. 🤦🏻♀️ So we spend the next twenty or so minutes cleaning the kitchen we even had to pull the fridge out to get under it.
I say use the oven scene in an upcoming book. 😁
A favorite family story is my sister putting her favorite blue plastic ducky in the oven, and my mom finding it, just like you found the Chinese food.
Chewy chocolate chip cookies fix many ills! So sorry about the oven, but the story did make me giggle.
So sorry about the oven mishap. Maybe made a magnetic sign to indicate when the oven is “occupied.” Hope no ill effects from the plastic smoke. Warm cookies sound delicious. We’re getting a little snow here today. Very pretty. Looking forward to new book!! Thanks so much for your hard work!
Salem, meet Spooky! Spooky was raised by a pair of Jack Russell terrorists, and as a result she thinks she’s a dog. She beats up the new puppy (who outweighs her by a factor of 4) and drinks from the toilet. She is a demon cat too.
Rats. The picture didn’t come through.
I had a labrador that was brilliant at opening fridge doors. Luckily never the humans fridge, only the dog meat fridge in the bungalow. Used to come home and he would waddle to great me after consuming (or burying what he couldn’t fit in) about 5kg of meat. In the end I had to put a child proof lock and jockey strap around the fridge to stop him getting in. lol… miss him though, he passed away last March.
My little sister trained me at a very young age to always check the oven before I turn it on. When we were in elementary school, she was very into crafting adorable little sculptures with Sculpy, which needed to be baked at a low temperature. Unbaked Sculpy critters were often left in the oven to protect them from the (mostly pretty well-behaved) cats. Her little sculptures were very precious – often tiny dragons with huge, fluttery ears or cats with tails curled into hearts – and I think it only took one time of us accidentally burning some for me to learn to check the oven. Plus, burning Sculpy does not smell good. Twenty years later, the habit is still firmly ingrained.
We had a cat who liked all sorts of unusual foods: lemon poppyseed muffin, French toast, etc. Giving her antibiotics was no trouble because she would happily lick up that pink amoxicillin (bubblegum-flavored, I think; the vet said it’s the same stuff they give kids) from a spoon. Then we discovered that she loved zucchini. At age 16, she would stand on her hind legs and cry for slices of steamed zucchini!
You make me smile , sounds like something a lot of us have done, hope Gordon enjoyed his treat and it helped him cheer up 😊😊😊
Have you heard the new cc cookie recipe of baking for ten minutes, then sliding the pan out of the oven and slamming it down on the top of the stove so the centers of the cookies fall, then returning it to the oven, wait three minutes, repeat 2x? Ina Garten includes this “crinkled” cc cookie recipe in her modern comfort food book (2020). She got the idea from another baker, Sarah Kieffer, a food blogger who invented the deflating/reheating technique. At the end, the cookie edges are a crispy golden brown and the centers are lighter in color and not fully cooked. Ina sprinkles fleur de sel on top once the baking is complete. She calls for Lindt bittersweet chocolate, which she chops up, but I think I would miss the Tollhouse flavor of Nestlè semisweet chips…
Yessssss…. today is the day.
Well.. it is the 12th now in Switzerland 🙂
on Blood Heir — at 6pm on the day before the book has moved up to #130 on all Kindle and #3 on all sub catagories. Two ovens. Nice.
I still have clear packing tape on the corners of my sofa because of Monkey, a cat I lost two years ago, but I have repurposed the clear storage bin I used to use for food I didn’t want her to get into; I don’t tie my lower cabinets closed any more, to keep her from pushing everything out onto the floor; and I’ve finally repurposed the last blanket with holes chewed in it.
I love the two cats I have now very much, but I still occasionally wonder why they are so annoyingly well behaved.
I wish my oven worked. It broke last week. The stovetop still works and I got myself a $79 toaster oven/air fryer but you can’t leave tupperware on it as it gets very hot when used.
I ponder when to vacuum the carpet in the family room because the moment I do the one rescue cat throws up on it. Doesn’t throw up when it is dirty, just throws up on it after I vacuum and use carpet cleaner on the old dried up throw up spots.
Bwahaha! That sounds like a sucky sucky day, but I love your demon cat. We also have a black cat who feeds bones to the dog so I have a soft spot for troublemakers. He also scratches inappropriately. We had to get him an extra tall scratching post, and that helped some (but not all the way).
I believe sookie is channeling Jack Skellington. “What’s this?” Send the snow back my way when you get a chance. It’s January in Michigan – I’m not supposed to see the grass.
My husband and I had no registry when we got married in May — we’re both 50+ and are combining 2 houses worth of stuff — but an older relative got us an air fryer. Of course, we happily accepted as receiving a small appliance made us feel really married and I never had one and actually was quite pleased to find it roasts vegetables, fish, and is a really yummy way to bake crispy-skinned chicken wings. Well, ANYWAY, the best place to plug in and use an air fryer in a crowded kitchen is on one’s ceramic cooktop. Unless one is careless and turns on the wrong burner. Yes, I fried the air fryer. Plastic toxic smoke billowed, melted plastic on cooktop, and fridge’s electrical outlet shorted. But no fire, no one hurt — and I’m still married! 🙂
Ahh I burnt plastic in the oven once. Not a good experience lol. Took me a while to chip off from the grills, turns out disposable plates solidify really fast. 😅
Glad you got to clean them off and yay for cookies! ❤️ Bet it was a great reward
God!!! I’m thinking I’m the only one whoever left something in the oven, and set it on fire!! A very large, greasy pizza box, and it was SCARY!! Huh, I’m glad your cookies came out okay, and how nice to have 2 ovens, (serious envy) and WOW!! Great story. Thanks for sharing, I’m counting down for my book, SOON!!
Ooh I know that smell exactly. I dropped a large silicone cooking spoon in the dishwasher while emptying it, fell, into the bottom. I thought I will grab it after I finish the bottom rack. Well I forgot. Then I ran the dishwasher next time and gagh! Death! Horrible. The spoon was melted all over the heating element at the bottom, literally melted it didn’t look like a spoon anymore. Dad came and scraped it off but the dishes tasted horrid even after running it empty. Dad brought over some borax and we ran that through it helped though there are times I’m still convinced I can smell that Horrible smell when I open the dishwasher if it’s still hot.
My cat is a perfect angel! Who is now on anxiety medication because she sent me to the ER the week before Halloween to get cuts on my face glued shut because she flipped out for no reason we could discern and used my face as a launching pad. (The first time she did it, less than a year before, the scratches weren’t quite as bad- they were scratches, not cuts.)
She’s always been overly prone to startling at nothing, and her vet recommended we try the medication, which she has been doing wonderfully on, thankfully. Still playful and her normal self, just a little less likely to freak out.
(I do now have a “bad-ass anime character” scar across the bridge of my nose- and that wasn’t even the scratch that needed the glue!)
Some members in our house caught covid. We haven’t been feeling well, and so the christmas tree is still up. Our cat tried to pull the tree down. She is too overweight to climb up, and so she was tugging on the red table cloth that we used to cover up the storage boxes underneath the christmas tree… She got really really close to pulling it down but I caught her. Haha.
I’d like to saw that she would steal the “Bad cat” trophy but threatening the kill the kitten in very scary hisses is hard to top.. Though mine she did threaten to kill my terrier mix dog. To put salt in the wound, she was in our (mine and my dog’s) bed, in our room, and she came up on the bed and I didn’t mind but then my dog tried to jump up on the same side, and that was a mistake because she gave him a really awful hiss that would curdle your bones. I came to the rescue and put him on the other side of my bed. Because while it is mine, it is also his. My sister says that we are codependent and yes, it is true but it works very well for him and I.
I got my book today, and it was absolutely wonderful 😀
It was hard last year, and December was hard, and when January came my heart felt a little lighter and more peaceful, and then stupid USA politics happened and that stupid White house catastrophe, but the book arrived in the mail. Long story short is that you guys got me through a tough year, and the mind boggling start of January that had been hard on my heart and I am so grateful to you guys. When I get past this limbo period, and get back to work, I will be totally buying a signed copy. I am going to be donating my regular copy to the library because as much as I wanted to recommend the book, I wasn’t sure how to do so, and so I wanted to get one that they can have.
I hope that peace finds you and your family in this new year. Hopefully it will better, and if it isn’t, hopefully each and every one of us can make it better for others in our lives.
Oye, life! My husband accidentally had an egg roll off the counter and land behind/under the stove on Sunday. The oven was on (cooking bacon) so we waited to pull out the warming drawer and try and get at it. Then we forgot about it, and Sunday night I made a slow roasted pork shoulder. Today when we got back to the missing egg it had baked into the hardwood floor, shell and all, so we spent 20 minutes on our bellies with a spatula scraping the floor.
accidents happen, when one gets older .Still don’t worry that’s life
Yaay! Countdown begins. Can’t wait.
Sorry about the oven.
Glad you all got cookies anyway…now I’m going to bake us a batch to eat with my book when it gets downloaded!
Cheers and hearty CONGRATULATIONs!
Awww man! Nothing worse than hiding food and then catching it on fire! Thankfully you are not like my mom was – we always knew the dinner was done when the smoke alarm went off 😉
That was a very pretty snow scene. We pretended it snowed in Southern California last week when we had a small hail storm and everything was coated in white.
I hope all is well now – but I know all about those down days. I’m going to find out if I have a job still on Wednesday. Since I’ve been there for 24 years, it is hard to imagine not working there.
Hugs and Happiness to you all!
I dont have a demon cat, just an @sshole one some what my fault for naming her Kelev(Hebrew for dog) she is very much the dont touch me kind most of the time…..until lately when its I must lie behind you when ever you are on the bed…. and no I will not move….. she wont touch people food at all… only hands , or God forbid you walk down a dark hall… the back of ankles….. how many times I have been hunted heading to the bathroom. Like everyone else I am so looking forward to the new book, now just the wait for the next. As for the eogs eating things stories I grew up with a standard poodle who over the years ate a disposable razor, a round pin brush, and a pound and a half of sugar free chocolates we had gotten for my father…. and each time he can out unscathed…. scared the hell out of us but passed everything.
Room T cool down will get you food poisoning some day. Put it in frig and spend a little on electric. Or move to Maine, and have a freewalk in frig (porch) half the year.
Oh, I needed to include a stove disaster. Corelle ware is indestructible.
My wife flipped a car and a platter went out the hatchback when it popped open and slid down the highway at 60 MPH wife and kid2 needed ER dish fine. So, one day I put stack of dishes on stove while I start breakfast. Turn on wrong burner. Bottom plate fuses to the heat element, but rest are fine. It seems. Weeks later we have used them multiple times, run them through dish washer, no problems. Company is here, start serving lasagna . A plate explodes, sending bits flying, which burst sending more skittering. Pieces all over three rooms. Another plate simply breaks. Don’t remember what we ate, sincfe everything potentially had glass in it. My copy should arrive today.
The Texas blizzard made me laugh. When we moved to Houston from Ohio, I met neighbors and one day, as we talked, I mentioned that it would snow the next day. The woman, having lived in Houston all her life, laughed and told me that it doesn’t snow in Houston. Except it did. It snowed three times, I think, that winter. The panic was amazing.
I fail to see how Salem is a bad cat. She is very good at being a cat. She is, perhaps, not good at sharing her home with others.
My parents had a gas stove with a pilot light, so nothing that wasn’t cooking ever went into the oven. My in-laws had an electric stove and stored things in their oven. Fortunately for all concerned, when I brought the cooked turkey still in its pan to their house and tried to keep it warm while the side dishes were prepared on Thanksgiving, my mother-in-law was there to stop me from turning on the oven without emptying it. I have been forced to live with an electric stove, which I detest because it never turns on when I turn the knob and it never stops being a heat source when I turn the knob to make it stop heating. But I never put anything into the oven to store it because the oven is not a cupboard.
It puzzles me that the Chinese from the day before was still in the oven, hidden from the cat. It puzzles me that the oven got turned on before the ingredients were mixed to make cookies. I wonder why you didn’t ever mention an exhaust fan above the oven to pull that nasty stuff out of the kitchen. I can fully understand that your mind was on the scene you want to write. And I applaud that you would stop before it got typed out and make cookies to help your husband feel better. I just wonder why you scrubbed that oven in the frigid kitchen when you had another oven to use for the cookies and could have waited until the room warmed up to clean that mess.
But I have to tell you that I laughed a lot at how you told the tale of the whole situation. I am happy that the cookies were delicious, and I’m sure the scene will be worth all of the fuss that happened as you thought it out. Thank you for putting it all into a form where we can laugh about it and not cry over all it took to get it cleaned up and made right. I love how you spin the bad into humor.
I’m sorry you had this trouble. I just love you for sharing your happenings with us. Thank you.
Did you ever look at the website – I Can Haz Cheeseburger? Great dog and cat pictures. And my favorite were the black cats known as “basement kittehs”. As in “basement kittehs gonna take over the world!” Salem would be their leader 😂
So nice (and hysterical!) to hear other people’s Very Bad Cat stories. And oh so familiar! One of my current cat’s nicknames is Entropy. Because you know, my college education should count for something and it’s true! I too have to hide any and all edible food in the oven or toaster oven from the other cat (I wonder if it’s a black cat thing). And I have to make sure the oven door is completely closed because he can and has opened it if there’s even a crack. I’ve come close to melting and burning things but so far have always remembered in the nick of time.
What I really wanted to share are 2 quick stories from what may be The Worst Cat of All Time. Very, very smart though. Merlyn used to wake me up every morning as early as possible to demand I feed him Right Now! These were the days when waterbeds were still popular so there was a big wooden headboard above my bed where I used to always keep a glass of water. One morning my boyfriend watched Merlyn move the very Full glass with his paw then look at my face, then move the glass a bit more, then look at my face until (you guessed it) he’d positioned the glass directly over my face then swiped it straight onto me. Bad Cat and Bad Boyfriend! Merlyn and I also routinely had big arguments with each other. My zookeeper friend said he was the only animal she’d ever actually had to argue with. One day we were having a stare down with each other which he always won. All of a sudden he started backing up and I thought “OMG, for the first time ever I’m actually winning!!”. Merlyn backed up into my bedroom closet and never taking his eyes off me, peed in one of my favorite shoes. If only they gave out awards!
Happy Book Birthday 🥳
I bought an ebook copy of Blood Heir today because there was no possible chance that I could waiting until FRIDAY to receive my print copy!!! I’m so excited and looking forward to reading that copy too when it arrives, because I will have devoured the ebook in record time and no doubt missed things.
I’d also love to get your chocolate chip cookie recipe! Our old family favorite has disappeared and I’ve been on the search for a replacement for years without success. It was a perfect balance between firm but soft.
In other words Salem is a cat,
Would you be willing to share your “awesome fool proof recipe”? Please and thank you (and puppy dog eyes…) 😉
Will there be an audiobook for Blood Heir. I Love this series but have little time actually read. So I thoroughly enjoy the audiobooks.
Hello Juan
While BLOOD HEIR has already been recorded, the files have to be approved and processed by Audible before they can appear on their site. Due to the large volume of audio books, Audible has been taking longer than usual to process the files. We expect the audio to be available within 3-4 weeks of the release. Hope this helps 🙂
1) We have a sneaky, maniacal black cat named Salem, too, though he’s cute and living and purrs (so we don’t wring his neck). He and his much more mellow brother, Calcifer, are not yet 3 years old so we have many more years of sneakiness to contend with.
2) The first time I ever cooked a turkey, I cooked the extra organs and the plastic bag, too. Thanks be that I noticed within the first 30 minutes, thus saving Thanksgiving dinner.
We always have pans in the oven (use the residual heat to dry the pans after the last use and then promptly forget about them) so I’m trained to check and remove before preheating. I’m so sorry for your toxic meltdown!!
And am politely adding my request for the recipe. Pretty please?!?
Trim the nails! It may be a hazardous activity while you learn safe (for you) techniques, but cats with trimmed nails do less shredding of furniture and others.
Years ago I remember putting peas in a pan, turning on the stovetop. Then only remembering said peas when the smoke rolled out of the kitchen. The peas were tiny smoldering ruins, the bottom of the pan was glowing red hot. What a close call. Sad thing is several years later I did the same thing.
I had a kitten who thought we needed food in bed, just in case I guess. One night the kitten dragged a half loaf of bread and a bag with two bagels from the kitchen counter three rooms away, and a baby mouse who apparently been licked to death. I woke up to something wet and slimy against my naked back. Kitten got locked out of the bedroom after that for months and all the bread went into the microwave.
The fates have graced you with a Cat. Not a cat, but a Cat. These creatures are special even among their own kind. They do not play. They do not aspire to be cute. Gods forbid they bat a ball or pounce on a string. Their purpose on this earth is to improve the human race by forcing them to exercise patience and hone their anger management skills. Truly, you are blessed among mortals.
Would love to see that cookie recipe!!!! Pretty please with sprinkles on top
Thank you for the update on life things 😊 I must say that I really enjoy your posts.
Also, would you be willing to share said yummy cookie recipe? Lately I’ve been in somewhat of of baking frenzy. I think it’s partly due to the fact I’m going stir crazy in a tiny house filled with multiple residents. And as you said, cookies tend to make things better 🥰
We store food that we don’t want to put in the refrigerator and can’t leave on the counter due to a counter surfing dog, inside the microwave. That includes the rotisserie chicken, cake, take out etc. Maybe you can do the same.
For several months we cat-sat a Russian White cat named Ponger, who LOVED to play the gravity game. He could jump from the floor to the top of a 6-foot tall bookcase in a single leap, and then walk across the top of the bookcase, sweeping each object off the top with his paw until he had a clear space to lie and survey his domain. We had to cat-proof the entire house (think baby-proofing in reverse, from the top down instead of the bottom up).
Also, have you considered an oven mat for the bottom of your oven? One of our favorite dishes is homemade lasagna, which ALWAYS seems to bubble over. By the time the oven cooled enough to clean, it was always a hardened mess on the bottom. With the mat, we just wait for the oven to cool, remove the mat, flip off the messy spots into the trash and replace. The hardened sauce doesn’t even leave a residue behind, because of the coating on the mat (silicone? teflon? who knows?), and it pops off in one piece with no problem.
Also, also, BLOOD HEIR!!!!!
Bhahaha. I have one that looks just like her. And takes the other cats food and sits on her.
My Salem’s name was Boudica, Bo for short. She passed this last fall after 16.5 hellish and wonderful years. I miss her even having 7 other cats and a grand dog. She was an original.