Odeur de chien. (Not sure if I spelled that right, it’s been a while since I’ve written in French.)

Mabel’s breath stinks. I think minty-fresh doggie biscuits are on the menu for making this weekend, definitely. After all, it will be nice again, and I can bake!

Did I mention that I’m going to make homemade bagels, too? Not necessarily this weekend, but soon. Cinnamon swirl, I think. And poppyseed, since I can’t find ready-made poppyseed in the bags of bagels we like to buy at Kroger.

I’m wondering if I can get Mabel in the bathtub by sitting in the bathtub myself. I don’t care if my clothes get wet, and she always comes when I sit or crouch down. She needs a bath big time.

See, if I had a hose that had hot and cold water, it wouldn’t be an issue. I mean, I guess I could rig one up to go out the bathroom window, but that would be a bit excessive. Hmm. I think I might try the sitting-in-the-bathtub idea. (This weekend.)

I am listening to the tractor pull at the Brown County Fair. It’s 9:23pm, and I’m hoping it doesn’t go on for much longer. We’re about two blocks away from the fair, and boy is it loud. Dad said it sounded like a chainsaw in my front yard. And guess what? There are tractor pulls every night this week. Boy, am I glad I’m not working 10 hour days!

Oh, and I found pee spot #5 this evening, right under Mabel’s pillow. So I had to put it in the wash. Mischa isn’t happy at all–he’s meowing every time someone passes the door. I did find a strange wet spot on top of Hildy’s box, but I really don’t think it was cat pee, because it’s not that big. Hildy could have just as easily climbed up there and peed, although she does usually go in the litterbox.

I didn’t see or smell any cat pee in the bathroom today. It doesn’t look like he went to the bathroom in the litterboxes, either, but that’s also pretty normal for him for the first day or so of isolation. If I don’t notice anything tomorrow, I’ll give him some canned cat food and see if that helps. I mean, I did clean out both litterboxes!

Mischa is in isolation again. I have found pee in the bathroom (again), something that didn’t smell like pee but probably was in the entry room (again), pee on the carpet square in front of the bathroom (new), and pee in the upstairs bathroom (new), which I cleaned up and hoped for the best, since that’s the isolation room.

This time, he’s staying in the bathroom for two weeks. No letting out for good behaviour. And although I should probably take him to the vet and see if it’s a UTI this time (if you remember, it wasn’t last time, just anxiety), I think it’s the ’stress’ of Cleo’s arrival.

**EDIT*** And then, after I wrote this, I went downstairs and had to clean up dog puke. And then, Ethan spilled his chocolate milk all over his new rug. And then… (There hasn’t been another incident yet, thank goodness. But I’m tired of cleaning up fluids!)

The chili was good. This morning, it is very chilly outside. I’m almost tempted to wear socks. (Almost. But not quite. My feet can suffer for a little while longer, I think.) But it’s only supposed to get up to 75 today! Yay!!

Of course, it might not be so chilly in the house if we didn’t have so many windows open still, but oh well. I am not turning on the heat. Nope. That’s what blankets are for, after all. And I like having windows open. Just like I try not to wear socks until I really, really have to, I try to leave windows open until the last possible moment.

I stumbled across someone’s blog last night, and every single sentence was punctuated by at least ten exclamation marks and/or question marks. And this person wasn’t a teenager, either, but a married mother of one. It was disconcerting, at the least!

Okay, okay, I’m making chili. I couldn’t resist! It’s just too nice outside not to.

Now, I just have to make sure I don’t ‘taste’ it all before supper…

The cake came out perfectly. It did fill my kitchen with the smell of chocolate, and although the little donuts ran over a bit, they still tasted great. It’s sitting on my kitchen counter at the moment, hopefully safe from the cats (they aren’t allowed on the counters.) I’ll probably stick it in the dining room overnight for safekeeping. I’ll just have to not forget it tomorrow!

And I think I’ll just stick with the cake. I want to get some writing done today, and put away my clothes tonight, so I need to get to work. Playtime is over.

I’m responsible for bringing in something for a coworker’s b-day tomorrow, so I got out my copy of The Cake Mix Doctor. Here’s my variation of the “Darned Good Chocolate Cake”:

1 box dark chocolate cake mix (with Hershey’s syrup)
1 box chocolate fudge instant pudding
4 eggs
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1/2 c. milk
1 cup sour cream

(I think that’s it; I’ll edit if I missed something, since I’m upstairs and the book is downstairs.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray vegetable oil onto a large bundt pan (the recipe called for a 12-cup bundt pan) then coat with flour. Mix all ingredients together, blending well. Mixture will be very thick. Scoop mixture into bundt pan, put in oven for 45-50 minutes, or until cake pulls away from the sides of the pan and/or the toothpick test comes out clean.

I also used a bit of the batter to make two donuts in my donut molds, so I’m thinking darker-than-devil’s food donuts. Yum!

(I left out the chocolate chips. They seemed a bit redundant. However, if I’d had any caramel squares in the house, I might have added a couple in key places just to make things interesting.)

And I don’t think I’ll bother with icing; I don’t want to kill anyone.

Now, I’m contemplating whether or not to make vegetarian chili for supper, and/or carrot cake for the b-day girl, since she said she also loves carrot cake. I don’t want to overdo it, right? Right? But it’s sooooooooooooo not hot outside, and I haven’t baked in months!! (Nothing pertinent, at least.)

Here’s the wallpaper from the back of the radiator in the green room. I had to pull off a couple of pieces so I could get a picture. Can you imagine this in a 10′x15′ room with 9 foot ceilings?! Ack. They did remove the wallpaper before painting, but left it behind the radiator, probably because it’s a bit difficult to get back there without scraping yourself up.
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Last week or so, Ethan picked at the wall and uncovered a strip of hunter green wallpaper (along with crumbling plaster in one corner of the hallway heading upstairs.) Last night, curious, I picked at it some more, and uncovered this scrap of wallpaper. It is hunter green with cream and beige colored flowers–and the darker green on the right is a leaf. As far as I can tell, it covered the walls all the way up to my ‘wing’, because it’s up there as well. I keep trying to imagine the entire hallway done in hunter green wallpaper with cream and beige flowers–*shudder* That’s almost as bad as the wallpaper behind the radiator in the green room.
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Misty stamps! How cute is that? I doubt I’d ever buy them–the markup is terrible–but it was fun to create.

And six of six. Zoey decided to join the crowd. (Why does six feel like so much more than five?)
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Five out of six. Zoey did attempt to join us (I was on the chair that’s not in the picture) but she didn’t want to sleep with anyone else, so she left.
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