Show & Tell: A "Tail" of Two Dogs

This will be a short Show & Tell - blame it on the rain, or the fact that it's Monday, and I already need a snorkel to breathe under my workload this week. Anyway, here goes!

When I was younger, my family had two Scottish Terriers. They were wonderful dogs, and I grew to love the breed. Now that I'm older, I have a rambunctious Scottie of my own. The two figurines in the picture were given to me recently by my parents; oddly synchronous gifts, in light of the fact that they hate each other desperately and have not spoken in nine years.

My mother has had the figurine on the left for years, but felt it was time to pass it on. I wonder whether my dad remembered it, and if that triggered his purchase of the one on the right. In any case, I thought it was bittersweet that they both chose to give me the same gift, around the same time.

Don't forget to take a peek at what the rest of the class brought!

Show & Tell: The Furry and The Not-So-Furry

For this week's Show & Tell, I thought I would share pictures of our own little menagerie. (Technically, I can't call them my "furbabies" because only one has fur.) The first picture below is of our Sphynx cats, Serenity and Celerity. Serenity is on the right (with the white on her face), and she is Celerity's mother. Contrary to what you may think if you saw the Friends episode where Rachel got rid of a Sphynx because it was so mean, they are really sweet, loving and social. Our house is not one where the cats hide under a bed when we have guests over; if there is action, these two want to be involved. We frequently describe them as dogs in cat-suits.


They aren't completely hairless; both have small tufts of fur behind their ears and on their noses. Their bodies are covered in a soft peachfuzz. They have really high metabolisms and are known to sneak food out of the sink, if there are any dirty plates lying around. Celerity in particular is a talented food thief; she once stole a stalk of asparagus off my plate when I wasn't looking. I had to chase her through the whole house to get it back (I wasn't sure whether asparagus would be okay for her to eat).


We also have a two year-old Scottish Terrier named Riddick. C and I were concerned about how Riddick would interact with the cats when we first brought him home. He set the right tone by immediately laying down and showing submission to them. (For a Scottie, we thought that was pretty unusual.) Of course, once he settled in, we had a few "puppy" moments where he wanted to play and the cats weren't so enthused. I quickly lost my fear that he might hurt the cats, and instead realized that they could easily hurt him. (They aren't declawed.) All in all though, my fears proved unfounded, and now it's not unusual to see Celerity and Riddick curled up on the couch together.



Serenity and Riddick hit a rough patch in their relationship early on - I was giving Serenity her weekly bath, and foolishly left the door open so I could hear if Riddick got up to anything he shouldn't. (Side note: since Sphynxes don't have fur to take the oil off their skin, they need weekly baths.) I was kneeling beside the tub, lathering the cat up, when Riddick came running in and leapt over me. He landed on the soapy cat, who went underwater and then bolted out of the tub and into the living room. Riddick took off after her. If the cats are dogs in cat-suits, then Riddick is a dog who thinks he's a cat. He tried to jump from the back of the loveseat onto the kitchen island; being sopping wet, he wasn't quite able to make it, but it was hysterical to watch.


So that's our little zoo! Now go see what the rest of the class brought. Hope everyone has a Happy Easter!

Show & Tell - Birthday Cake!

C's birthday was Saturday, and I decided to bake him a cake. If you knew me IRL, you'd be rolling on the floor right now, because me in a kitchen is a recipe for disaster. (Get it? Recipe for disaster?)

A little background: my reputation for stirring up trouble in the kitchen started in the ninth grade. My mom was working late one night, and I "helped" by frying up some bratwurst. I'm still not sure what happened exactly...but somehow dinner caught fire and everyone panicked. My sister grabbed the dogs and hid under the (wooden) piano bench. My dad rushed forward with a large fork, screaming something about saving his dinner. He rescued the bratwurst from the fire (well, what was left of them, at any rate) and then extinguished the blaze. As for me...I'd like to say I ran to get a fire extinguisher, but the truth is that I just stood there looking at the fire, because I thought it was pretty.

Not much has changed since then. However, C takes such good care of me, and I have put him through so much lately with my hormonally-induced craziness, that it seemed really important for him to have a proper birthday cake this year. We follow a very strict diet free of gluten and refined sugar, which added substantially to the challenge, but I was able to pull it off! I made a three-layer gluten-free carrot cake, sweetened with blue agave nectar. And it wasn't even charred!!



(Well, okay - I did burn it a little. But that's what frosting is for, right?) Now head over to Mel's and check out what the rest of the class brought!

Show & Tell

This is my first ever contribution to Mel's Show & Tell! For the past two years, most of the presents I've gotten from C have had a pampering/spa-like theme. It's really very sweet; I think he does it because actual spa treatments are so expensive, and not a part of our IVF finance plan. Anyway, for my birthday last year he gave me an expandable bath tray, so I can read in the tub without getting my books wet! It is my favorite thing ever. It has a coaster-like area for regular drinking glasses, and a compartment that stemware just slides into, for keeping wine glasses perfectly stable!


I like to pair it with a nice glass of chianti (which, not coincidentally, is the name of the bathroom wall color) and my favorite bubble bath scent at the moment (black currant vanilla):


Everyone needs some pampering sometime, right? Which I am off to do now, so go check out the what the rest of the class brought here!