The Tale of the Mad Baker and the Bad Cat

This story ends happily.  No one dies.  There are cookies.  Find nihilism and philosophical musing elsewhere today.

You were warned.

Once upon a time the Archaeogoddess was happily into her second trimester of pregnancy.  A time known by THEM to be a time full of vim and vigor.  And she decided when waking up on Saturday that the day would end with cookies.  And a pie.

Because why bake 6 dozen cookies if you can bake 6 dozen cookies and an apple pie with a crust topping?

She'd never baked an apple pie with a crust topping, being simply lousy with pastry and lacking a rolling pin.  But how could that possibly dent the enthusiasm?

First there was shopping.  Along with cookies and pie, our heroine decided to make double baked potatoes and saltimbocca pollo.

It all began with brilliant precision timing.  Potatoes in the oven, cookie dough mixed and popped in the fridge, chicken breasts butterflied, flattened, seasoned, topped with parma ham, rolled up and tied with string... and then it started to fall apart.

The potatoes resisted efforts to be baked.

The saltimbocca required much more butter than previously anticipated.  There was just not quite enough butter for pie dough.  But that's okay.  Instead of peeling apples, the Archaeogoddess was poking potatoes with a fork every 20 minutes for another hour.

Finally the potatoes were done and the cookies could be started.  Enter a Bad Cat.

Ever try to bake cookies with an inquisitive cat?  A cat who has two singed whiskers because he got too close to a heat source?  A cat who often leaps before he looks, resulting in falling into toilets, landing in sinks full of water, going head first into a potted plant that was on the counter, and who, while diving into a paper bag, slammed himself into a wall?  Okay, he's not just inquisitive, he's also a little special.

The Bad Cat would not stop trying to get onto the counter where she was rolling cookie balls, the table where she was cooling cookies, and the oven where she was baking.

So the Bad Cat had to be removed from the kitchen.  This meant that the Archaeogoddess was now trapped in the kitchen while the sounds of a displeased Bad Cat and his little paws emerged from under the door.  At least the cookies were safe from his hairball butt, but alas they were not safe from the greedy tummy of the Archaeogoddess.  Despite the recipe distinctly saying "makes 6 dozen cookies" only slightly more than 5 dozen made it into the cookie jars.

Dinner was fabulous.  The Bad Cat pouted and finally left in a huff to get his own dinner at his real home.

Sunday rolled around and once again supplied with more butter, although she forgot the ice cream, the Archaeogoddess began to make her pie.  The small problem of "no rolling pin" became a pressing issue.  The Bad Cat was no help finding an accommodating wine bottle (empty, in the recycling bin) nor in cleaning off the label.  He happily slept on the rocking chair as she attempted to removed the sticky bits with fingernail polish remover (fail) and window cleaner (fail) and when she finally accomplished her task with waterproof eye makeup remover.  But the minute she began to roll out the dough, there he was at her feet meowing and pawing at her legs.  He was again banned from the kitchen.

The pie was amazing.  And there was enough left over dough to make an apple turnover, despite the Archaeogoddess first attempting to eat the dough as it was.

Raw pie crust is not nearly so tasty as raw cookie dough.

That night, having eaten a bit too much sugar for her own good, the Archaeogoddess was sitting on the couch watching old Dr. Who episodes on her computer.  Suddenly the largest spider she's seen outside of the Middle East scuttled across the floor.  Without shrieking (which would wake her husband), she vaulted over the end of the couch and dived through the door to the office.  She then ran through her office, the dinning room and the kitchen (totally expecting to step on or run into another spider) to grab the heaviest glass she could find.  Then it was back to the living room to climb over another couch to sneak up behind the spider and carefully set the glass down over the spider.  It was now trapped in front of the TV.  And the adrenaline rush meant that the Archaeogoddess was not going to be sleeping for a very long time.  Fair enough, the spider had to be watched.  What if it pushed over the glass?  What if it made a break for it?

The hours ticked by.

Then the Archaeogoddess's husband, the Danish Boy, came down to see what had happened to his wife.  Half asleep, he carefully removed the spider and dropped it off outside.  After first swearing he couldn't possibly go back to bed, he did.  While he agreed it was a REALLY BIG SPIDER, it was not exciting enough to keep him up.  The Archaeogoddess was too scared to google spiders in Denmark.  She watched another Dr. Who.

The Bad Cat was absent during the proceedings.

Monday, having only gotten to bed at 6 in the morning, the Archaeogoddess was having a pajama day, complete with Bad Cat and apple turnover.  A knock at the door startled both heroine and cat, who was enjoying a belly rub, having been denied apple turnover yet again.  At the door was the Bad Cat's owner, who proposed the following:

How would the Archaeogoddess like to adopt the Bad Cat?

Absolutely!  What Joy!  

She went back inside and that night they opened up the can of cat food that had been languishing since they'd promised to not feed him anymore.  Suddenly the Bad Cat became the Much More Polite and Calm Cat.  The way to a man's heart is though his stomach - this is true for all species.

Today the Archaeogoddess and the Danish Boy went and bought proper quality cat food for a castrated cat over a year old.  The Archaeogoddess may be stuffing herself with cookies and pie, but someone in this house will be eating correctly.