But when they're parking their cars on your chest, you still got a view of the Summer sky

So, the last time that you all heard from me, it was Friday night. I had just finished spending the day making cupcakes and was wondering if they were too creepy to take to a fundraiser bake sale. Oh, ho ho...those were such innocent times, my friends. Such innocent times.

When I went to bed on Friday night, I'd decided (thanks to the encouraging words from my Ranch Dressing friends) to take them to the sale and to be proud of them. Sure, they looked a little creepy but they still looked like cats and that was the goal. Done. Contentment.

Saturday morning, I woke up and all Hell broke loose. My alarm clock was beat to the punch by that distinct sound that can not be mistaken for any other. You cat owners know where I'm going with this. Oh yes, that's right. Kitty cat throw-up. I sprang to my feet to find Pip in the bedroom floor unleashing the fury of last night's dinner. Uggh. In my groggy haze, I managed to clean that up and went to the kitchen to get the morning rituals started. But oh no.. Before I could even get my morning cup of wake-up, I heard the sound again. This time, it was Mishka back in the bedroom for a repeat performance of Pip's perfect storm. Seriously??

Not to worry - I didn't document this part of my morning with photos. Though, I do have this one from a thrift store that fits perfectly.



In the above scenario, that's Mishka laughing at Pip but little does she know that minutes later, she too will be tossing her cookies. Sobu would be the dog in the background offering one of my shoes to throw up into instead.

After clean-up, I went to the kitchen, hopeful for a restart to my day. Then I noticed them. The cat cupcakes. They had completely destroyed themselves overnight.

What used to look like this:


Now looked like this:


The moisture from the all-natural licorice had wicked into the cupcakes, leaving greasy pools in the icing - which was then partially soaked up by the little candy eyes which were now bloated, brown and gooey. The whiskers slid from their faces like mud slide debris and their expressions which were once comical now seemed to cry out for help.



KILL. US.

Twenty little faces...all staring at me with horror in their eyes. But I'm pretty sure that it was nothing in comparison to the horror in my eyes. I'd spent half a day making them and the bake sale was starting in a few hours. I felt pretty lame after promising to bring cat cupcakes and I'd signed up to bring two items and now only had one. After a bit of whimpering and whining, I jumped into action and found that I had barely enough ingredients in my house to make oatmeal raisin cookies. Those would have to do.

I made the dough and popped the first batch into the oven, only to find that the ancient piece of junk was malfunctioning and shooting up a hundred degrees over what it was set to. Over the course of a couple of hours, I somehow managed to get the cookies made. But not without a complete crying jag with the Mister long distance over the phone and having chest pains. Oh, and with Pip deciding to absorb my stress and bite my legs over and over as I worked. It was one of those mornings when everything was falling on top of me. I pulled myself together as best I could and decided that I would deliver the cookies to the bake sale and come back home, draw the curtains and watch movies for the rest of the day. I seriously needed some "me" time before I snapped.

I was in my car and about ten minutes from the bake sale when oh yes, I saw two dogs running down the middle of the road, barely being missed by traffic. I pulled over and opened my car door and called to them. The black lab of the pair leaped into my car and started bounding across me happily. I threw my car into park in someone's driveway, closed the dog inside of my car and went after the other dog, who was completely terrified of me and now running like lightning up the road.

I sulked back to my car to see that the black lab was in my back seat, running back and forth across my baked goods. Of course. Two days of work and the bake sale was now officially history.

And then there was this girl who was looking to me to fix things.


Pretty cute, huh? She had a collar but no tags. Nobody knew her. I took her to the vet and they found no microchip either. I knew that I could either release her back out onto the street (which wasn't going to happen) or take her to the pound where she would most likely never make it out alive - so we headed to my house. I set her up on my sun porch with some pretty whacked-out cats staring at her through the window. Two of them have never seen a dog before and I'm pretty sure that their minds were blown.

I spent the next eight hours contacting rescues, placing ads, making phone calls and trying to keep her calm. Which didn't work. She was completely spazzing out, barking and wanting to go home. I couldn't leave her alone for a second. Every time that I took her for a walk to do her business, she literally dragged me around the yard. Two days later and I can barely use my left hand due to leash bruises.

Late that night, she was reunited with her Mom (who she also dragged around like a rag doll on the leash) and I learned that the other dog had been found as well. I went home to spend the next couple of hours cleaning up mud from my sun porch floors, walls and windows. And of course, eating crushed cookies for dinner. I then fell into bed. Yesterday, I worked trying to get muddy paw prints off of my car upholstery. I've yet to have that "me" time. That's what I get for even telling the universe that I was planning to do so.

And since the universe seems to be eavesdropping: TAGS WITH PHONE NUMBERS. MICROCHIPS. EVERYONE. DO IT. NOW. SOMEWHERE THERE IS AN OVERTAXED ANIMAL RESCUER ABOUT TO SNAP.

On a happier note, thanks to those of you who have donated to the Chip-In for Barbara and Minnie. We really appreciate it!

And I'll leave you with the video for the song that my post title came from. A Saint Bernard saves the day. Do any of you remember that cartoon where the Saint Bernard comes to the aid of Yosemite Sam, only to mix a martini and get drunk and leave him? I'll attach that one too.





Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha

Animal Parents Need Love Too

Hey all! Two things that I'd like to tell you about today. First, there is a bake sale tomorrow in East Nashville to raise money for a nice young couple who have been handed a $2700 vet bill for their kitty. Ouch. That's a lot of money and they have two small daughters to take care of as well. Their poor cat swallowed a sewing thread and it got wrapped around his intestines, stomach and esophagus and he was in a lot of danger there for a bit. Neighbors are pitching in to try and help them pay some of that bill. I decided to make cat cupcakes:




It's okay to laugh. I know that they're truly ridiculous and not at all what I had pictured in my head. I wanted them to look happy but instead, they look like they're in distress. I'm kind of embarrassed to take them to a bake sale for a kitty who's actually been in distress. Would you take them? W.W.Y.D.? Should I just act like they never happened and take the cookies by themselves? Remove their little faces and put on more icing and cover up the whole fiasco with zippy rainbow sprinkles? Do tell! Be my compass, readers.

I'd wanted to use small shoestring licorice for the whiskers but as it's apparently too old timey to be carried in stores anymore, I bought a block of licorice and cut my own. Which don't look like whiskers at all but like maybe the kitties had run-ins with a roving band of porcupines. I put them next to the chocolate chip cookies above to convince you that they are truly baked goods and not just a heinous joke. At this time, I have no comment on their whackadoodle mouths.

If you'd like to come support this nice family and their kitty, the bake sale is between noon and six tomorrow, Saturday the 15th at the Green Wagon. It's at 1100 Forrest Avenue in East Nashville. I promise there will be lots of yummy things to purchase there and some of the local animal rescue groups will be representin'. I hear there will be puppies!

However, you will not find me there as I am going to drop off my pitiful excuse for kitty cat cupcakes and go across the street to my favorite pizza joint, Pizzareal and drown my cupcake making ineptness by eating many, many pizzas.

MAMA HEN MOMENT: I'd also like to take this opportunity to say that we need to be vigilant to make sure that our kitties don't get anything like thread, yarn or string within a mile of them. This goes for curling ribbons too. Anything like that can be quickly swallowed and can be super deadly to them. Now, I know that you've seen all of the kitties illustrated down through history who are playing with yarn - No sir. No ma'am. Don't let 'em. I can't even begin to tell you all of the horror stories that I've witnessed in my time at vet's offices due to strings, threads and ribbons. And last year, Pip swallowed a string and we waited in horror for days to see what was going to happen to her. Fortunately, she was okay but many other kitties haven't been so lucky.

In other pet related news, my pal Barbara needs help if you can. You may be a follower of her blog If I Didn't Have A Sense of Humor. If you're not, check her out. She is hilarious and her specialty is making funny with vintage ads. She's also a really good person who is a real champion for animals. She is currently battling with Bank of America (boo! hiss!) to try and keep her home after some of their shady mortgage dealings. And since bad things often come in pairs, she was told that her beautiful dog Minnie needs $4000 worth of surgery to save her knees.




When it rains, it pours, huh? We're trying to raise just a portion of that $4000 and have set up a Chip-In to try to take the edge off of those medical bills. If you'd like to give to help them out, you can click here:



Any amount would go a long way towards helping. I just can't imagine poor Minnie not being able to walk without being in horrible pain and I can't tell you how great of a person Barbara is. She once helped me rehome two little dogs who were left homeless after a drive-by murder left them without owners. She doesn't mind getting in the trenches and helping change lives of animals. She's helped pass the word about so many of my own animal rescue causes and has a true heart of gold. And she sends me wacky eBay links and nice notes and fruits with faces in the mail when she can tell that I need uplifting. She's a good egg.

Thanks y'all! I hope that you have a great weekend!

Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha

You ever have one of those days...

When you search your house for an hour and a half looking for Bundt cake pans and just can't figure out where you put them?


Hmm...now where can they possibly be?

Like my grandma used to say: "If they'd been a snake, they would have bit you!"

(She'd probably also say "Don't leave the house without a dime for the pay phone" and "Don't post photos of yourself with no makeup" and "What did you comb your hair with? A rake?")

Those pans have been on that wall for three months now. This coming from the person who gets upset if she adds a new knick-knack to a display and the Mister doesn't notice immediately when he comes home. "It's the squirrel with the glitter vest! You don't love me!!"

I felt so old and senile when I finally noticed where the pans were. And too tired to even bake a cake anymore. I'd walked all over the house, going through every cabinet and cupboard. I searched the garage and even the closets while declaring to myself, "I KNOW that I have Bundt cake pans!" And as I always do, I wondered if perhaps someone had come in and taken them. Because Bundt cake pan thefts are on the rise.

But maybe it's not actually old age setting in. I've been pretty addled since I saw this ad on Craigslist:



Someone, somewhere is pantyhose crafting. Kind of makes the blood run cold, doesn't it? When this ad was posted, other people replied with accusations that pointed fingers at the poster for being a "pervert". They accused them of using crafting as a cover for wanting to sniff and do dirty things with hosiery. But what if they were wrong? I'm sure they had no idea of truly how deep a "pany hoes" perversion can actually run.


An actual item that someone was asking actual money for.

Someone recently asked me if I felt like a hypocrite for raging against pantyhose crafting when I'm some chick with "kitsch" in my name. And no.

Lord have mercy...where was I? Oh, that's right! My old age! My walking around in circles and searching today reminded me of this word play that I found a few years ago:



See what they did there by taking the word "senior" and turning it into a cry for help? Pretty joyous, huh? This was sent to me from a church who obviously thought that I was a senior citizen whose life had gone down the toilet. They had hoped that it might somehow encourage me to join their senior's group. Sure thing. Right after I get my head out of the oven.

You ever start reading one of my posts and wonder where I'm going with it? Me too! We'll just nip this in the bud right now. But not before this:


Octopus Bundt Pan!!
Apparently out of stock all over the world. Sigh.



Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha

Found Cuteness

I found these little scamps in a photo box at an antique store the other day.


They are probably around the same age as my brother and me.


Easter buckets, biatches!