This has probably been posted before, but I like it :)

Baking Cookies With Your Cat 1. Look in cookbook for cookie recipe. 2. Get cup of coffee. 3. Get cat off of cookbook. 4. Find that special recipe. 5. Get cat's nose out of coffee mug. 6. Go to fridge and get eggs. 7. Get dry ingredients from cupboard. 8. Break eggs in small bowl. 9. Sift dry ingredients in large bowl. 10. Answer the phone. 11. Cat ate eggs; get more from fridge. 12. Get cat out of flour bowl and dust cat off. 13. Get Band-Aids for scratches on hands. 14. Throw flour out and get more. 15. Preheat oven for cookies. 16. Looking at cat & wanting to bake cat now. Cat runs for cover into bathroom. 17. Flour the counter to roll out cookie dough. 18. Big crash in bathroom; run to see what happened. 19. Cat has TP all over floor; stuff spilled and knocked over on top of bathroom counter. 20. Yell at cat. Cat falls in toilet bowl. 21. Can sense cat is angry. 22. Take cat out of toilet to dry cat off. 23. Get bandages to cover more scratches on arms and legs. 24. Cleanup bathroom. 25. Hear a thump in kitchen ... Oh Golly ... now what? 26. Get cat off floured counter in kitchen. 27. Try to pick out cat hairs from flour. 28. Step on cat's tail and get bitten. 29. Get coat, car keys, and go to store to buy cookies.

-- Anonymous, May 09, 2002

Answers

LOL

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2002

Zucco has trained himself to sit at the table. Stop me if I've already told you this. He sits on a dining chair on two phone books and eats from a plate. He gets mostly cat crunchies but also the occasional small tidbit. It's so funny--soon as I ring the bell for dinner (yes, I do, I hate yelling), just like one of Pavlov's dogs he comes running and jumps on "his" chair. I'm thinking of getting him a high chair if I see a nice wooden one at Grannie's. . . Or at least a booster chair.

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2002

Damn, I just shipped by childhood wooden high chair off to the auction house...

Bandit spends much of the day on the bathroom vanity. She's developed into an extra wide, and not very coordinated, so I have to keep the toilet cover down so she doesn't fall in and hurt herself. I think that should be the rule for all cat-owned houses (and it spares you watching them drink out of the bowl). At any rate, steps 20-24 should not have been necessary.

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2002

One of our cats has "permission" to sit in the kitchen windows that are above the sink and another above the kitchen counter and if I am doing things in the kitchen she has to be there to watch. My grandsons think she understands English because if she is walking across the counter, I will say "Squeaker are you supposed to be on my counters?" and she will jump up to a window. And if she is on the kitchen table, I will say (not yell) "Squeaker, get down from there." and she does ! !

But speaking of cookies, my Australian Shepherd loves chocolate chip cookies and I usually put them on the little kitchen table to cool. One day I heard something in the kitchen and went in to find that she had taken the outside row of cookies and eaten them. She had to have carefully taken them one by one off of the tin foil because she hadn't disturbed any of the other cookies or moved the tin foil :)

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2002

Did I read somewhere that chocolate can kill a dog--or a cat? Might be worth a check.

BrookS, is there room in your bathroom for a two-step plastic stepstool? I got one from Lowe's, don't think it was Rubbermaid, and it really helps Polly, the supergeriatric feline who has always been a bit wobbly. I have one-step stepstools here and there for lower favorite places. Helps me too, can't reach like I usedta. For more formal use, drsfostersmith.com have a nice carpeted spiral stair thingie with a crow's nest on top and they also have a three-step carpeted stair number.

The next house we get has to have a master bedroom somewhat bigger than the 12 x 12 we have at the moment. Gawd, with a king-size bed, ain't no place for much else. All four walls have obstacles--doors, windows, closets--and it gets really difficult in here. And the laundry room will be INSIDE and not on the carport. And big enough for a couple of litter boxes! Who decided the washer and dryer should be on the carport? A guy who doesn't do laundry, that's who!

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2002

OG, yes too much chocolate can kill a cat or dog. Eating about a dozen chocolate chip cookies didn't bother my Aussie at all though. However, if you have a chocolate chip in your hand, she will BEG big time. A dog that is a chocoholic :)

I know what you mean about the house not being built for actually use. Whoever thought up that 23' triangle idea in the kitchen should be shot. It is the most inefficient idea I have ever heard of and you can't get more than one person in the kitchen at a time with that layout.

PS. Laundry in the basement is just as bad as in the carport.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2002

No room for anything else in the bathroom (even the tiny bathroom scale is in the way), so the toilet with the cover down has to double as a step stool for Bandit. I do have a very large collection of rubbermaid stools that I purchased for my first, arthritic cat. They are spread out in other cat areas, like next to the beds.

-- Anonymous, May 13, 2002

Yep, we have one tiny bathroom built by Japanese workers, I think. Other one not so bad, can fit a stepstool in there. If we get a somewhat larger house, the kitties will have their own room and possibly their own bathroom too. Oh that would be WONDERFUL! All that cat stuff in one place. Of course, there will still have to be a couple of litter boxes elsewhere--you know how they are.

Did I tell you I found a booster chair for Zucco at Grannie's (six bucks!)? He's not keen because it's not like the chairs we sit on, but he'll get used to it. He misses Sweetie and keeps looking at his chair. Sweetie always asks him how his day was and if he did anything interesting. Oh, and PetsMart has this new cat cosy. It's kinda like a flat-topped pyramid, with two sides in leopard fabric and the other sides brown plush, entrance holes on two of the sides. What's neat about this thing is that you can make it into an armchair or a bed as well. About $20. I had to buy another one--they were hissing over the first one.

-- Anonymous, May 13, 2002