…Dag because I spent it in the company of my favourite Belgian Girl Wonder, the infamous Turbo-Powered Sophie

We spent the day on Toronto Island, playing in the water.

Well, Sophie played in the water.  I mostly played in the mud.

In non-Canada-Day-related news, last time Sophie and I got together, we did some fingerpainting.

The first piece is entitled “Damn Now My Shirt Is Covered In Cat Hair”, and the second is “Family Of Birds On My Windshield”

I’m not a baker.

Sure, my mom taught me all the requisite skills.  I can make a light and flaky pie crust, cookies that are chewy on the inside and crispy on the edges, and meringues that defy gravity.

But I don’t.

Today I was reminded of precisely why I avoid the kitchen at all cost.

Today I made cupcakes.

Doesn’t sound so bad, right?  Cupcakes are easy.  Throw the ingredients in the bowl, mix it up, pour into cups, toss ‘em in the over for half an hour and then whip up some buttercream icing while they cool.  No biggie.

Yeah, right.

I began with the devil’s food cupcakes. Simple, straightforward, delicious. While they were cooling, I stepped it up a notch and got into the angel food cupcakes.  These of course require a full dozen egg whites, whipped into a frenzy and then gently folded together with flour and sugar. Oh look, here they are.

Next I went for the lemon cupcakes.  Yes, I zested and juiced the organic lemons by hand.  Of course I did.  I did not stop at putting lemon zest and juice in the batter, though.  Oh no.  I poked holes in the cupcakes and spooned lemon syrup (made on the stovetop) over the tops before icing them.  Are you beginning to see the problem?  I have some kind of baking OCD.

All the cupcakes got a layer of buttercream icing, of course.

And that’s when things left the path of sanity and headed straight over the cliffs of WTF am I doing.

Thankfully my lovely assistant arrived about then and helped with the “fun” parts.  Yes, I made marshmallow fondant.  Yes, it hurt. It’s like trying to stir concrete. Unpossible. But oh, it makes beautiful decorations!  I also used marzipan, which I split into two batches, one darkened with cocoa powder and one au natural.

The devil’s food cupcakes got marzipan monkeys

The angel food cupcakes were topped with marshmallow fondant hippos

And the lemon cupcakes got the marshmallow fondant lion toppers

Family photo!

Nine hours and 36 cupcakes later, I feel like I got hit by a truck, and I haven’t even taste-tested yet.

I hope you’re happy, mom!

I’m not bitter, really.

I mean I did get one whole day of actual relaxation during my break from school.

One. Whole. Day.

Otherwise, here is how I spent the entire two weeks:

First I had to take the bus down to London and back (same day, and Greyhound is just getting more gross as I get older) to assess felines.  Then of course there was the usual last-minute shopping and packaging of presents to be done (much simplified by the fact that most of what we gave this year was my own pottery, and by the use of bags rather than wrapping paper).  I worked several days both before and after Xmas weekend at my old job up at the bike shop, sharpening skates and whatnot, which as an occasional activity is more fun than you’d think.  For Xmas weekend itself we packed up our bags (actually I packed them because my poor beleaguered husband worked on Xmas Eve Day - he’s such a trooper) and headed to my folks’ place way up north in Bracebridge.  I always enjoy visiting with them, but my Nana, who was there for the holidays as well, can be simply exhausting.  I love the old bird, but she’s getting to that point where you have the same conversation a dozen times a day, and she needs to be constantly entertained.  Not relaxing!  The really sick thing was that in my final four days of potential relaxation, I ended up gutting the entire apartment and building cat furniture.

I didn’t really intend to do the apartment.  All I meant to do was clean out the front hall closet so we’d have a place for the litter box.  But then I needed a spot for the things I took from that closet, and the bedroom closet looked like this:

…so obviously that had to be taken care of.  I swear I don’t know how it got that way.  By the middle of the first day, our bedroom floor was in this state:

I think I made about six trips to the basement to drop off reusable goods that day.

Of course the next day was more of the same, and the day after, and I ended up not only cleaning every closet and cupboard in the place, but also rearranged all the furniture, with the sole exception of Jonathan’s desk.  On the bright side, when we move in a couple of months it should be relatively little work to get everything packed and organized.

Recall that all of this began with the necessity to fit a litter pan in the front hall closet.  Ah yes, the kittens.

Well after all, we’re not planning on having any human children.

Kittens need things to climb on, like pant legs and sofas and computer desks…oh dear, Jon’s not going to like that.  So a cat tree is required.  One that will be stable, hypoallergenic and asthmatic-friendly (which means no carpet, thank you), cheap and not so horrifyingly ugly that it causes one to vomit immediately upon entering a room.  Well, that precludes pretty much every commercially-available cat tree.  Don’t get me wrong, there are some gorgeous cat trees out there.  Exactly three of them, according to my week-long exhaustive internet search.  They’re all over $500, and none of them are really ideal, to be honest.  $500.  I could get a new sofa with that kind of money.  I could buy a whole new wardrobe.

Since we haven’t got $500 to spend on a cat tree, and I don’t have access to anything like a wood shop, I decided to attempt to build a cat tree using

• two file boxes
• four shipping tubes
• two 50m rolls of 6mm sisal
• one 300m roll of 2mm sisal
• one tube of Weldbond (nontoxic and does a bang-up job of gluing just about anything to just about anything else)
• one pressboard shelf
• one box cutter
• a cat bed I’d made earlier in the week
• 4 large washers
• 4 small washers
• 4 3/4″ wood screws
• a Robertson head screwdriver (that’s square drive for you Americans)

The finished product:

Okay, so it might not win any design awards.  It is, however, as stable as any premade cat tree I’ve ever seen, carpet-free, cheap, and less horrendously ugly (at least in my opinion) than the carpeted monstrosities commonly sold for cats.

Oh, about the bed on the top - I made two of them using fabric taken from the legs of old pants from which the butt had degraded beyond usefulness (denim for one, corduroy for the other) and a couple of nesting woven baskets I had been using for mittens and toques.  Here’s a proper shot of the corduroy one:

I just cut the legs off, ripped them along the inside seam, put two legs together and sewed up a little bag, into which I stuffed quilt batt.

Next project: crocheted cat toys!

I have a motley assortment of photos, mostly from my camera phone unfortunately, but all at least passingly amusing.

My father still hasn’t sent me the promised photos from Hallowe’en, so I guess you’re not going to see them, but I do have a shot of the Happy Hybrid Demon Pet I made for the occasion, and some gruesome photos of The Leavings.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you:

The Frogigercorn!

These mutilated remains were left over from the hybridization process:

Over the days following Hallowe’en, a resourceful fellow mad scientist formed this demon spawn from the …remains.

Finally, my partners in crime for Hallowe’en:

I suppose I should also show you this italian-american squirrel

And we’ll wrap up with a picture of Sophie drawing dinosaurs.