A merry Christmas, in spite of myself

Everything today has gone well--so far. But it has been like a sitcom over here for the last few days.

Our neighbors were coming over on Friday night, so Thursday evening, I made some snacks. I roasted some Mexican tomatoes, made an olivata, and made a spread with cream cheese substitute, chives, walnuts, and pomegranate arils. Tasty.

But where to put all these things so roving felines wouldn't get to them? Even though the bowls were covered, I thought I should put them safely away. The microwave is my favorite storage place, but I couldn't get everything in there, so I put a couple of the bowls in the oven.

Friday evening, I realized we were running out of tea cakes, so I decided to make some more. I turned the oven on to heat it, and you know the rest. When I opened it to put the cookie sheet in, I saw two blue globs that used to be plastic bowls. It was around 6:00, and the neighbors were coming over at 7:00. While my husband scraped melted plastic out of the oven, I went into some kind of primitive Martha Stewart mode, trying to stay calm, beat the clock, and replace the snacks. Fortunately, the roasted tomatoes were stored in the microwave. I found a jar of calimata olives, got out the garlic, olive oil, and pine nuts, and made a second--much stronger--olivata. It took awhile because of the pits in the olives.

I had nothing else that resembled cream cheese, and I had no more walnuts, but I found some sour cream substitute, some more chives, and some more arils, so there was another spread made within moments. Also working on adrenalin, my husband got the oven functioning, and I managed to bake the tea cakes. Then we lit the candles, put on some music, and in walked the neighbors.

Yesterday, I decided to get as much of the Christmas cooking out of the way as possible. I made whole wheat muffins and put them in the oven. While they were baking, I found Roxie (see above) in the bedroom, poking around near an electrical outlet. Suddenly, she ran by with a lizard in her mouth. I chased her into the living room, with instructions to "drop that lizard!" She did. I couldn't get to Velma, but I grabbed Roxie to shut her in the bedroom. Only my muffins were going to burn, so I galloped into the kitchen, tabby cat under my arm, and with the other hand, got a potholder and pulled the muffins out.

I then ran with Roxie to the bedroom, shut her in, and returned to the living room, where my husband had overturned the armchair under which the lizard had run. To our amazement, it didn't move, so I was able to grab it and take it outside. Somewhere in that span of time, I managed to get a pot of lentil soup on, so we had lentil soup and whole wheat muffins, and I was very tired.

So far today there have been no mishaps, but the day is young.