My sister and I have been living on our own together for the past month or so, off-campus of our university. We have a two bedroom, 800 square foot apartment, which we share with a friend of ours from high school. We picked this place largely based on its proximity to campus, and that it is one of the few remaining pet friendly apartments in the town. For my sister and I, having pets is a necessity. Back home, we always had at least two cats and a dog in the house. Now, we each have our own cats, a brother and sister pair who are about ten months old. We adopted them in August, and they're two little spoiled creatures, have been since they were born last November. They will sit and watch me whenever I do anything in the kitchen, whether it's cooking or washing dishes, and will sit at our feet whenever we're eating a meal.
It hadn't bugged me much until I made a Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake on Friday night. I pulled it out of the oven around nine o'clock at night, and let it cool a bit before slicing it and having a tester piece. I thought the cake would be safe on the counter overnight, as the cats had never gotten up there. In the morning, however, I found nibble marks on the edge of the cake. It wasn't a big deal, and I scrapped the slices that had been nibbled, and threw a tea towel over the cake to keep them out of it.
Then this morning, I pulled the tea towel up to find this:
...My only explanation for it is that they must have tried to get to the cake, couldn't figure out how to get the tea towel off, and jumped on the poor thing. This, I got after them for. (Cats are apparently familiar with the Angry Mother look, as they scuttled off from around my ankles without me having to say anything.
Looking at the cake, I couldn't help but feel I had to salvage it, somehow. There had been a towel over it, so there wasn't any cat spit or paw prints all over it, though it certainly wasn't as pretty as it had been. I saved what slices I could, and scrapped the rest into a bowl. "What to do with this ugly mess of cake?" I had thought to myself. I mashed it up, and slopped in the half canister of whipped topping that was intended to dress the slices anyway. (The rest I saved for the salvaged cake.) I mixed it all together, and it made a slightly less grotesque, pinkish fluff. It tasted every bit like Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake should. I consider this to be an accomplishment. I stuck it in the fridge for later consumption.
The entire time I was saving the cake, the two little buggers responsible for this debacle were at my ankles, wanting whatever it was I was making. I couldn't help but tease them a little, though I eventually caved like the terrible cat-spoiler I am. If my sister found out, she'd probably strangle me. "You can't give cats cake! It's bad for them!" My figuring is, if it's good enough for humans to eat, cats can have it too. (Granted, my cat might not live to be eighteen, like some house cats do, but he'll live happy.)
