You have no idea how hard it is to type with a large cat sitting really close to your laptop.  If I move my hands too much, he claws at them. and if I try to reach for the mouse and it’s under him, he bites my hand.  I love Wrecks, but he’s just a little too close for my comfort right now.

Recently he decided the cushion on my desk chair is a far nicer place to be than his own chair.  When I go to pick him up to move him, he digs his claws into the cushion so I’m lifting a cat that’s dangling a cushion.  Then when I go to put him down he gouges my arms with his hind claws as I’m lowering him into a perfectly comfortable alternate chair.  All of this, I suppose, is kitty’s way of showing me how much he adores me.

I guess that’s why Luke showed up this past weekend – out of adoration for his mommy.  That’s what mothers like to think, anyway.  It’s some perverted ego thing or other.  Anyway, he immediately reverted to being 15 years old again, not showering or brushing his teeth the entire time.  Binge-eating continued unabated.

I enjoyed a lot of it because I got to make foods like my infamous pot roast dinner.  The Boarder happened to be in Kelowna this weekend as well, so I knew I had to make pot roast or the kid would think I didn’t love him anymore.  So on Saturday I invited Denis over, and made the standard pot roast, mashed potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and gravy.

You know how we get these chi chi ingredients in tossed salads at restaurants now?  I decided to use some ingenuity, and because I have dried cherries in the house for the chocolate bark venture, I decided to add those.  I had the nice mixed baby greens, then added a bit of green onion and cucumber, a few chopped roasted almonds and a handful of the cherries.  Then I topped it off with oil and balsamic vinegar and it was really good.

For dessert I made chocolate mousse which was wolfed down by all.  How I’m supposed to fit into all those small-sized summer clothes I bought last year I do not know.  I was very relieved to be at the gym this morning for the 9:00 AM cardio and weight-training class.  Nothing like a few burpees to remind you that mousse gets very heavy to lift once transported to the hips.

And here’s an interesting dessert idea I bet you never thought of.  This came by way of Ken, one of my nicest and most faithful customers, who happens to live in the US.  He said he’s currently perfecting a batter because he’s deep-fat frying pieces of my fruitcake!  Isn’t that a fabulous idea?  We don’t seem to have that deep-fat frying fetish in Canada so much as they do in the US, and perhaps that’s just as well.

Please check out this adorable site, which was also sent to me by Ken.  It’s an abbey where monks make fruitcake.   You can pay by credit card, and the fruitcakes look very nice.  I know I should never direct customers elsewhere, but in this case I really feel as though I’m doing the Lord’s work.

Plus I don’t see either ‘booze’ or ‘chocolate’ listed as ingredients in their product, so I’m not terribly worried about those old monks.  I’ve got bigger worries than that as I try to figure out a way to shave 10 pounds off this carcass in a terrible hurry.