Lentil Soup

As friends and regular readers will know, my cats have had some kidney problems since the whole Menu Foods pet food recall. This has required me to collect multiple urine samples for lab tests. (Keep reading. It gets funny. Honest.)

Have you ever tried to get pee from cats? No? Then let me school you.

First you empty out their litter boxes and separate the cats. Hours later, you realize that these cats are no suckers and will not use an empty litter box. They need something to dig in, dammit!

Next you shred some glossy newspaper inserts and put the festive confetti in the litter boxes. It looks pretty. And it works the first time around. Success!

The next time you need a sample you try the same shredded paper trick. Hours later you realize that the cats subscribe to the worldview of: "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." They will not pee on shredded paper. They will, however, nestle down into the litter box, get all com-fer-tuh-buhls and look at you smugly, as if to say: "Ah, this is a nice new place to nap. Look at me. I'm lying down, not peeing."

You also begin to marvel at their ability to hold out for over 12 hours. This is determination, people.

So you decide to try a new vet-approved option: Lentils. Theses little legumes mimic the look and texture of kitty litter but won't absorb the sample. (If you get there in time, that is.)

You put 16 ounces of lentils in the litter box. Your 15-pound cat scoffs at this attempt to fool him. Eventually you add another 64 ounces of lentils to the box and he succumbs to the illusion.

The next time you need a sample, you think, "Hey, no problem. I'm a cat-urine-collecting-pro! All I need are five bags of lentils per cat." So you send your husband to the store to buy 10 bags of lentils.

At the checkout counter the clerk says, "Looks like somebody is making soup!"

Sort of. Lentil and pee soup! Hahahah! (how could I resist?)

You follow protocol: Separate cats; empty litter boxes; fill boxes with lentils. The next morning, Gatwick the Catwick decides that he's really had enough of this and pees in his bed. The boy has never peed anywhere before but in the litter box. But today he decides that he'd rather pee in a cardboard box with a blanket than set foot on your stupid lentils! This act of defiance leaves you both angry. You pick him up to show him the litter box and he scratches your arm tyring to get away from the offending lentils!

Finally, as an act of contrition and in an attempt to make up with his frustrated and exhausted owner, the cat pees in the damn lentils. You use a plastic syringe or eyedropper to collect the sample.

Of course, two cats won't pee at the same time. And samples need to be less than eight hours old. So sometimes you make the 50-minute round trip to the vet's office twice per round of samples.

And you can't bring yourself to make lentil soup for at least a month.

Mom Better Get on the Ball

Heard through my open window as a little boy ran down my street:

"I'm sorry. My mom forgot to cook my dinner. She's gonna cook it a little longer."

How to Choose

Me: "The package gives us options. Do you want to make ultra-vibrant colored eggs; regular colored eggs; or pastel eggs?"

James: "What's the difference?"

Me: "You use vinegar for the bright eggs, lemon juice for the medium ones, and water for the pastels."

James: "Which do you want?"

Me: "I don't care. Do you have a preference?"

[pause]

James: "...I like the smell of vinegar."

She is not dead but sleeping...

I'm reading a book called Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. (Don't judge me. It was on The New York Times' bestseller list. Which I didn't realize when I bought it, even though it says so at the top of the front cover. I randomly picked it up at the bookstore and thought, "Hm. This might be an interesting example of creative nonfiction.") It's surprisingly funny and definitely interesting.

I had a doctor appointment today to see about my head, which feels like it's stuffed full of heavy, soggy cotton that leaks out my nose and eyes. I wondered if taking Stiff with me to a medical appointment was just too macabre. I decided: No.

But then I saw my makeshift bookmark, one of those annoying perforated ads stuck in magazines. I always seem to have a few lounging around, waiting to be made useful as impromptu drink coasters, notepads, or bookmarks. This one just happened to be for The Sleep Number Bed.

Even more disturbing is what happened when I ran a search for the book's subtitle in The Times' book archives. The results page included an eBay ad for "Human Cadavers." Apparently you can get more than the image of the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast nowadays. (Not really. When I clicked on the link, eBay found 0 items matching my search.)

Pink, Fluffy, and Hilarious

photo taken with Verizon Wireless cell phone

Behold the Six Penn Circus, a dessert comprised of childhood favorites, all grown up! The little dish to the right holds "cracker jacks" made fresh in the restaurant. In the foreground are four delicate cinnamon donut puffs, and two decadent "gobs" or "whoopie pies" made from dark chocolate mocha cake stuffed with a mascarpone-like filling. And the pièce de résistance: the giant pink wig of cotton candy!

James and I went to Six Penn Kitchens after the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's Pops concert of John Williams' music. (James is a big Star Wars and John Williams fan. The concert was enjoyable, but sadly not terribly impressive.)

But our experience at Six Penn was impressive. First of all, the whole place is non-smoking. So we could sit and have drinks and not reek afterwards. Imagine it: a bar that doesn't smell like a bar! After interesting appetizers such as fried cheese done three ways and "poblano stuffed with chorizo, goat cheese, picadillo, gordita; ranchero sauce," we read the description for the Six Penn Circus on the dessert menu. James wasn't sure that we should get it, but it had me at cotton candy. How could we pass that up?

I said to James, "You're going to tell people that this dessert was on the menu. They'll ask you how it was. And you'll have to tell them that you don't know because you didn't get it. And they will be SO DISAPPOINTED. There's no way we CANNOT get this dessert!"

I think he just wanted to hear me make an argument for it. He's a sucker for cotton candy.

I started laughing as soon as our waiter appeared with the plate and kept laughing for the rest of the night. (The laughing may or may not have been related to the bourbon martini/mojitos that the bartender tried out on me.) The amount of cotton candy balanced in that little dish was ridiculous and impressive. The table of people behind us stopped to chat on their way out, apparently relieved that someone had finally ordered The Circus, a dish they'd contemplated getting several times. How could they not?!