Thursday, February 28, 2008

A Birthday Present and I Am Challenged

My wonderful and generous friend and neighbor, Karen, gave Maria a birthday present. She would have given it to Maria on the night of Maria's birthday party if I had remembered that I was supposed to call Karen and Steve and tell them that the party was on. Or, at least if I had remembered to call them before they ate dinner.
Luckily Karen is the forgiving sort and look what she found for Maria:

It's the Three Dog Bakery cook book!



Then in the mean time, I was given a creative challenge by the MOST creative person in the universe. And that is my friend and neighbor, Aynex. (Pronounced "Eye necks")

Here is her challenge:
  • I'm challenging bloggers to make something, anything, and post about it. Let's see what you creative people come up with! Here are the rules:

  • 1. Make something, anything. It doesn't have to be complicated or artsy. Make a list, take an interesting picture, make some one's day, make dinner, make a doodle, make fun of yourself, make a poem, make your bed (OK, that last one is lame).

  • 2. Write a blog about it. With pictures for extra brownie points.

  • 3. Link to this blog and challenge six other bloggers to do the same.

Why, Aynex, why???? What horrible thing did I do to you to make you be so mean to me? (Just because the whippets hurl insults and death threats at your cat?) And then, and then dear readers, it went from bad to worse. One of the other people Aynex challenged, Bizzy, answered the challenge by creating (from scratch) her own bath fizzy. Oh dear, here it is:
I do not have her permission to put that photo here and I do not care. Anyone that creative and clever deserves whatever.

I slumped farther into my dark lack-o-Martha-Stewart-itis abyss.

I needed to create something that was not only Aynex-worthy, but it had to be about dogs to be allowed on my blog, and Bizzy had set the bar just so stinking high. A home made bath fizzy? With its own home grown lavender packaging? Puh-lease.

I would not let Aynex down. I wracked - wrecked - my brain. I couldn't write a story or a poem, that's what I do.

OK. I made a belly band. It is my very own made up pattern, with strategically placed, washable swimwear grade elastic for better comfort and stay-put-ability. Could the fabric, and soft matching flannel lining, be much more adorable?





See? It's a clever thing to wrap around your dog's winky to keep him from peeing on your furniture.

Only I've been making them for years, I call them No-pees and sell them on eBay. So I was still a creative flunky.

But then I remembered Karen's gift to Maria. Yes! I could bake some wonderful dog muffins. Only I didn't have any of the right ingredients. But, forsooth, I did have what it takes to make "Simple Simon Birthday Bones" and how fitting was that? I had what it took, because all that was required was flour, baking powder, peanut butter, and milk. Woo-hoo, and I even added a topping of shredded Parmesan cheese. How's that for sheer creativity on a scary scale? Hey!

I mixed everything up, kneaded as directed, rolled the dough out, and used the cookie cutters I have had in bone and bunny shapes for years and never used. Popped them in the oven, and watched them cook to a golden brown. I was on the phone as I took them out of the oven, and...

I dropped the whole frigging cookie sheet.


But I didn't drop the second cookie sheet.

So here are my creations:


A Monkey Head No-pees Belly Band, and



Simple Simon's Birthday Bones and Bunnies with Parmesan Topping.


After all that creativity, I'm too tired to think. I will pass the Challenge on, tomorrow... heh heh heh heh, be very scared..


hug your hounds (Mine are delirious from their delicious homemade bedtime snack. They really taste good! How would I know? Well, how do you think?)

25 comments:

  1. omdog we LOLed at the cookies on the floor, then we started thinking about how loud Mom would be screaming for us to get away from the hot pan that we would be trying to eat from!

    that no pees thing is such a neat idea. I haven't talked about my older dog brother who went over the rainbow bridge in a while, but he was a rescue who was a little not right in his head and they think he was abused and he really never got the whole 'peeing outside' thing. This would have been so so perfect for him. You can see where I learned my stain technique from :)

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  2. Excellent! I am a really mean dog person and don't bake for my dogs. But my friend does and she treats my dogs instead because she's a good dog person!

    *ducks in case Patience is thinking of tagging me*

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  3. Your Momma is soooo brave to work in the kitchen to make yummy treats. My momma is "kitchen challenged" and almost never even goes in the kitchen except to get my hot dogs.

    I don't know about the utility of those no pee thingies, but they sure are sylin'

    Slobbers,
    Mango

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  4. Cookies all over the floor!! We would have been on top of those pretties in seconds! yummmmmm
    Nice belly band - very creative, Patience!

    Love ya lots,
    Maggie and Mitch

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  5. OK. Obviously staged. There is NO WAY that would happen in my house. 1. I don't know how to use my oven. Honest. It has been turned on 2 times in 3.5 years, both under parental supervision. Any microwave instructions?
    2. IF I baked (highly improbable as above), and the pan dropped, I don't care how much screaming, errr, constructive verbalization I did -- those cookies would be gone before I could find my camera (and the camera is usually on the kitchen counter-top since I don't actually cook.) Where were your whippets when the pan dropped?

    The belly band is cute beyond words.

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  6. I love the all the pics from this post and the previous one.
    How do you manage?
    I thought that there was the same rule for pets as there was for children...Never let them out number you.
    You will have to share your dog cookie recipe with Xan and I for our cookie bar that we are going to call "The Kookie Bar".
    And by the way...we have two cats which makes us twice as evil as Aynex.

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  7. I don't know why you were so nervous about my challenge. You are a very creative person too. Watch out for Kandinsky Sunday. He is not very happy with you right now.

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  8. About the "hot peanut butter cookies on the floor" phenomenon.
    Note the kitchen floor is tile. Bill and I are clutzes, especially in our dotage. I have unknowingly trained a reliable, universal command: something crashes to the floor, I scream "NO DOGS NO DOGS GET OUT NO DOGS" in a pure panic of broken glass which scatters on the tile like whippets running in a field full of bunnies.
    We've been "practicing" this command fairly regularly over the last 5.5 years. Wine glasses, coffee mugs, casseroles, pasta dishes. Clutzes.
    Last night I realized that we had truly trained the behavior! I dropped the cookie sheet, and some of the older dogs started heading to the far corners immediately, then I started shouting NO DOGS NO DOGS GET OUT (only I was on the phone, and I'm positive I hadn't hung up yet, oops) and the rest headed into the dog room and we closed the gate.
    I actually started to cry, and then I realized the event was so perfectly blog-worthy! Bill, the saint, got his camera from the studio just across the breezeway.
    The one dog in the photo is dear Giacomino, whose nose works ever so much better than his eyes or ears, and I had a death grip on his collar!

    I am going to make an ingredient list from that cook book and go shopping. These bunnies and bones are so good, and they were crazy easy.

    smiles-
    Patience

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  9. The belly band looks good on the model. Probably not as stylin on chubby wires. And oh, I am ever so glad you try the treats too...my muzzer thought she was the only crazy one.

    kisses
    gussie

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  10. Patience,

    All I can say is you are too cute!

    Love this post, every last bit of it :) Follow-up comment cracked me up too!

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  11. Dear Nana Pee,

    We need cookies baddd.

    Licks,

    Nearly, Buster and Skeezix

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  12. Where is the photo of the dogs eating the dropped cookies? I mean you let them eat them right???

    I love your blog!

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  13. Whippets - When you say run, do you mean like more than, say, 10 feet? Because that's right out.

    Mango

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  14. That belly band was creative without baking the cookies.

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  15. Patience
    That is amazingly,wondewfully cweative..thse belly bands awe gweat looking ..I thought they wewe just a bootiful fashion statement, till I wead theiw puwpose..ow, now that's clevew!!!
    Andthose cookies, Oh my!!!!!fantastic!!!!
    Whippets..I think you should have won and you should cewtainly not be humiliated..I think evewyone fowgets to vote unless they'we pwomplted..you know how fowgetful hoomans awe..it's the only weason you didn't win han..UmmmPaws down!
    smoochie kisses
    Asta

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  16. oh noo! What a waste of cookies! glad that the second batch worked out ok! the doggy belt is a great idea!

    Love Weeny and Daisy xx xx

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  17. Does the belly band really work? He leaves it on?
    No Kidding? Too cool.

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  18. Oh Patience..ya dropped the whole cookie sheet? Once I poured a whole blender of chocolate mousse into a springfoam pan...not realizing that I was supposed to thicken it first...yep...ALL over the floor. It was so depressing.
    Sounds like you have the whippets well trained in the kitchen. Lacie tries to jump in the hot oven. sigh.

    That belly band coulda helped loads with our last foxy...he leaked to say the least, poor guy, in his old age.

    Mumsie

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  19. Sure you are creative!
    I've seen that picture of the pan on the floor here in our kitchen!
    Have a great weekend
    Kisses and hugs
    Lorenza

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  20. Oh I love it when Mom makes doggie cookies! She doesn't do it enough!
    Hey Mom says she got the final confirmations and stuff from the Louisville trials coming up soon! She's all excited and so am I! You're coming too right???

    Love
    Rudy

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  21. Ahhh....pre-existing training!

    Patience, I don't understand quite why, but all of a sudden, my dogs are asking where the Kitty-que sauce is and when we are going to KY for ....err, we'll leave that unsaid since this is a g-rated blog. Something about that Katinsky creature making veiled threats, though.

    Have a great day!

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  22. boscoe would have been sooo happy to help you clean up that first pan.

    we have a friend who makes them cookies every christmas, loaded with garlic and parsley. oh my god they love them.

    and the wee-wee band? um....why? our boys don't pee in the house but we have never felt obliged to put a girdle on them.

    do some need that?

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  23. I love your style of writing... I was just in stitches. I have that same cookbook! I have only tried to make one thing out of it and it was a complete disaster! I am going to have to do an entry about it and link it back to here.. Thank's for the blog fodder.

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  24. Oh can you make me some cookies? My mom can make soap and not that yucky melt and pour kind either. Oh and lip balm and lotion. You get the idea. She just hasn't done it in forever

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  25. Hi Patience! Mary challenged me, and I met the challenge by making an adult beverage "Bizzy Fizzy." I think that might be cheating, but hey you guys had me beat before I even could come up with a half-hearted creative idea!

    Please join us on Monday, March 24 at 5:30 for the first "Girls, Gallery & Giving" fundraiser to benefit Yeiser Art Center. $15 at the door includes beer & wine, appetizers, friendship and fun! I hope to see you and all your friends there!

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