She decided to keep our lives interesting in the past few days with a few of her special talents. I thought she was pretty good about stealing food, because when I put a plate of dinner on the coffee table (which she can easily reach) while I fool with something on the couch, she looks at it, but doesn't actually go after it. However, it would never have crossed my mind to leave something on the coffee table and then leave the room. She is an animal, after all. My husband is apparently more optimistic. But he didn't leave a nice plate of beef and vegetables, which would have been a nice supplement to her diet of kibble. He left a generous slice of Trader Joe's Tiramisu Torte - laden with dark cocoa powder, espresso, and heavy cream. Apparently, when he returned, it was all gone.
I was kind of concerned, because I have heard chocolate is toxic to dogs and cats. Of course, I also know that most of the cats my family had (around 30 in total) stole at least a little bit of chocolate at some point and none seemed to suffer any adverse effects; obviously none died. Neither did Bailey. However. She did eat only half her extra-large helping of kibble - apparently the first time in her life she has failed to eat 100% of her food within 30 seconds. (She did finish it before bedtime, but took her time about it.) And then. She spent the evening lying on the living room rug, emitting the most noxious gas I have encountered. My husband tried to put her outside (it was horrendous), but she's really incapable of feeling compunction for smelling bad. Eventually, we just opened all the windows.
She's been very well-behaved off a leash - hanging out in the neighbors' back yard around a fire pit (they really like her), going running, hanging out in our yard. I don't take her off the leash on a walk or run until she's gotten some exercise, so she's calmed down a bit. And I always keep an eye on her if she's in the yard and off her leash. I guess my DH is more optimistic in general. He stepped inside for a minute (leaving her in the yard with a friend of ours who was distracted doing something else) and she left the yard, went around the block and got herself into the middle of the huge intersection by our house. We're talking a six-lane road and a four-lane road. An off-duty police officer pulled over and collected her, and neither she nor any driver was injured, thank heaven.
Obviously, this means she needs to be actively supervised if she is not on a leash. Also, I suspect her view was that she had been left alone (the human nearby not being one of "her people"), and therefore was not obliged to stay put. But what I cannot fathom is why she decided to venture into traffic. That intersection is intimidating if you're behind the wheel of a car and you have the right of way. Why would an animal want to head into the middle of it?
In non-dog news, the plumbers finished the bathroom Wednesday - although I still have to paint it (and learn how to change the light fixture). And they also installed the stove. I was so excited I was not able to concentrate on anything else. Last night, I came home and tinkered with it - got the pilot light working that hadn't been (other one was working fine), cleaned the burner-holes (which I hadn't thought to do before), greased the valves. I still have to figure out whether the ovens are supposed to require a match to light (they don't light automatically at this point); get two of the burners to light from the pilot (the other two light perfectly, and have an awesome simmer setting, and the griddle lights up beautifully from the pilot); and soap up all the internal hoses and fittings and check the whole thing for gas leaks, just in case. (Right now the gas to the unit is shut off.)
I will take pictures this weekend, I swear! And then you can see how horrendous it is in our 1970s kitchen that I have already started ripping apart, but will take maaaaaany months to put back together. In the meantime, I can tell you we have this particular stove, except ours could really use a re-chroming (not in the budget right now):
