I had Community Group coming over last night. For those of you who do not know what a Community Group is…Well, it is a group of people who get together once or twice monthly for socializing and Bible study. I am part of the Empty Nesters. We have a lively group of, dear I say this, middle aged people who enjoy each other’s company. We have refreshments and discuss our favorit verse from a particular book of the Bible. Last night it wasa 1st Peter.
Well, in order to have the group over, I had to do some house cleaning and snack preparing. The cleaning wasn’t too bad. How dirty can a 600 square foot apartment get? I guess if you are not inherently neat like me, it could get pretty messy. However, since I know who usually is responsible for moving and putting up things, I am on top of putting things in thing in their place to keep the place relatively neat. Run the vacuum and clean the sinks and move the pillow and blankie off the couch and I was pretty much done with cleaning.
I made the world famous Chocolate Cobbler. It had the whole place smelling like I hope heaven smells. (You know all warm and chocolately and nice) I chopped veggies. We had celery, radishes, carrots and bell pepper. I have been craving radishes for a while and took this opportunity to buy them to share with the other members of the group. I am not really a celery fan but I found myself craving that too.
I also had some chips and dip. You now the story, sweet, salty and fresh. Then, you have the bases covered. I had two Helava Good Dips, french onion and white cheddar bacon. (They had a special…two for $3.00 that I could not pass up.) Usually, I am not a dip person either but others like it with chips and we needed something for the veggies too.
About 6:00, I started setting everything out. I placed the veggies on a platter. I put the chips in a bowl. I pulled the cobbler out of the oven. I brewed some coffee. I set out bowls for dessert and plates for veggies and chips. I opened the dips and set them out.
I sat down at my desk to check emails and cruise for a little while before the guests started coming. I heard a lapping noise behind me an figured the cats had decided to drink some water. The, I realized that I had moved their bowls for the evening to keep someone from stepping into them while I had the group. So, I turned around just in time to see MoJoe lapping like crazy at the french onion dip.
Now, I am in a delimma. I do not know what to do. I scat the cat off of the counter. I check out the dip. Sure enough, there is a spot where he had been licking. My delimma? Throw out the dip? (Nope it only had a little spot where the kitty had licked) Close the dip up and put it back in the fridge? (Could have but didn’t.) So, what did I do? I picked up a spoon and scooped out a section in and around where the cat had been licking.
Everyone got here. We had snacks and settled down for the meeting. As everyone was leaving, I got to feeling guilty about not filling in the others about the issue with the dip. So, I shared with them that the cat liked french onion dip. I hope I did not upset anyone or offend anyone by allowing them to eat the dip. (A little too late to stop them now.)
I live around these guys all the time. They are constantly sticking their heads in my glass to drink water. At first I was alarmed by this until the vet I work with shared with me that this would not hurt me in any way. All my other cats had never bothered any of my human food. These guys are pretty good about not doing so either. I guess the dip was just too hard to resist.
I also grew up around animals. We have pictures of me sharing my beloved bottle with my beloved pet dog. He protected me with a vengence. My brother who is the doctor used to eat out of the cat’s dish. That cat was not as fond of my brother as the dog was of me. The cat would lay in wait for my brother and jump on his back while he was crawling on the floor. Evidently, cats don’t like to share unless they are the one benefiting from the sharing. (My mother used to have a “fit” when my brother would eat out the cat dish. I think by the time I came along, as long as the dog did not bit the end off the nipple of the bottle, she was okay with it. Of course, I was number three. So, she had been through two others before me and knew we were more healthy and indistructible than she originally thought.)
