Why bother with cats?

Bought: new cat tree for BamBam, so he has one, and Auri has one. We've still got them separated, but for when we eventually reintroduce, we wanted to have the extra cat tree, and BamBam will get to put dibs on it now.

So Auri is now in our bedroom, BamBam is spending the weekend in the house, tonight we'll bring him and his new cat tree back into Linnea's room, where he is quarantining.

BamBam wants nothing to do with the new tree. He's, of course, very much enjoying the freaking box is came in. Sometimes I wonder why we bother.

And I think we have a problem, but both dh and Linnea are dismissing my concerns.

Both cat trees are 72 in high. But! Auri's has a barrel on top, so the top perch point is only about 5ft high. BamBam's top perch point is 72in. Dh and Linnea are insisting this won't be a problem. I disagree.

Auri, in the top of her perch is going to be looking up at BamBam, who will be looking down on her.

Remember that BamBam is the aggressor.

I see this as making the problem worse, since we've just removed Auri's top of the world area. Yeah, she can still hop to the top of the bookshelf and be higher there, but her usual sleeping spot is in the top barrel of her tree, and it's now lower than BamBam's.

Ugh.

I don't know what to do. Linnea and dh say to ignore, but my fear is that all the work we're doing to separate them, keep them both happy etc is going to be for naught the first time BamBam hisses at her from across the room, but above her.

Why oh why?

My MIL kindly made us masks. I'm going to have to get another one, the fabric on mine is so scratchy, my skin was irritated after wearing it for two hours. Which sucks, because they are really nice and fit perfectly.

Why was I wearing it for two hours? Because my spouse thought it would be fine to have my MIL over, despite the fact that I am still coughing. Oh and then he wandered off to help Linnea with her flute and left me to listen to my MIL's usual diatribe about her neighbours etc.

So I was not happy, and also not happy about having someone, even my MIL, in the house. It stressed me out, quite honestly.

But the worse part? My dumbass b*tch of a SIL is having my MIL do her shopping for her. WTF? We can't shop for MIL because she has an EBT card, or we would. SIL goes out to visit her ex, for her Bible group, and massages, she can damn well go shopping.

But maybe I can wear the mask for short shopping trips. (Dh's and Linnea's are great, soft fabric, nice fit.)

Good. Cake. Recipe.

I was able to send my MIL home with some cookies and some vanilla cake.

Because, OMG, I've finally found a worthwhile and good vanilla cake recipe.

I have several fancy ones, the ones I use for birthday cakes, and they're great. They also usually involve sour cream, buttermilk, whipping egg whites etc.

So I've been looking for a good, basic vanilla cake recipe (I have one for chocolate cake, if anyone wants it, holler).

It's still not exactly what I'm looking for, and I think I'll experiment with a bit less baking powder but it's really good and really really easy:

Golden Vanilla Cake.

I want to try one more from the site before I declare this my go-to vanilla cake, but I'm pretty close!

I'm also searching for a molasses cookie recipe. When I was a kid, we'd spend every other summer with my mom's Aunt Irene in Nova Scotia. Aunt Irene made wonderful molasses cookies, and my mom got the recipe. And of course, over the years, lost it (she's really good at losing recipes. There were three that I wanted from my childhood, she's lost all three, sigh...). These cookies were not like the standard soft and chewy molasses cookies with the crackled tops, they were harder/crispier. As in, if they baked too long, they were hard at rocks. I consider this a plus, btw. Anyhow, I've been looking, and langed on two recipes, both from The Maritimes, so I'll be making both to see if they're close enough. The first one is pretty close, except too soft. I'm leaving the cookies out, maybe they'll harden overnight! :)