How the amount of pizza I consume affects Data’s happiness level
Last Tuesday, the 16th, and yesterday, the 22nd, nearly all comments I left on wordpress blogs went directly to spam. I had to email bloggers and tell them to “un-spam” me. Has this happened to anyone else? Akismet has not been much help AT ALL.
Twice in the past month, Steven and I have been ambitious enough to make two homemade (everything but the sauce) pizzas. Once because we are little oinklets and wanted to have a really thick one and a really thin one, and once because we were having actual guests.
Why is this ambitious? Because of our pizza stone situation. We have one good-quality pizza stone that is well-seasoned and takes heat really well (we heat them up prior to putting the pizza on) and one that… is a piece of crap. Something on this second pizza stone makes the oven fill with smoke when it heats up. Lovely!
So, we have the nasty smoke smell in the house, and the smoke detectors go off. This has happened both times we have tried to make two pizzas. It starts with the smoke detector downstairs then all three of them go off upstairs.
Steven and I think this is extremely annoying.
But Data?
Poor Data. He is so scared when these go off. He goes to the furthest corner away from them all and cowers. He is startled the rest of the night. He doesn’t even want to eat (this is HIGHLY UNUSUAL for him). He has big eyes, and looks so sad.
The first time this happened, I waited a bit to take the battery out and unplug (because they are wired in) each smoke detector, thinking they would stop going off. The second time (Sunday), I unplugged them right away.
Data was still freaked. And when we plug them back in, the go off for a few seconds, freaking Data out even more.
On Sunday, I was cruel enough to take pictures of him in his “safe spot” (on top of the dryer, next to his food) – after/while I was consoling him, of course!
Data is thinking, what is around the corner?
Of course, Data was all sweet and slept next to me all night. Aww.
Solution? Buy a better pizza stone. Or unplug these stupid things before we make two pizzas. But, they still go off when you plug them back in!
What scares your pets? What do you do to console them?
Data is also afraid of plastic bags, and apparently, balloons. My mom gave us the one in the picture below for Valentine’s Day, and uh… yeah, Data pretty much ran when he saw it and crouches really low to run by it now.
Themocracy
Haha…this post is too cute. Data is adorable and totally knows how to keep it safe next to his mom. 😀
And I think there’s something about balloons that scare a lot of pets. I remember it took a long time to help my black lab puppy get over being terrified of them. Then once he realized they were harmless, he took on the role of chasing them. 😀
Awwww, poor Data! You can see the fear in his big kitty eyes! 🙁
My smoke alarm goes off every time I made pizza too! Poor Data! I can see where that would be scary!
I fostered a dog and for some reason she was deathly afraid of my camera! Every time I pointed it at her she would freak out and ball up in a corner. 🙁
Having a pet afraid of a camera?! That would be misery (for the owner!) 😉
Aww… Shasta is good with our smoke detector (thank goodness since lots of cooking in our small apartment means it goes off about once a week), but the one time we took her down to the laundry room for an “adventure” (oh the things we do for our indoor cat haha) she FREAKED OUT because of the running dryer. We have never seen her so scared before!
Aww…such a cutie (he looks terrified poor thing).
I think you need a new pizza stone, all that smoke can’t be good for the lungs or the house (it’s gotta settle somewhere after it’s done stinking up the house :)).
damn my post just got deleted.. so annoying. im thinking data was more afraid of the monkey aspect than of the balloon?!
I love using a pizza stone. Your cat is so cute! My cat scares easy too. When we were dog sitting she hid in the basement for a week!
Poor data! I’m not a cat person, but he is a freaking adorable cat!
Is there any oil or drippings on the newer “piece of crap” stone? I had to get rid of one because it was doing the same thing 🙁
Thank you 🙂
I think there is oil build-out and we juts can’t get it clean! Lame-o!
Poor Data! I say, just stop using that horrible pizza stone and cook one pizza at a time – they don’t take that long and you can enjoy the first one while you are waiting on the second one!
ohhhhhhhhh those pictures of him with the big eyes are so cute 🙂
Maya has a spot that she goes to when scared or doing something she doesn’t want us to know about. We call it her “naughty spot”. The kids will run over and say “Maya is in her naughty spot should I check if she stole something?” Most of the time she is just hanging out so it would really be more fair to call it her safe spot I guess.
Data is adorable! Maybe you should get a new pizza stone? Or make one at a time? How frustrating that you have two and one isn’t working out very well.
I don’t think I ever told you our smoke alarm story. Ours are all wired together like yours are so when one goes off, they all do. For MONTHS I would periodically hear a quick beep from one of them but couldn’t figure out which one. I went around unplugging each one and trying to figure it out. I am not kidding when I say this was driving me crazy for at least 3 months. I finally figured out where the beep was coming from. Our carbon monoxide detector. Which explains why it didn’t matter which smoke alarm was unplugged to stop the beeping. Much more sensical than my first theory of the house being posessed and trying to make me crazy.
That is so funny about Maya! Ha. I think Data has a few naughty spots. I am going to start calling it that.
Your smoke alarm story is totally cracking me up. I would be going berserk trying to figure out which one it was… or wasn’t! 😉
How on earth do you know that your comments on WordPress blogs are going straight to spam? You’ve left comments on my blog without a problem (it’s a WordPress blog). I don’t think I’ve ever had that problem leaving comments on other blogs … then again, I’m not sure how to tell when my comment goes straight to spam.
I leave the comment and it does not show up, and it’s on blogs that do not have moderation on. It will happen once, and I will think it is just that blog, but then I try it on other WP blogs and they will not go through. Akismet finally got back to me and told me they “fixed it” but didn’t tell me why I was being spammed. It was a really frustrating situation because there was nothing I could do… except send out emails to a TON of bloggers asking them to unspam me.
Aww, poor Data, what a little cutie! My cats are generally scared of really loud noises, especially when someone unexpectedly knocks on the front door. One of my cats is terrified of strangers. It doesn’t matter who it is, if someone comes over to the house he runs and hides in the bath tub. Poor baby!
Oh my gosh…Data truly looks TERRIFIED in those pics! Those eyes!!
Our cat growing up (Abby….sweetest cat ever!) was terrified of the vacuum cleaner. Also, she was scared of men (aside from my dad). Guess that’s what she gets for growing up with all girls. 😉
Poor sweet Data! One dog fears nothing (that I can think of) the other freaks and scrambles if he feels something is going to fall down.
oh poor Data! Sadie is scared of the juicer, vacuum, magic bullet or anything that makes a lound noise. Oh and she jumps at her own shadow… she cracks me up. We usually cuddle with her and pet her and tell her it is ok for a while until she is ready to leave the bed room.
awww i miss my dog so much. she used to be scared to death of thunder and before our cat died- our cat. lol. she would avoid our cat at all costs. but in her defense… buffy (the cat) was kinda mean. i was scared of her, too! 🙂 NOT a cuddly cat.
pepper also hated musical instruments. tuba, trumpet, clarinet, sax, flute, you name it (i think we had all of those covered at some point in our fam).
poor data! haha i love the he is an emotional eater. or..he tries to be, but the plastic tupperware sort of inhibits that. my pup is totally neurotic (he’s a rescue who was majorly abused) so he’s scared of a LOT of things! the only thing you can do is make them feel safe and show them lots of love! peanut butter also seems to do the trick :). how weird about the spam filter, i always fish you out of mine! maybe your blog is just to popular and badass that it thinks you must be a spammer!
LOL. Your entire comment is cracking me up… emotional eater, PB, being popular and badass. You have such a great sense of humor!
We don’t have pets, unless you consider Maya’s fish Hello and Kitty pets. They are terrified of her because she doesn’t mean to scare them but when she goes up to the fish tank they totally back off! Her fish need therapy.
Love the name Data! So cute!
Aw, I hate seeing little pets get scared! I wish we had a cat/dog but my mom’s allergic. So the best we can do is get…a bearded dragon lizard for my brother. Do you know how fun a lizard is?! It’s not. It stares at you lol
Poor data.
Chaplin our cat, is a brave boy but he is not fond of the vacuum cleaner. Rosie our newest dog, is not afraid per say, but gets very nervous about the broom and mop. Yukon our lovely lab is not afraid of anything, just the idea of us getting another pet.
Aww poor cat!! I have fish, so I doubt anything really SCARES them. Having kids whack the walls of the tank can’t be pleasant, though. :p
<3 <3
Those pictures of Data are so funny- poor little guy! His eyes are huge like, “I AM FREAKED OUT!”
My cat Dot is very skittish and will run and hide all the time for unknown reasons. My dog Lou did not like thunder or earthquakes. I don’t blame her.
Poor little Data. He does look scared, but I bet he felt all safe sleeping with Mom.
One of our cats is scared of everything – plastic bags, vacuum cleaner, piles of laundry, my husband, anyone walking around too fast. He came to us as a feral cat so he just isn’t well socialized and there is only one person he really loves – me!
Poor Data!
We just set our smoke alarms off last night (roasting asparagus) and Trinka Deu got up, ran into the kitchen, and started pacing. Phil, on the other hand, totally ignored it. One of our previous dogs, Ashley, was also terrified of it. Of course, she was also terrified of the “beep” my old cellphone made when I had voicemail.
Poor thing! But…anything for the love of pizza, right? 🙂
Lily hates the dust buster and vacuum. Surprisingly, she does awesome with the blender, hair dryer, and cappuccino machine. I’ve heard you’re not supposed to console the animal because it reinforces that there’s something to be scared of. Just what I heard, though!
Oh, I love pizza! But I think I love kitties more. Data is so cute!
Our new cats (they’re actually almost a year old now!) aren’t afraid of much of anything. I think they trust us too much. They used to be afraid of the coffee grinder, but not anymore. And they LOVE the vacuum and the hair dryer. Mostly, they scare each other with sneak attacks. We can’t seem to bother them.
Your cats sounds super chill! I love it! 🙂 I wish we had too.
Your comment made me think maybe you would like the video of Data in this post
We don’t have pets since I’m very allergic to cats and dogs, but our smoke detector totally freaks me out. The first time it went off (apparently it goes off when new batteries are needed), it was 3 a.m. and we’d only recently moved into our house. We both flipped, stumbling around the house trying to figure out if anything was on fire. The freaky thing about the alarm is it’s one of those talking ones — a lady’s voice saying “fire” or “carbon monoxide” — and it unnerves me far more than a traditional alarm.
Oh gosh. The voice would TOTALLY freak me out too. I have been waken up a few times by fire alarms in the middle of the night… they are bad enough without the voice!
Data is adorable and looks just like my cat. Everything scares my cat! Strangers, noises, closed doors in the house, the vacuum. But we love him 🙂 Great blog!
My cat HATES balloons. If I ever have one, I tie it on a chair in the dining room and he’ll always try to get through that room as quickly as possible when it’s there. If he’s going in there, he’ll hunch down and peek around the corner to see if it’s still there, haha.
Datttaaa, I’m coming to save you!!!!!!!!!!!!! Poor guy! I’m glad he felt safe with his mama! Poor kitty.
Send pizza.
: )
I will send some pizza with Data 🙂
Oh, poor Data! He really does look scared. I’m glad he’s doing better.
Was he named after Data from Goonies?
Data is named after the character from Star Trek Next Generation (my husband named him). 😉 I need to re-watch Goonies! I don’t remember the Data character!
Poor Data! My dog freaks at any loud noises. She really spooks when my air compressor kicks on and she ends up hiding in my closet under my pants. Of course she has white hair and seems to always find the black pants. She never goes to my wifes side of the closet, only mine.
LMAO – I LOVE Data’s crazy eyes!!
Barkley, our adorable rescue mutt, freaks out whenever there’s weather of any kind outside. He’ll bark at the windows when it is raining, snowing, whatever! Thunderstorms are a different story altogether, and we’ve got some meds for him for that.
He also barks at our apartment buzzer and when our upstairs neighbors make noise…Barkley is a very appropriate name for him 🙂
I love Data!
Our cats hate hate hate the doorbell. It’s just a horrible cat-eating monster that they have to avoid for at least an hour by hiding under the bed (which is a safe zone apparently).
AWWWW!! Poor scared little kitty!
Lexie gets freaked out if anyone swears, or argues. I feel so bad for her, its because of her old abusive home. I cant even watch tv shows where people are fighting. She gets REALLY upset.
Shes the same with Wii tennis and when I try and kill mosquitoes. The hitting motion scares her.
Hahahahahahaa! I was cracking up at Data’s crazy-big eyes. I love when cats get the “crazy eye”. Mavado is not too afraid of things, though when he gets super hyper he runs every time I look at him but it’s just because he wants me to chase him.
He got a really thorough bath yesterday because I discovered a bunch of fleas on him, and he spent the rest of the night cuddled up next to me. He probably thought we were trying to drown him, and was just so grateful that we didn’t so he wanted to show us lots of love. I was just glad to be forgiven!
I had a dog when I was kid that was terrified of fireworks. She hated 4th of July! She was a rottweiler and would try to burrow her huge body underneath us at every 4th of July picnic.
My dog is afraid of EVERYTHING. The vacuum, the dustbuster, the fan over the stove, any cooking on the stove (like the sound of a sizzling skillet), half-opened doors, partially blocked doorways/hallways, storms, alarm clocks, smoke detectors, wet grass (she wont potty in it) … she is a huge chicken.
my dog is also afraid of plastic bags! specifically, ones on the street that float around. he doesn’t mind the ones that pick up his poop!
My cat, Rudy, is terrified of the vacuum! I don’t get it?! He’s seen it at least once a week for his entire life. But he runs away like his life is in danger. He always runs to the same closet…until I make my way there with the vacuum. Then he runs again. Silly boy!
Oh no, poor Data! He looks terrified and wild-eyed! Bodger is afraid of the foam roller, but that’s probably because we chase him around the apartment with it…
LOL!!!! Poor Data 🙂 I have to give my kitties flea treatment once a month and it SUCKS! Yoshi runs at the sound of me breaking the tube out of the foil. He is also scared of almost ALL company. They all pretty much don’t like the vacuum either. Oh Kitties <3