MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABELLLLLLL!!!!!!!

This has not been our night. Oh, but it’s been Mabel’s alright. She has had a fine evening! First, I came home and started cooking dinner. I let the dogs out, fed them, and brought them back in out of the sweltering heat.

Five minutes later, Dom and the kids walk in, and it is during their entrance into our home that Dom hurriedly crosses the kitchen and asks, “Did she get it or did you put it up?”

“Get what?”

“The loaf of…” And he stops cold at the entrance to the den with me hot on his heels.

“Mabel!!!!! You ate all the bread?!!!” I peered over his shoulder to spy a hurricane path of ripped pieces of the plastic bread bag littering my den.  Dom began to explain to me that he had forgotten to put the bread back in the breadbox and had left the half-loaf on the countertop when he came home for lunch today. He meant to warn me ahead of time, and I had not noticed it was left out. In fact, it took a while for him to convince me that Mabel didn't make that mess during the lunch hour.  I was too focused on making dinner which included a new bread recipe. Ironic, huh?

Half an hour later we were sitting down to dinner. During dinner, the kids and Dom yelled twice at Mabel who was helping herself to the scraps of roast left on the kitchen countertop.

After dinner, we cleared the table and washed up the dishes. I packaged up the leftovers and tried to decide what to store the leftover Sun Dried Tomato Bread in (awesome recipe from my newest cookbook). I decided I was tired of standing up instead, and since Dom was sitting for a few moments, I joined him. We heard nothing from the Mabelline, and I called her name, but really figured she was crashed on the tile floor, what with having consumed so many carbs and all.

I really wish I would stop assuming that I know what she’s doing.

She finally rounded the corner and laid herself down on the floor in front of Dom. He patted her extended belly and we laughed because we figured she had to be stuffed! Dom asked if there was anything else she could have gotten (food-wise), and I proudly answered that I had put everything safely away.

A few moments later I hoisted my lazy butt up and headed into the kitchen. On the table, dead center, was the tray I had placed the bread on during dinner, all wrapped in a towel so it would stay warm. But the tray was empty. Pretty, but empty. And that’s when I realized that I had not yet packaged and stored that beautiful, delicious Italiany-tomato-bread that I had made FROM SCRATCH. I called out to Dom, “Honey, did you put the rest of the bread up?”

“Uh, no…”

And then I saw the towel that I had wrapped the bread in ON THE FLOOR UNDER THE TABLE!

We honestly don’t know how it is that Mabel is not passed out somewhere. She has consumed about a tablespoon of roast beef and TWO HALF-LOAVES OF BREAD!!!

At least the one I made was low-cal. Damn dog.