Mutts on leashes. Squirrels. Outdoor cats. Birdies. Fat, tasty toddlers. It’s sort of a miracle screens contain tiny couch panthers and window sill mountain lions.
Kansas Bill Permits Doctors to Refuse to Administer Chemotherapy to Pregnant Cancer Patients
Anti-gay Amendment One passes in NC
I can’t talk. This is all too fucking sad.
Our neighbor has four young hens, which means all our neighborhood cats now have Chicken TV.
I broke up a cat fight by putting down food, though I have a vague suspicion I've been outwitted by people who are cats who weren't actually angry at one another.
Last night, lovely Topaz was cuddled up, all meow-meow lap cat cute and eye-blinky adorable when Sweetpea took a flying leap from a nearby window sill, which startled my dulcet darling. Topaz ran straight up me and used my face as a launching pad for her airborne escape. What felt like a cartoon KA-POW! right to the kisser was a kitty claw dug into my lip. Screaming would’ve been too much and OW! wasn’t enough. I spent the rest of the evening with an ice pack on my face as my upper lip doubled in size and I couldn’t even be mad about it. That’s frustrating.
Sweetpea knows what you've been up to. And down to.
At the time, we were watching PBS’s Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., which is like sugary deep-fried crack for me. I cannot get enough of this show. Last night, we watched the episode with Cory Booker and John Lewis. Please find it. See it. This will break your heart and should be required viewing for every seventeen year old in America.
Today, my lip’s a little swollen but my ego is cut down to size. That’s fine by me.
Topaz is the tiniest ferocious panther you have ever seen. Mrrow.
We took up our posts on the porch this afternoon. Buds perfumed the breeze while our friends the outdoor cats lounged in lazy afternoon sunbeams. We cursed the ancestors of drivers speeding to the dog park, though not their happy dogs.
Beautiful, brilliant little Topaz has stolen my ski pants.
Yes, pants.
Back off, paparazzo! Pete will vex you!
The neighbors' handsome outdoor cat pretends to be a flamingo. I've been calling this cat Claude.
Topaz went on walkabout, so now everyone covered with fur gets a collar with the bell snipped off. Sweetpea sports this topical green peace sign collar which sets off her lovely honey boo-boo eyes.
Drusy models this silver paisley collar, but she'd look beautiful in any old thing. Topaz, on the other hand, is completely freaked out and once again has told me to talk to the paw.
A little over an hour ago, I was trying to move around a bit so I wouldn’t feel like I’d spent the day in bed again. In the living room, I was polishing my nails and waiving my arms like a jet-propelled lunatic while Thursday’s General Hospital lurched to its inevitable conclusion. Sweetpea lay on the couch, licking her paws. Topaz sat on the sideboard, bathed in the golden afternoon light and looking back at me. Some time later, time measured perhaps in minutes or seconds, I looked back and saw no cat on the sideboard. A lot of tiny things happened very quickly in a row:
– I stopped what I was doing and walked to the open window where I saw
– a hole in the screen about the size of a six-pound cat
– without thinking, I looked at Sweetpea on the couch and walked up the stairs to find Drusy
– who met me on the stairs, and I stared at her
– then I kept walking up, hoping to see Topaz, who is often invisible.
– When I got to the attic, winded, and did not see Topaz, I did not panic. I came downstairs.
– Without thinking, I looked at Sweetpea.
– Thinking I was doing things out of order, I walked outside and saw nothing.
– Thinking I was overreacting, I walked across the strip of grass that passes for my front lawn and around the side of the house, where I saw nothing.
– Thinking I should go back in the house, I found myself standing on a corner of the sidewalk when I saw a tiny face peek out from the far, dark side of my back porch and I wasn’t one hundred percent sure who it was.
– Suddenly, my heart was in my throat. I called, “Topaz? My darling?”
– The face starting running toward me and hissed, then became Topaz in the light.
– I scooped her up and carried her to the front of the house. She fought me the whole time. I lost my grip on her once I was inside the vestibule, but before the door had closed behind me. For a moment, I wondered if I had just lost her again
– but I opened the inside door and she ran inside.
– Once the crisis was averted, I sat down in the living room and had a flaming nauseous panic attack.
This worked out well because I didn’t listen to rational me and I acted before I thought about how I was going to feel about any outcome.
To no one's surprise: not talking.
On the bright side: my lungs worked great while I was hyperventilating.
Poor Impulse Control 