The Dark Side of Decking the Halls

Girl Cat is sitting next to me. I am being seduced by her long white whiskers and "pet me" eyes and that cute off-center stripe down her nose.

She is acting out of character.

Normally, when Girl Cat wants attention, she makes a mad jump for my feet and legs when I'm walking out of the shower in the morning, and she hangs on until I pet her or knock her away. This acrobatic stunt only happens, however, if I have failed to notice her jumping up on the bed and meowing frantically, which only happens if Darling Husband has already left the room.

Today she is sitting next to me nuzzling my head with hers. She is raising her paw to pet my face.

I'm pretty sure she is thanking me for the Christmas tree and for all the warm fires since the temperatue finally dropped enough to turn all of our rain into snow.

She almost has me hypnotized. I am most grateful for her rare gestures of affection toward me. I have almost forgotten ...

all the sounds of heaving and yacking night and day because all three of them insist on eating the pine needles that fall from the tree. Fake or real, it doesn't matter much to them. Both upset kitty tummies. The only difference I can see is that apparently artificial pine needles are not digestible and they come back right away. The real needles come back as bright yellow slime after a period of time.

If I wasn't concerned about losing a lot of followers, I would give you a rather detailed description of the incredible sound effects that come from upchucking cat, because it is so unique for each beast. There is nothing human about the sound, and nothing to even make you think of upset stomachs except the fact that I keep saying "puke" and "upchuck" just so you don't forget what we are talking about. I think Girl Cat sounds a bit like a cartoon car backfiring, and that is as far as I will go with the visual and audios.

I am writing this blog post for posterity, so when the time comes next year to go buy the Christmas Tree, you all can remind me of how much fun I am having. I am feeling so victimized. My entire family was so annoyed with me because I so anally made sure that there was no tinsel on any tree anywhere low enough for any cat to reach, swallow, and die. (Of course, tinsel can be very bad for cats, but my cats have a secret stash of Easter grass they found a long time ago and have been bringing it out periodically for batting and yacking fests. So far they are all still alive, and I have found a wide variety of very effective cleansers for various surfaces.) But, despite my painstaking care, all three of them are doing impressions of reverse vacuum cleaners several times a day.

Of course, they have a new team member this year. A certain Toddler has begun to experiment with opening doors for them to explore rooms that were previously shed and yack free. I think the cats joined forces with Toddler because they were concerned about finding a way to stop Toddler from slamming doors and locking them away from food and litter until some other Two Footer was smart enough to miss the forlorn cat.

Hmmm.

I might have had an epiphany.

As I am typing this blog, Toddler is upstairs pretending to take a nap, all the while babbling about "more cookies."

I think I might have to start investigating where all the cookies are really going.

Maybe this dynamic team of trouble is into more than I thought.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go find out why the conversation upstairs is no longer about cookies and consists of repititions of the words, "Oh, no. Oh, no."

Until tomorrow....