Kitty Cat Crisis

There was a double Kitty Cat crisis at our house this week. Instead of the usual: no one being here precisely at 5:00 P.M. to serve the little packet of kitty chicken; we've had two different events that probably burned up one or two of her nine lives.

One evening I came home from work, and CoolGuy asked me to go into the kitchen/dining room and look around to see if I could determine the cause of the near-meltdown of Her Royal Highness all afternoon. It had started about 1:00 P.M.--far too early for the normal "It's 93 minutes till 5:00!" harassment she does daily. She was stomping across the keyboard of his computer, she was up on the back of the chair tapping on his head. She'd stand in the doorway of his office meowing sharply and beseeching him to follow her. He tried letting her outdoors, but none of the usual efforts led to relief.

Finally at 4:59 P.M. he went into the kitchen to get the packet of kitty chicken and as he leaned down to pick up the bowl, he realized what the hours of panic had been all about. The dry food container was nearly empty. We have one of those dispenser types that is filled from the top and then as the animal consumes it, more shuffles down into the serving area. EXCEPT THERE WASN'T ANYMORE TO SHUFFLE DOWN. And there was actually a little space of blue plastic showing in the serving area indicating that by this time tomorrow there would be no more snacks for nibbling at all. Oh. My.

As he pointed me in the direction of the kitty cat relief station, I already knew what I'd see because two days before, as I'd put out the kitty chicken, I'd seen that the filler box was very low, but I'd been distracted and so didn't go immediately to the shelf and get the dry food to refill it. What a riot! My inattention was the cause of four hours of persistent harassment for CoolGuy by the desperate KittyCat who could not articulate her concerns. Good grief.

Then, on top of that anxiety I carelessly provoked, I've been the cause of another 24 hours of unrest. Because of the impending surgery and subsequent enforced idleness, I have been inspired to a frenzy of housework. On Saturday, I washed all of my bedding, right down to the mattress pad and the pillow covers. However, my wonderful corduroy comforter is too big to wash in my machine, so I went down to the laundromat to use their big front loader. I also used the occasion of my going out to do a little shopping and stopped off at the church to practice a difficult piece I'm playing to accompany a group for next week's Sacrament meeting. So, by the time I finished the actual washing and took home the damp comforter, it was around 8:00 P.M. It is quite big and cumbersome, and would have taken so long in the dryer, that I just hung it over a fence in the yard to dry overnight. You know---dry desert air and it was 75 degrees on Saturday....nice, huh?

Yes, yes, but...this meant that something else had to serve as our cover for last night. I got out a couple of other blankets that, together, covered us up nicely, but weren't the corduroy comforter. And the bed had been torn up all afternoon...

This morning, I brought in the comforter, but I didn't remake the bed until this evening. You'd have thought that the KittyCat was the elegant princess from the fairy tale of The Princess and The Pea. She hopped up on the newly made bed, and rolled around and groomed herself, and flopped out and pushed her paws on it. She'd been suffering for 24 hours without her corduroy comforter! What utter luxury to have it back in place. She was exhausted! And relieved! Never do that again, lady, you understand? I guess we should just be reported to the authorities for this week of cruelty. We'll try to do better.

Here is the picture of the exhausted, anxious Princess KittyCat, who with her last ounce of energy, managed to get up onto the corduroy comforter for her beauty sleep---denied to her all of these hours because of the careless humans who thoughtlessly do chores without taking into account the needs of the Queen.