A bird in the shoe....

A bird in the shoe is worth two in the bush. Hmmm...or maybe it's worth a new pair of tennis shoes.

My husband went to Open Mic last night and I met him there after yoga. I had dinner and watched several performers and my husband play. We stayed for a couple more performances. My husband kept fiddling with his shoe all evening. He said it didn't feel right. He thought maybe he stepped in something but didn't see anything.

Anyways....we got home and he took off his shoes. He was horrified. There was a squished bird in his shoe. We were totally grossed out. The shoe was ruined. I was laughing and trying not to gag all at the same time. The thought that went through my head was thank God it wasn't in my shoe and how the hell do you go all evening and not realize there's a dead bird in your shoe? My husband really wasn't amused with my laughing. (Sorry honey!)

I routinely look in my shoes and shake them out before I put them on. It's my greatest fear that a live (or dead) animal will be hiding in my shoe waiting to clamp onto my big toe. Our cats are the great hunters and there is always a rodent or lizard in our house. Occasionally a bird will be brought in. But you just wouldn't expect a bird in your shoe. A lizard or rodent, yes, good hiding place. The bird must have been placed there by a kitty leaving gifts for daddy. Or maybe it was like the crows on the television commercial with the window cleaner. They wait for someone to run into the clean sliding glass door and laugh at them. Maybe the cat was hiding underneath bed laughing when Boyd slid his unknowing foot into the mayhem hiding in his shoe.

But now I know I am not being paranoid to shake my shoes out every morning. I have been vindicated.

Looking for Lizards

I cringe every time I pick something up off the floor in my bedroom or when I slip on a pair of shoes that's been laying on the floor. Why? Lizards, snakes and rodents find their way into our house on a regular basis. All thanks to my lovely kitties. They tend to end up under my shoe rack hiding under a boot or inside a shoe that didn't get put back. I shake each shoe out before I put it on. My vision is that I'll put my foot in a shoe and a lizard will bite my big toe. I'll scream and fling it across the room. I shiver just thinking about it.

Right now I'm waiting for Boyd to get back from one of his weekend trips to the hardware store. He needs to look through my sock basket. It has a funny smell emanating from it. I got a whiff of dead something. I am not dumping that basket out myself. No way, no how. I'm sure Darryl the boy cat thinks it's a nice gesture to bring me a gopher or mole and put it with my socks so I could thank him later. Sigh....eeewwwwwww.

Good thing my cats are cute and cuddly. Thought it was time to listen to my kitties theme song again:


Ray Wylie Hubbard - Snake Farm
Video Codes at www.blastro.com

Gopher Boy

It was late. I spent the day at AT&T Park for the opening day of the Giant’s. We had a great time, the Giant’s won and the rain cleared for the game. I came home and unfortunately had to work on my taxes, the appointment to get them done is on Thursday. I’m cutting it a little short this year. By about midnight I crawled into bed and tried to go to sleep. I was just drifting off when Darryl the cat appeared at the open slider. There’s no screen so he bounded in and as always announced himself. There was a fair amount of commotion when he came in. I thought his sister had followed him in and they were tussling on the floor.

She can be a real hisser sometimes. Literally, she hisses at everyone when she is trying to make her point, especially her brother. Apparently she has some Abyssinian in her that makes her very vocal. She doesn’t bite, just hisses.

Well the tussling stopped for a bit and I drifted off to sleep.

About fifteen minutes later Darryl was chasing something through the room. I woke up to him half under our bed with his paw on top of something. I was sure he had another lizard. I shined a flashlight under the bed and couldn’t see anything and Darryl wasn’t moving and I wasn’t putting my feet on the floor. My husband, who was sound asleep and didn’t respond to my comment of, “Honey the cat has another animal in the room and is chasing it around” was finally awakened by my insistence that the cat had something other than a lizard under the bed and he better wake up and remove it immediately. Begrudgingly he got up and looked under the bed. He stated rather too calmly, I thought, that the cat had a live gopher under the bed. At about that time the cat let the gopher go and it darted across the room. I may have screamed, the cat bolted and my husband said he didn’t see where it went. Great, so much for sleep.

The cat ran towards my boots that were lined up on the floor under my shoetree, hot on the trail of the rogue gopher. My husband flung all the shoes out of the way as the two of them hunted for the rodent. Darryl, we'll call him gopher boy now, sniffed it out with his tail twitching. My husband had it cornered. I asked him if he wanted a glass or something to put it in. But to my horror he just picked up the live gopher with the cat clawing at him and threw it off the balcony and shut the door. The cat continued looking through the room for another fifteen minutes trying to find his prey. My husband proceeded to get back in bed. I said, “Not before you wash you’re hands.” Grumble, grumble, sigh. Needless to say I didn’t get a very good night’s sleep last night.

Relax this weekend!

Awwww.....to be a cat. Take time this weekend to relax and hang out. Darryl my lounging cat says it's good for you.

Ray Wylie Hubbard - Snake Farm

My cats have made my house a "Snake Farm!" Last night 3 snakes, 2 lizards. Today, 1 dead lizard (so far) in the hall.

Snake Farm. Just sounds nasty. Ewwwwwww!!!!!

Gophernators

The cats have graduated to gophers! Hallelujah! They are official gophernators. Darryl just played with the poor thing, but his sister took it away from him and finished the job. She is no nonsense and very ninja like in her approach. However, we did find another tailless live lizard in the house. Where are all the tails? I just don't want to know.



Score: Boy kitty-many sticks/4 live snakes/3 live lizards/1 gopher-torture only
Girl kitty-4 dead birds/1 dead gopher

Up a tree

Early Sunday evening I called the cats in from outside for their dinner. They come running when I click the pop top on the can of cat food because I am the revered opener of cans. Of course, they will only eat the canned food with gravy. They lap up all the gravy first and then eat the chunks of meat. Darryl never finishes his food but his sister cleans up hers and what ever he leaves.

This particular evening girl kitty comes running from outside and comes in to claim her gravy. Her brother however is not appearing. I click the can some more and call him in again. All of a sudden I hear a distress meow and it's distinctively Darryl's meow. My daughter and I look everywhere and couldn't determine where it was coming from. It sounded like it was coming from the neighbors yard but it was echoing off the trees.

A look up revealed him. He was about twenty feet straight up a Monterey Pine tree in the neighbors yard with no way down. He just screamed and screamed because I'm sure that: A.)He knew he was in trouble B.)His sister was eating all the gravy and C.) Daphne the neighbors dog had probably chased him up the tree and he was afraid that if he did try and get down, the dog would eat him.

So I called my fearless husband and told him we had to save the kitty from the tree. He hates heights. But he got a rope from the truck and was prepared to dutifully shimmy twenty feet straight up a tree trunk to save the kitty. Fortunately the neighbor had an extension ladder which was just about tall enough to reach Darryl. The neighbor and I braced the ladder against the tree and held on to it to stabilize it while my husband slowly climbed all the way to the top rung to reach Darryl.

Darryl was so happy to see daddy. But my husband, fearing that the cat was going to claw him to death while they descended down the ladder, had to think quickly of a way to safely get them both down without injury. So he grabbed Darryl by the scruff of his neck and pulled him from his perch in the tree. The cat had a look of terror on his face. All he wanted to do was attach himself to my husbands chest. My husband, being of quick mind and long arms, decided the best thing to do was to use the cats claws and stick him to the trunk of the tree as far down as he could reach while he descended a couple of rungs on the ladder. So in essence, he told the cat to stick like Velcro. The cat being terrified did just that. So down they went a few rungs at a time, each time he lowered the cat a couple of feet on the tree. My husbands running commentary to the cat to stick was so funny, our neighbor and I could barely hold onto the ladder because we were laughing so hard.

Shortly after getting Darryl back in the house, and after he consumed what was left of his gravy, he laid down in the hallway and wouldn't move. I, being the total mom, thought he was still scared and picked him up to comfort him. No, he would have none of that and hopped back down to the same spot in the hall. Then he started batting at the suitcase that was sitting there. I sighed and sent my husband over to move the suitcase. Under the suitcase, placed for safe keeping and a later play date with Darryl was a tailless alligator lizard. The lizard now dwells in the tree.

Score:
Honey-girl kitty-4 dead birds
Darryl-stinky boy kitty-many sticks/4 snakes/1 lizard

The House of Sticks

I thought when my son moved out and went in the Navy that I was done with reptiles and other small creatures living in my house. We had them all; snakes, lizards, frogs, crawdads, fish, rats. I never knew what he was going to catch or bring home. As long as he cared for them and they didn't get out, I was fine with it.

I put my foot down when he caught the garter snake and tried to keep him in a cage in his room. The snake was just angry that he was inside and escaped twice. The second time he popped out of a drawer at me in my son's room. I screamed and slammed the drawer shut. I thought I beheaded it which made be feel really bad. But it turns out he was OK and I made my son take him out to the field and release him. Lesson learned: Don't keep angry snakes in the house.

Our current pets in our semi-empty nest, are Darryl and Honey. They are brother and sister, orange tabby cats and they are not even a year old yet. In previous posts I mentioned that Darryl was fond of catching sticks and had moved up to a "wigglin' stick." The wigglin' stick was a garter snake that he spit out at my husband's foot in the yard. He was very proud, but really didn't like the taste. Since then we have had several incidents with Darryl and his love of sticks.

Our first clue should have been all the sticks he started bringing in the house. We'd come home from work and there would be pieces of sticks everywhere. The great hunter! Then in a corner of the backyard there is a pile of sticks. This must be Darryl's lair where he gathers all of his sticks before distribution.

Darryl has a distinctive meow when he brings in one of his sticks. It's very deep and guttural and says, "Look at what a manly man cat I am. I have caught some more prey. Praise me, oh opener of cans." Of course, up to this point he has been bringing in inanimate sticks. But he is very proud. That all stopped about a week ago. He was by the fireplace and was making his "I've got a stick noise." My husband and I looked over and there it was. He had a live garter snake in the house and was playing with it. A real live wigglin' stick. My husband, being calm and not afraid of snakes like myself, reached down and picked it up. Darryl was not happy that his new play toy had been picked up. I shuddered and my husband tossed the snake in the tree outside our deck.

A few days later our college age daughter had just gotten home from school and was relaxing in the living room when she heard Darryl making a ruckus and meowing. So she got up to look and screamed. He had another snake in the house. She snapped a photo of him on her phone and called me screaming that there was a snake in the house. We determined that a broom and dust pan were the best way to extract the snake since the snake looked mostly dead at this point. So into the tree off the deck it went.

This weekend we found a much bigger and coiled up garter snake in front of the fireplace with my driftwood collection-yes more sticks. Darryl has concluded I collect sticks and he must bring more to me. My husband again calmly picked up the snake and tossed it into the tree outside the deck. All I can do is shudder. He thinks that if I just touch the snake it will help alleviate my fears. That's not the problem. I can touch the snake, I just don't want one touching me when I don't know it's there, like in my bed or shoe!

So I did mention to my husband I was a little unsure of all the snake tossing into the tree. His reasoning was that the cat wouldn't climb that tree and the snakes had a better chance of surviving. I'm just afraid that a passerby on the trail beneath the tree will end up with snakes dropping on them at some point. Or we'll have some biologist out here thinking they have a new rare species of tree dwelling California garter snakes. By the way I did do a little research on the snakes that Darryl is catching and they look like a very common variety. They are not some endangered species.

Life is kept fresh and new with little ones in the house!

Score:
Honey Girl-4 birds
Darryl-many sticks/4 snakes

Wigglin' Stick

So Darryl has moved up from stick catcher to wigglin' stick catcher. My husband was doing yard work this weekend and the cats were out there with him. Darryl (the boy) saw something in the bushes and started circling it. He then nabbed it and brought it over to my husband. Darryl probably thought it was another stick, but this one was wigglin'. It was a garden snake wiggiling away in his mouth. Good thing I wasn't out there, I would have been screaming. But Darryl brought it over and set it right down at my husband's feet. Well actually he kind of spit it out, like it was really nasty tasting. Still not sure he gets the concept of the whole hunting thing. Now his sister, Honey knows how to hunt. We've counted three birds so far. I just wish they would see those gophers pop out of their holes. Our yard is about to sink a foot from the all the gopher tunnels.

Stick Catcher

Our male kitten, Darryl is getting huge. He has started venturing outside and has discovered hunting...well, stick hunting that is. He started with leaves and is now dragging large dried pampas grass sticks into the yard by dragging them up the hill. He was just bringing one into the yard the other day when he spotted my husband. The cat gave him a look like he'd been caught doing something bad. My husband couldn't stop laughing, the cat was standing right over a gopher hole with a giant six foot long stick in his mouth. Cat unclear on the concept! The sticks are taunting him, he must corral them bring them to his lair.

New Studio

Well I finally have my studio and computer set up in a room all to myself!!!!! It's not totally together yet, but I'll be painting and creating by this weekend. I can lock the kitties out when I need to concentrate and have open paint sitting out. I'll post some photos this weekend. I'll actually be able to stand up and paint and have all my photo stuff out at the same time. Can't wait to dig in!

Kitties Eat Mouse

These sweet things can cause havoc with a computer. I couldn't figure out why my mouse stopped working on my computer at home. I banged my mouse up and down trying to get it to work. I grabbed the cord and jiggled it. Then I felt it, kitty bite marks in the mouse cord! Looks like I'll have to replace it. It only works half the time. If I hold the cord at just the right angle it works great, but can be awkward for typing. I don't know which is worse, replacing the mouse or trying to wash blue paint off the kitties paws after they walked across one of my paintings. Good thing they bring me lots of joy.