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

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