A Christmas gift

My cat brother Adric and I have a prickly relationship - I relate and Adric prickles. And he is loaded with pricklers - in his mouth, on all four fur feet....it is like living with a little saber-toothed tiger. Well, "little" would be the wrong adjective. Adric is pretty big.

But the other day I thought we had reached a new level of friendship. I thought that Adric had prepared the best ever Holiday gift for me. After all, I've been pretty good lately. As good as dogs get that is. I thought he made me a cat punching bag! Out of himself!

It started like this. Adric was in the kitchen, jumping up on the counter and scouting food as usual. This accounts for the not-so-little aspect of Adric. My Person was busy being busy, or as I think of it, wasting time that could be spent playing with me. Suddenly a hideous commotion broke out in the kitchen: cat screams and hisses and growls. I ran right on in as any dog would. There, suspended by his skinny ankle from a drawer pull, hung big ol' Adric. I was beside myself with joy and started punching away at him. It seems he liked this even less than being suspended. The level of noise increased though that didn't seem possible.

My Person ran through the house, wailing (her usual response to surprises), ran to the kitchen, ceased wailing and commenced screaming, joining right in there with Adric. (My Person has been in a choir lately and I believe she was doing an alto accompaniment to Adric's mixed soprano and bass.) She lifted him up and out of the drawer pull and Adric rolled and stumbled down the basement stairs, hissing and spitting, and then my Person rounded on me like it was my fault for taking advantage of the moment and what I thought was an amusement arranged especially for me. "Back!" she hissed like a snake in full fury, and then she sailed down the basement stairs after Adric.

Well, a long time and a lot of mushy kissy noises and poor kitties and sweet adrics later, up the basement stairs came my Person holding one wounded Adric. And off to the Emergency Vet they went. I realized then that Adric hadn't made me a nice punching bag but had gotten himself in a dangerous fix. I too have been to the Emergency Vet recently and the thought of it still makes me shudder.

Well, the long and short of it is Adric broke his ankle bone and is taking some mighty powerful painkillers and is spending his time in MY little nap bed in the bathroom, all toasty and warm and with dilated eyes and purring and singing little cat songs to himself.

And I am down one Christmas present and a little bit in the dog house but I am getting pretty used to that.

So remember, always look a gift horse in the mouth because maybe it isn't really a gift and maybe you are headed for some trouble if you think it is!

Triple-walled dog house

That's where I live. Lately.

I admit. I've been bad. But it isn't really my fault.

First, my Person foolishly left the grocery bag up on the table where I am not suppose to go and I sort of got inside and pulled a quart container pack of organic chicken broth out from under a giant heavy winter squash and carried it into the living room and ripped it open and slurped up most of it except for a little puddle by the bookcase I forgot about until it was too late.

Second, my Person foolishly left a sealed box of bird seed by the back door that I happened to pull open and dump upside down and sample a good deal of before she surprised me by coming in that very back door without knocking first.

Third, I ate a pan of almond bars that my Person made for her Friend and left to cool on top of the stove. She didn't even yell at me or call me a bad dog after that one. She just gave me a steely look and said "You know what kind of dog you are," and I cowered and shrank and glued my ears to the back of my head and gave a gulp and unfortunately I also burped. She ignore me then and strode out of the room to lie down on the couch and read. And that was very bad because I had hidden some of the almond bars under the couch throw. And then she went to bed to read and that was very bad too because I had hidden some more almond bars under the blankets. "What are you?" she roared. "A grizzly bear making food caches?" Then she laughed but it was a grim sort of laugh and I found some other place that wasn't the couch or the bed to sleep that night.