behindtheax

Cats and Sparrows

So, then that happened. I love the way Alex Baldwin delivered that line in the movie State and Main.

O.K. here’s what happened
I am taking my cat to the vet this morning for her shots. My house is very chaotic right now because the fence is still going up and the window guys are here putting in new windows. Lots of saws and hammering and what not and my dog and cat are like me, a little neurotic, so I am thinking great at least I get to escape with my cat for an hour. Lovely morning out anyway. So, I tell all these guys as I leave the house that I shall be back, just taking my cat for her shots. I even look kind of cool I think with my green, over the shoulder, cat carrier which Zippers at the top. I round the corner as a street cleaner is rounding the opposite corner, coming towards us. Well, street cleaners are loud and my cat immediately came up like a shot through the zippered top of the carrier. Something like a stripper breaking through the top of a cake if that stripper just happened to have super jumping abilities and was able to clear the top of the cake by several feet.
I tried for a moment to hang onto her but she was using ever claw God gave here not to stay in my possession and leaped away from me, darting between two brick houses, which had a nine-foot fence running between them. O.K. she is cornered, I thought. I can get her, I thought. But in one single graceful movement that little cat leaped straight up, balanced for a brief second on the top lattice and then disappeared over the other side. At that moment I had two simultaneous thoughts. First was ..shit, she will never come to me now and I am going to have to cancel her appointment and the second thought was..Man, my cat is so awesome to be able to clear a nine-foot fence like that.

I walked around the neighbourhood for a half an hour shaking my bag of temptations (don’t let the name fool you, they didn’t temp her at all to come to me) and finally I had to sheepishly return to the house with my empty carrier and ask the men if they seen my cat come back here. I doubt if she will return until this evening, when all is settled. So, I made another appointment for her tomorrow and hopefully I will be able to reinforce the top of her carrier . I’ll tell you how it goes.

Oh, and now I am hiding in the basement because the window guy is upset with me because I forgot to tell him there was like twelve years of sparrow nests up under the eve of our front window that my husband and I never had the heart to remove. Like it’s a whole little colony of birds up there, but I think the whole thing came down on him when he began to remove this metal thingymajig that the nests were sitting on. He was not happy. But the main thing is it’s September so there were no eggs or babies up there.

posted by mary j. @ 11:45 AM