Hope for the Holidays

I love the spirit of the holidays. The music, the food, festive lights, and all the good will. Okay, maybe not the thundersnow. And this year, even though we still have more dark days ahead of us, we have hope for the holidays. Not one, but two vaccines are already winging their way to the world. Human ingenuity is amazing!

Some years, I have all the patience in the world to festoon our walls and shelves with wreaths, ribbons, and lights. After the Day of the Long Knives*, the resident mad scientist and I decided long ago that our cats didn't need a giant cat toy, a.k.a. a holiday tree, so we stick with less breakable decorations. This year, despite not having a holiday musical to perform in, I've been slow to put them up. Also, too, I unwisely packed most of the decorations in the storage pod along with the rest of the basement contents, so all I have are thin-wire fairy lights and a few bows. The cats are not amused.

They are even less amused by the sounds from the basement during the remodeling project. No amount of reassurance from me that they'll love the end result has swayed their belief that I hired workers to make random loud noises just to irritate felines. I shall offer them tuna and catnip in consolation.

Here's wishing you all good health and great cheer in the coming year.

 

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* The Day of the Long Knives, a.k.a., The Day It Snowed Inside

Once upon a time, the resident mad scientist and I lived in a two-story townhouse in Southern California with only two cats. These were the O.G. cats who long ago crossed the rainbow bridge.

One day, the scientist called me at work. “I came home for lunch. Your cats did something I can't find the words to describe. You'll have to see for yourself. I'm not touching a thing.”

Astute readers will notice they'd suddenly become my cats. I thought they'd knocked over a lamp, or perhaps thought outside the catbox, as it were. Ah, how unimaginative of me.

The two furry miscreants had discovered the joy of toilet paper.

Not content with just unrolling it into a puddle on the floor, they'd dragged it all throughout our townhouse. From all three bathrooms. Up and down the stairs and in every room and hallway. Then they shredded it. Our poor house looked like it had snowed on top of a very thorough prank T.P. job. Somewhere, we still have old Polaroid pictures of the savagery. Including, I might add, the spare rolls in the cabinet that had been bit and kicked like they were gutting their prey. Good thing they didn't think of the Kleenex, or we'd have had nothing usable at all.

In a small mercy from the cat gods, the our furry berserkers seemed to have gotten it out of their system, and never did it again. It remains one of our great feline mysteries.

😺 😸 😹 😻 😼 🙀 😿 😾 🐱

P.S. My cats occasionally write blog posts. Here's one from a million years ago, back in the early days of the pandemic, with more photos of cats.