This is what I see

This Sunday I was suffering from lack of breathing ability due to a cold or allergies or the scurvy...who knows, and apparently I wasn't providing enough fun and stimulation for the terrorists so as usual they were forced to entertain each other.

They love to look out of the window so I put a bar stool in front of the front door window and they fight over who's going to sit on it. Occasionally they share the stool but usually Ashleigh insists that there is only room for one kitty butt.
I dozed off while watching television and I was awakened to the sound of scratching. It was very syncopated scratching, not the usual rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat sound ones equates with cats scratching. I sat up and looked around and saw Ashleigh dangling from the front door screen by the nails on one paw and thrashing at the screen with the other. I jumped up and rescued her and was feeling so sad for this poor little kitty who had probably pulled her leg out of the socket. Who knows how long she had been hanging there. Once I got her unstuck and tried to cuddle and comfort her she jumped out of my arms and climbed back on to the stool and resumed digging at the screen. That little weasel had ripped the screen and apparently was not finished when I interrupted her. I took her off of the stool and I closed the window. If she wanted to sit on the stool and look out the window that would be fine but she would no longer get to feel the sea breeze in her whiskers.

Since my cats have no toys of which to speak Ashleigh turned her attentions to her ongoing remodeling of the window treatments in the living room and bedroom. Renzo was not impressed so he had to run around the house squalling his head off. When he squalls he sounds very much like a peacock and I swear it sounds like he's trying to say, "Mama". I have yet to figure out what all of his squalls mean, and there are times when I don't think he knows what they mean either. He squalls when I leave the room, he squalls when he finds me, he squalls when he wants canned food, he squalls when he needs to go potty, he squalls after he goes potty, he squalls when he can't find Ashleigh, he squalls when he finds Ashleigh, he squalls when he wants to get in to the shower with me, he squalls when he gets wet in the shower, he squalls if his dry food dish is empty, he squalls when I fill it up. I should have named him Paul.

After Ashleigh was finished with her work on the big windows she changed locations and tried to leap from the arm of the couch to the divider wall jamb. It took her a couple of tries but she was finally able to jump with enough force to be able to dig her ample nails in to the wall and then just hang there. I saw a split second of satisfaction in her eyes and then she and I both wondered what she was going to do now that she was hanging on the wall. She allowed herself to slide down the wall and went and got a sip of water and a bite of food. Apparently spelunking takes a lot out of a girl.

With food in her belly Ashleigh finds a sunbeam to take a nap in and Lorenzo lays under the wicker chair. Thinking this meet of the Idiot Olympics is finished for the day I, too, decide to take a nap.

I am awakened by the sound of horking. Cat horking to be exact. My first thought is that the cat food I've been feeding them is tainted and one of them is on their last leg and will spent their last moment on this earth barfing. I don't have to go far to see that it's Ashleigh, and she is doing what all barfing cats do; horking and running around in circles backwards. I am trying to get her to barf on a paper towel but apparently the paper towel is most offensive because she keeps jerking away from it. At the last second I am able to get a dish towel under her mouth and save my carpet from another kitty induced stain. Poor kitty, I am such a bad mommy, feeding you tainted food. Pet, pet, sweet talk, sweet talk..etc. I have purchased all of my pet food at Pet Smart and was under the impression that they had been on top of keeping the tainted food off of the shelves. I've been paying through the nose so that they can have decent food that does not include melamine. Curse the pet food companies, curse Pet Smart! Curse all ya all, curse...hey, wait a minute...sparkly barf? What. Is. That? Upon closer inspection I conclude that Ashleigh had eaten silver curling ribbon. The exact curling ribbon I had picked up off of the floor and put in the kitchen drawer a couple of hours ago. I looked around and sure enough in the corner of the dining room was the spool of ribbon. She had gotten in to the drawer and taken it out and chewed off a hunk and swallowed it. I realized I was off the hook and she hadn't been poisoned by eating bad cat food. I breathed a sigh of relief and thought that she'd sit still for a while. Most living beings do not feel energized after eating and subsequently barfing up ribbon but Ashleigh is not most living beings. It didn't take her 2 minutes to get Lorenzo all fired up and they were running around like maniacs. Ashleigh took a running leap and swatted at the crystal cord that hangs from the ceiling fan. She has been trying her hand/paw at that for months now and you should have heard the marching band start to play when she actually connected with the cord hard enough to cause it to wrap around one of the fan blades. I decided to leave it there hoping that it will cause her to lose interest in swatting at it, but if I know Ashleigh I will probably come home one day to find her sitting on the fan blade trying to figure out how to unwind the cord that that she can play with it once again.

I sat on the couch thinking, "Ha ha! I'll bet that's not what you had planned.", as Ashleigh sat looking up at the ceiling fan. She got up and sauntered down the hall with Lorenzo in toe. Minutes later they both came storming down the hallway, turning in to the living room leaping from the floor across my face, over the couch, knocking the floor lamp completely over, breaking the light bulb, and then they landed on the bakers rack. I'm ready to yank a knot in their tails. I. HAVE. HAD. IT. I get up and turn around and this is what I see:



How can I be angry with two little baby kitty angels like this?