Round Two

Andrew has been working at the house. I have been sounding like a broken record telling him to be diligent about making sure the doors and windows are always closed, the windows with screens are ok to be open, obviously. When I came home from work yesterday all of the windows and screens were off of the frames and the doors were wide open. I was relieved to see that the kitties were locked safely in my bedroom. As the evening progressed I asked Andrew to put the windows back in because it was getting cold and I wanted to let the kitties out. He put them back in, I let the kitties out and all was well. I went and got us dinner and we sat down and ate it. Andrew got up and went outside and I thought he was out having a smoke. I watched tv for a little while and then put myself to bed at 10:00, thinking Andrew would return and resume work since he had left several flood lights on in the house and in the back yard and in the wide opened shed.

When I got up this morning all of the lights were still on, Andrew was no where to be seen and Ashleigh and Lorenzo were gone. Andrew had left one of the windows cracked no more than 2 inches and those weasels managed to get out. I went out, dressed in my pajamas, hair sticking up on end, to look for them. Ashleigh, who was my happy wanderer last time, was right beside my house under my car. I pulled her out from under the car and threw her in to the house. She was not happy at having been pulled out from under the car and she was even less happy to be going back inside the house.

For the next hour and a half I searched the park for Lorenzo. A neighbor , who I've never even seen before, from one street over had seen and heard him but when she started to walk toward him her cat intercepted and scared Lorenzo away. She helped me look and we had a couple of other residents tell us that they had seen him. One lady said she saw him on a neighboring porch just sitting there like he belonged there, but when she went to go see why he was yowling ...he ran away. This lady lives in the far back of the park so apparently my little boy has discovered his wanderlust.

I decided to back home and put some shoes on and when I got to my street ...I saw...way down at the other end...a very large...Lorenzo. I went running toward him and he came running toward me but he kept stopping every couple of feet to arch his back and hop. He was obviously scared out of his wits. Hit tail was larger than a bottle brush. I picked him up and he climbed up to my shoulder and tried to perch there by digging his claws in to my head. His feet were covered in mud and then so was I. When I got close to the house he started growling and yowling and tried to jump off of my shoulder. I put a kung fu grip on him and managed to keep him under control long enough to get him in to the house.

Both of them are covered in mud, stickers and fleas but I didn't have time to stop and groom them. I grazed over a pair of pants with the iron, brushed my teeth and jumped in the car and headed off to work. I was only a couple of minutes late which was a relief because I thought I was going to be out all day searching for lost kitty cats.

So, all's well that ends well but I still think I'm going to throttle Andrew the next time I see him.