I should have known something was up.....

The other day I was busy sleeping in...enjoying the peace and quiet that is rarely found in my house. I felt a kitty jump up on to the bed and I assumed that it was the Lorenzo T2000 alarm clock getting ready to announce that feeding time had long passed and everyone had expired from lack of sustenance.

I pretended I was asleep which was really stupid because that never fools or concerns Lorenzo. If I feign sleep he will paw at me relentlessly and if push comes to shove he is not above going under the covers and biting me. Yoda says, "Subtle, he is not."

I waited for the squalling or pawing to start but it remained quiet. I was going to go back to sleep until I realized that the kitty was laying on top of me. This is a very rare occurrence. My fab 5 have each other to keep them company so they don't particularly cling to me. 4 of them sleep on my bed but they demand their own space and boy do I hear about it if I infiltrate their designated area. (Elijah is too afraid of Lorenzo to sleep on the bed with the rest of us. Lorenzo bullies him and he runs and hides. Elijah has simply cut out the middle man and doesn't ever come into my room any more.)

I peeked out of squinted eyes and was shocked beyond belief to see that it was Ashleigh laying on my chest. "Good morning, Ashey...to what do I owe this pleasure?", I said.

She flattened herself out and started to purr. "Oh, Mommy, I just love you so much. Let's just stay here and cuddle all day, k?", she said. "Well," I said, "we can stay here for a little while but not all day. Ya know, the only other time in your whole entire life that you ever came over and sat with me was when you were in labor the first time you had a litter of kittens. I know you aren't in labor this morning so ...what's up?"

Purr.

Purr.

Purr.

"Ok, Ash..we'll just snooze for a little while."

Just as I was dozing off Lorenzo came bounding in to the room. He always makes an entrance like "Kramer" on "Seinfeld." "MOM, MOM, MOM, MOM!!! WAKE UP! TIMMY'S IN THE WELL. GET UP. YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS. MOM! MOM! EMERGENCY. EMERGENCY. DANGER WILL ROBINSON. DANGER!"

I tried to ask Lorenzo what was going on but he wouldn't shut up. "MOM! GET UP! MAY CONTAIN NUTS! DON'T OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY! HIGHLY FLAMMABLE! MOOOOOOOOM! PLEASE CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR! GET. UP!!

Nothing I said could convince Lorenzo that he was not starving to death nor was there a monster in the living room. He kept going on and on..."MoTHER! GET UP! EMPLOYEES MUST WASH THEIR HANDS! ARE YOU GETTING UP! MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS! DO I NEED TO DRAW YOU A PICTURE? MAY RESULT IN SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH."

I decided that I needed to get up and feed this poor starving, growing boy but as I tried to have Ashleigh slide off of my chest she wouldn't budge. All of a sudden she weighed 50 lbs and she was not going to relinquish her perch. "Mom", Ashleigh said, ever so sweetly, "I thought we were going to cuddle all day?"

At this point it dawned on me that I was being conned by Ashleigh and Lorenzo was tattling on her. I physically removed Ashleigh from my chest and she scrambled right back up there before I could even sit up. She hunkered down making herself as big and flat as possible, looking me in the eyes with her cute little winky, blinky, kitty face. I figured that whatever malfeasance that had taken place could wait until Ashleigh was ready to get up. (Quite frankly most of Lorenzo's emergencies are of the gastronomic genre and I can assure you he has never missed a meal in his life so I thought it would be ok to just enjoy Ashleigh's company for a little while longer.)

Lorenzo sat down in a huff and Ashleigh started to purr. I was just drifting off when I felt a whisker tickle my cheek...

just...

before..

Lorenzo...

bit..me.

I bolted upright and Ashleigh flew off the bed. He didn't bite me hard enough to break the skin but he bit me hard enough that I realized he meant business. Lorenzo had made his point and I got up made my way in to the kitchen. I opened a can of food and put it in the bowl and invited Lorenzo to knock himself out. I was going to go inspect my wound when out of the corner of my eye I saw this:

Apparently Ashleigh had been very busy during my sleeping hours and this was the result. She had managed to pull out one of my ceiling tiles. Is this pretty or what? You can also see that the curtain rod is missing. I'm guessing that she climbed up the curtain and hung on to the curtain rod while she finessed the ceiling tile out of it's groove. The curtain rod was bent beyond repair and the ceiling tile was all but packing peanuts scattered all over my carpet.

"OMG, LoRENZO, YOU ARE SUCH A TATTLE TALE. STOP DOING THE HAPPY DANCE!"

Stay tuned for part 2.