So this is a cat story
Sunday, September 25th, 2005 06:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniAs those of you who have been following along at home will doubtless recall, here at the Fortress of Solitude we employ four able and doughty cats, in order of age: Hypatia deGrey, Max! Hamish, Mozart of Kennebec, and Scrabble. Scrabble is our office manager and cat-of-all-work.
Alert readers will have also noticed that the galactic headquarters for the mega-million-dollar publishing enterprise, SRM Publisher Ltd., is in the basement of the Fortress, and it is here that orders are packed, books are stored and boxes, some empty, some not so empty -- accumulate.
It happens that Patia, who is elderly, portly and of a sedentary habit, has been using those accumulate boxes as a route from the floor to the preferred window in the basement (the preferred window being the one without Mozart in it). However, due to a minor upheaval incepted by the arrival and need to store manymany softcover copies of Liaden Universe(R) Companion, Volume One the boxes, and thus the pathway to the window, became ...disrupted. As far as I can make it, the original route was:
(1)floor to pallet
(2)pallet to carton-top
(3)turn left
(4)cross long, thin box to dead monitor
(5)dead monitor to desk
(6)desk to bar stool
(7)bar stool to window sill
However, in the aforementioned upheaval, steps 2 and 4 were no longer possible moves.
Despite her age and habits, Patia is no quitter. She poked and prodded and complained and studied, and finally worked out a way to get from the pallet to the top of the dead monitor, thence to the desk, the stool, and the sill. Well and good.
Except -- horrors! -- the window sill, hardwon, proved to be occupied by Scrabble, who was willing to share. Patia, however, was not. She exited the windowsill by way of the bar stool, and, fatally, jumped to the floor, where she was promptly trapped between the dead monitor, the bar stool, a row of boxes and the desk.
Nearby, I was packing orders, more or less oblivious, until my attention was drawn by Scrabble, who was jumping up and down on the bar stool, meekeling. I talked to her, she meekeled louder, reaching down toward the floor with her front paws and looking in imminent danger of falling on her head. I went to investigate, and found Patia trapped, and lifted her out. My repayment was a glare before Her Ladyship stomped off upstairs.
Scrabble, in the meantime...
Scrabble, having seen Patia safe, immediately jumped into the space where she had been trapped, and cast about for an escape route. Within about two minutes, she had discovered that she could squeeze between the desk and the wall and so win to freedom, whereupon she uttered several eeps of jubiliation and rushed off upstairs, presumably to share this discovery with Patia. Patia being somewhat portly, and Scrabble rather slender, I'm not sure the escape hatch will translate. Still, it's the thought that counts...
Alert readers will have also noticed that the galactic headquarters for the mega-million-dollar publishing enterprise, SRM Publisher Ltd., is in the basement of the Fortress, and it is here that orders are packed, books are stored and boxes, some empty, some not so empty -- accumulate.
It happens that Patia, who is elderly, portly and of a sedentary habit, has been using those accumulate boxes as a route from the floor to the preferred window in the basement (the preferred window being the one without Mozart in it). However, due to a minor upheaval incepted by the arrival and need to store manymany softcover copies of Liaden Universe(R) Companion, Volume One the boxes, and thus the pathway to the window, became ...disrupted. As far as I can make it, the original route was:
(1)floor to pallet
(2)pallet to carton-top
(3)turn left
(4)cross long, thin box to dead monitor
(5)dead monitor to desk
(6)desk to bar stool
(7)bar stool to window sill
However, in the aforementioned upheaval, steps 2 and 4 were no longer possible moves.
Despite her age and habits, Patia is no quitter. She poked and prodded and complained and studied, and finally worked out a way to get from the pallet to the top of the dead monitor, thence to the desk, the stool, and the sill. Well and good.
Except -- horrors! -- the window sill, hardwon, proved to be occupied by Scrabble, who was willing to share. Patia, however, was not. She exited the windowsill by way of the bar stool, and, fatally, jumped to the floor, where she was promptly trapped between the dead monitor, the bar stool, a row of boxes and the desk.
Nearby, I was packing orders, more or less oblivious, until my attention was drawn by Scrabble, who was jumping up and down on the bar stool, meekeling. I talked to her, she meekeled louder, reaching down toward the floor with her front paws and looking in imminent danger of falling on her head. I went to investigate, and found Patia trapped, and lifted her out. My repayment was a glare before Her Ladyship stomped off upstairs.
Scrabble, in the meantime...
Scrabble, having seen Patia safe, immediately jumped into the space where she had been trapped, and cast about for an escape route. Within about two minutes, she had discovered that she could squeeze between the desk and the wall and so win to freedom, whereupon she uttered several eeps of jubiliation and rushed off upstairs, presumably to share this discovery with Patia. Patia being somewhat portly, and Scrabble rather slender, I'm not sure the escape hatch will translate. Still, it's the thought that counts...
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-25 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-25 04:47 pm (UTC)I love the word meekeling.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-25 04:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-26 11:10 am (UTC)I'm afraid to count the number of dead monitors in the basement. Most of them, to be sure, are with the other techno-junk on the side which is not SRM headquarters. I don't actually know how this particular dead monitor got into the pile of boxes. Once there, of course, it immediately became a vital architectural component...
no subject
Date: 2005-09-25 09:41 pm (UTC)Never mind. Cute story. I love cats. Mine are infinitely amusing, or at least the elder would be if she weren't on the decline from old age. The younger, however, supplies manymany opportunities for hoots.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-26 11:17 am (UTC)Blame
That is so cute!
Date: 2005-09-26 05:39 am (UTC)As you might have guessed, the only one who has not been explicitly unfriendly is our big black boy Bramble (catch that alliteration :-).
The girls range from indifferent (until he gets near Mimi's food :-) to stroppy (especially if he gets near Daisy's favourite spot at the top of the stairs) to outright hostile (Poppy mostly refuses to share the bed).
However the little guy has such a winning personality that even Poppy and Daisy are coming round :-)
Re: That is so cute!
Date: 2005-09-26 11:20 am (UTC)Scrabble, on the other paw, walked in with her tail held high, exuding an aura of Utter Confidence and Complete Competence, and no one even hissed at her.