rolanni | In which pets keep us young

Sunday. Cloudy and cold. "Rain and snow" in the forecast and in fact, it's snowing now, just a tease, but -- yeah, that's snow.

Big Excitement on the overnight!

First, a little background. Years and years ago, someone told me about their cat who had gotten her head stuck in the handles of a shopping bag, freaked, and proceeded to wreck the house until she could be caught and disentangled.

Obviously, I remembered the story, but in all my years of cat-keeping, I had never seen one of our (superior of course) cats do this.

I want to pause here and state, unequivocally, that my cats are superior.

That said. . . At four-fifteen this morning I was waked by a mighty CRASH!, and the sound of claws skittering on hardwood floors. Looking back, I have to suppose that having been wakened from a sound sleep was a factor in my relative calmness, as I tossed back of the sheets, got into slippers (I hadn't heard glass break, but best to be prepared) and robe (house was cold). I wandered out to the living room, where I first saw that the basket of keys, gloves, garage door openers, extra sunglasses, and assorted other junque that lives on the table by the front door, had been launched and the contents scattered everywhere.

It took a bit to pick all of this up, and I had to turn on the foyer light, which allowed me to see -- in the kitchen -- the contents of the bag I had started to fill with Stuff to take to Goodwill. Several of those things (not glass, but delicate) needed to be binned, which I did, then gathered up the other stuff to put on the snow bench . . .

. . . which is when it occurred to me to wonder where the Actual Bag was.

I sighted down the living room, and saw what appeared to be the bag between the rocking chair and the table next to it. Upon collection, however, it was revealed to be two-thirds of a bag: one handle and a swath of paper was still missing.

I got rid of the big chunk of bag and walked to the back, where I heard a rustling in the closet in Steve's office.

Let me pause here to say that one of Rook's many fine qualities is that he apparently trusts me to Fix Stuff. I stopped a couple steps into the room, where I could see the closet and it could see me, and said, "You've still got the bag around your neck, don't you? C'mon, Rookie. Let me help you."

And he came -- belly low and tail drooping, yes, but he came -- and put himself across my feet. I got the loop from around his neck, and dropped the remains of the bag into the recycling bin by the desk.

Rookie stood up on his back legs, put his front paws on my knee, and Gazed Adoringly™ up into my face, so I picked him up and sat down. We snuggled for a bit, then I brought him back to bed with me.

Which is why I was a tad late rising this morning. I've eaten breakfast -- leftover sweet potato stifry from yesterday's lunch -- and my second mug of tea is at hand. I still need to locate a bag without handles to put the surviving Goodwill stuff into. And I guess while I'm in this part of the house, and on the Business Computer, I'll pull the trigger on that order I've been building for a bit.

How's everybody doing this morning?