Monday, September 18, 2006

Isis' adventures in crawlspace

When I got home last night, one of our cats (not the new rocket cat) had somehow gone missing. Art Boy had opened no doors or windows since seeing her last, but she just wasn't in the house. Not under the bed, not in the closet ... we poked around checking her hiding places, and trying to think of what new ones she might have invented, and then we found the hole in the closet wall. It led straight down. We had noticed it upon moving in and plugged it up, but someone had managed to get it open again... Now, Isis loves nothing more than hiding in a nice basement, which was her favorite pastime at my last apartment. But here we do not have a basement, just a sort of giant crawlspace under the house. It has a couple of vents that are open to the outside, through which a cat could easily fit. We went out and shone flashlights through the vents, and called and opened her favorite food, but there was no sign of her.

So we'd just given her up for Gone Exploring, and were going to bed, when a hideous caterwaul shattered the night. It seemed to come from every direction. Art Boy, who was feeling awful about losing the cat while just being in the house, immediately identified it as coming from around back. I threw on a shirt over my jammies (it's cold here, dammit) and raced around with the flashlight. There she was, having evidently just reentered the crawlspace. What prompted the caterwaul? What adventures did she have out in the great wide world? We opened another can of food, she came right to it, and we wrangled her inside. Once in the kitchen I tried to give her a welcome-home snuggle. She buried her claws in my scalp and launched herself across the room. It was 5 a.m. Fracking cats.

Today we are all unharmed except that my scalp itches from where the claws dug in. Art Boy is very sensibly still asleep.

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