MY LIFE - JUNE

Wednesday, June 12, 2002

My cat is back with me tonight thanks to an interesting twist of events. Apparently, the workers told my mom that they thought it would be best if she had the animals removed from the house, so I guess she was trying to load the cats into her truck when things got crazy.

First off, somewhere during the transition, one of our birds died, the one that had been alive the longest out of the bunch and my personal favorite. So we're down to two birds. Second, my cat, while being moved into a different cage, saw a stranger coming towards her and took it as her cue to jump out of my mom's arms. Well, it didn't work well at first, at least until Kisa bit my mom and scratched the hell out of her arm.

She then ran around towards the back of the house, jumped the fence, ran towards the back fence, jumped up over that fence and ran up a rather large tree and proceeded to get herself stuck up there.

Okay. This was not going too smoothly.

Around 6pm, I arrived at our house and immediately heard her meowing in the tree. She had already seen me walking up and must have thought that I had arrived to save her from her fate. Well, I had arrived, but had no clue how to get her down. It was too high up for her to jump down, she couldn't just run down the tree like she ran up (too many obstacles), and the nearby roof was just a little too far down for her to risk it.

So I tried to persuade her to jump into a garbage can lid that I had grabbed from the front. She would get two paws into the lid before changine her mind and backing up. Food didn't make it easier for her either. No, she just stepped far enough to where she could grab some food and then backed right back up.

Okay, on to plan b. I looked around our backyard for some wood that I might try and use as a ramp for her to walk down. I found a piece that was long enough and seemed sturdy enough for her to walk on. Again, a couple steps was all she could take before backing up. I think a lot of this had to do with me accidently hitting my head on the board just as she was starting to walk down it, causing it to wobble a bit and give myself a pretty intense headache.

After about an hour of trying to get her down, I walked away, trying to figure out how to get this cat down. She wanted to get down, she just couldn't and the part she was sitting on was just out of my reach, so I just couldn't grab her and pull her down. Even if I did get a grip on her, she'd just pull herself out of it, run up higher, and then I'd really be screwed.

Another hour passed before I tried one last thing. I knew she was just out of my reach when I stood up on the tree stump that was right next to the tree she was in. There was a section of wooden fence that was right next to where I was standing that, if I could get up on it, would raise me up at least high enough to maybe try and grab her.

It was risky, but I figured I had to do something. It was 8:30 and it was getting darker out. What happened next still amazes me.

I pulled myself up onto the fence with my right foot, using the utility pole behind me as a stabilizer to keep me from falling. Now came the hard part; getting my left onto the same section of fence as my right foot without causing the whole thing to collapse, me with it. I managed to do this and was now almost at eye level with Kisa. She immediately started moving closer to me and I wasn't ready for what she did.

I lifted up my left arm to reach out and pet her. As I did that, she surprised me by stepping forward, onto my arm with her front legs, then, as I leaned back a bit, she stood on my chest (digging her claws in, of course; OUCH) with her front paws and began coming down onto my shoulders. She then brought her one back leg down onto my neck, then as she dropped her other leg down, she accidentally gave me a couple of good scratches on my neck. But she was out of the tree and gripping onto me with her claws.

Slowly I began working my way down back to the tree stump that I had used to get up there in the first place, then, I hunched down, allowing her to slide into my lap, grabbed a hold of her with one arm, lowered myself some more, and let her jump down, gambling that she wouldn't run away.

Thankfully, she didn't. In fact, she waited for me to get down all the way before trotting towards the front of the yard. I then had to figure out how to get her back to the suite since I couldn't just let her roam the house (catching her the first time was flirting with disaster; a second time would BE a disaster). After a few minutes of looking around, I realized she was going to have to be loose in the car, which meant carrying her to the car in my hand.

I went to the backyard, picked her up, and slowly walked towards the front. Once we got past the large dumpster, she knew what was going on and started to struggle a bit, but she couldn't get away. I managed to get to the car, throw her in, and shut the door. Then I had to lock up the house, shut the fence, and try to drive with her loose in my car.

Other than her occasionally meowing, there was no problem with the drive. She just sat in my lap and looked around, wondering what was going on around her. Not once did she start going ballistic or get really loud. She just let me know that she really wasn't happy with this, but it wasn't all bad. After about 20 minutes, we were at the suite. After some struggling and a near escape, I managed to get her inside the room where she started wandering around, investigating.

Meanwhile, I have three nasty scratches on my neck, white fur all over my clothes, and a pretty good headache to boot. But I got my kitty back and right now, that's all that matters. The fact that she's safe and happy to see me again (she has not left me alone since we've been here) is enough for me.

But damn, I don't ever want to have to rescue her again. This is three times I've pulled her from a tree and all three times have really, really, hurt.

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Here's a little FYI for anyone who's ever wondered about me signing off without saying goodbye or goodnight (or anything else like that): it's normally after I've said three or four times that I need to go and you ask me another question that requires an in-depth answer.

If I say I have to go because I have to get up for work, or go run out for something from the store, or anything along those lines, that's really why I have to go. I don't say I have to go just because I don't want to talk. No, it's because I really have to freaking go.

This happened the other night. I said at least four times that I needed to go and another deep question would be asked instead, then I was asked if I was avoiding the question. In truth, NO. I had to go to bed so that I could get enough sleep and wake up on time to get to work on time. As it stood, I got to bed an hour later than I wanted to, woke up an hour late, and was 20 minutes late for work.

It's also really irritating and makes you even less likely to want to answer whatever questions are coming your way. I've also had instances where I was accused of ignoring people when online.

So here's another FYI: I don't always know that I'm signed on. Sometimes my sister or mom changes our AIM settings to sign on right away when we connect to the internet, so sometimes I'm signed on and I have no clue. Then I get six people demanding to know why I haven't said anything.

One more FYI: I've been mad busy over the last week and will be busy up until the first part of next week. I have to go into work tomorrow to take care of some inventory-related issues, Friday I have to do laundry, Saturday I'm working until 5 and will probably be hanging out with a friend (probably Shelby), and Sunday, well, Sunday I ain't doing shit since it's the start of my week off.

Simply put, when I'm busy, I don't have a lot of time to talk to people no matter who you are. This has created conflict recently and has made things tough for me because I'm being treated like I don't care when the truth is, I haven't had much time (I know I'll catch shit for writing this entry instead of e-mails) at all. There have been four days where I've had no time to talk to anyone at all other than my family for about two seconds.

It's just how things go. And yes, I am a little peturbed by people accusing me of certain things. I do the best that I can and if it's not good enough for you, then I'm sorry. It comes with dealing with me.