an impromptu cat rodeo

  I don’t think that my daughter getting hurt is funny.   But every once in a while, once the tears have dried and I know that she is alright, I can’t help but laugh.

the cat tree, any day of the week

  We have this ‘cat tree’, one of those tall affairs with multiple perches and a fun little house on top.  Crookshanks prefers the very top when he isn’t hanging off the edge by a single claw.  Diesel, he likes the first perch, near the bottom.

  Which puts him on level with Evening’s chest.  

  Every day she is there, grabbing his fur, tinkling the bell on his collar, and playing with his ID tag that the light catches just so.  Other times she tugs on his ears, smooths out his whiskers, or pokes his eye.

  Still, he never leaves, and sometimes he even looks rather blissful receiving all of that attention.

    Recently she was standing next to him when I saw her grab a particularly large chunk of the scruff of his neck.   “Be gentle,” I reminded her, and started moving towards them to help the ol' furry fella out.

  She looked up at me with a big smile when Crookshanks came out of nowhere and attacked Diesel’s tail.

  Quite surprised, Diesel leapt about a foot in the air, straight up, then took off across the room.

  Only Evening was still hanging on to the scruff of his neck.  

  Somehow she narrowly avoided a bad tumble by landing on top of the bolting Diesel.  By the time she let go and I could reach her, she was lying facedown on the floor a few feet away in a perfect Statue of Liberty position.  

  After the immediate shock wore off, she started to cry.

  I picked her up and held her close until her sobs went away, which didn’t take very long.  She was frightened, but she wasn’t hurt.   Diesel, being a good guy, was already at my feet, making sure his small friend was alright.

  She pulled her face from my shoulder and babbled something to me, bringing her fist around as if to show me something.  

  With a tiny gasp, she opened her fist.  I looked down and saw that her little hand was still holding on to the fur that was once the scruff of Diesel’s neck.

  As for Diesel…well, he’s alright but he does have a tiny bald spot about the size of Evening’s fist on the back of his neck…