Decorating the Tree With Mommy

In article . net, "TBird"
wrote:


I haven't even begun to read this and I am afraid.

Very Afraid.

TBird ----- afraid


With reason.

"CatNipped" wrote in message
...

Your perserverence is amazing Catipped.
Suz
Macmoosette
=^..^= =^..^= =^..^= =^..^= =^..^= =^..^=

"People that hate cats will come back as mice in their next life."
--Faith Resnick



|\__/|
(=':'=)
(")_(")

You could never tell by looking at the wonderfully decorated tree!
Best wishes,
--
Polonca & Soncek

"CatNipped" wrote in message
...
Cast of Characters:

Sammy - 7-month-old female kitten
Mommy - MUCH older female human

After much contemplation and mental anguish, Mommy decides that she will
not
let Sammy's, er, boisterousness prevent her from the joy she gets in
putting
up a Christmas tree.
snip

ROFL! This is exactly why I'm still thinking hard about *not* having a
tree this year!
------
Krista

For the version *without* all the frustrating typos...

http://www.PossiblePlaces.com/Sammy.asp

Hugs,

CatNipped


"CatNipped" wrote in message
...
Cast of Characters:

Sammy - 7-month-old female kitten
Mommy - MUCH older female human

After much contemplation and mental anguish, Mommy decides that she will
not let Sammy's, er, boisterousness prevent her from the joy she gets in
putting up a Christmas tree.

At 2:00PM in the afternoon of November 24th, Mommy locks Sammy in the
bedroom so she can open the garage doors to bring in the tree she and
Daddy just purchased. Sammy wails loudly the whole time as she suffers
the indignity of being confined to only one, albeit large, room. Mommy
and Daddy wrestle the (formerly) live pine tree into Mommy's sitting room
and set it up in the stand. Daddy, hearing Sammy howling, starts to say,
"For gawd's sake.", but then gets a glimpse of the look Mommy gives him
and quickly stops speaking. Daddy decides to go upstairs to pop the
popcorn for stringing.

Mommy lets Sammy out of the bedroom. Sammy starts to pounce on Mommy's
ankle for a quick bite when the scent of pine suddenly distracts her from
her prey. Sammy runs over to the tree and springs up into the lowest
branch to investigate this new toy Mommy has brought home for Sammy.
However, unbeknownst to Sammy, Mommy has added a new weapon to her arsenal
in her continuing war with Sammy's bad behavior - a squirt bottle!!

Mommy snatches up the squirt bottle and sprays a stream of water at Sammy.
Sammy, who has a very thick coat of Maine Coon hair does not even feel the
water as it beads up and slides off her back. Mommy changes her aim and
squirts water on Sammy's cheek, and this *does* get Sammy's attention.
Sammy turns around and starts licking and batting at the stream of water
coming her way and heads higher up the tree in order to get a better
perspective on this fun new game Mommy has invented. Mommy tries one more
time to squirt Sammy out of the tree, but it is soon clear that Sammy
loves playing with the water and is not at all perturbed by being
squirted. Mommy sighs and puts down the squirt bottle.

Mommy goes over to the tree to try to disentangle Sammy from its branches.
Pine needles are very pointy! Between the pine needles and Sammy's claws,
Mommy's hands are quickly becoming bloody and Mommy starts saying bad
words. Daddy, on his way downstairs with a large bowl of popcorn, hears
Mommy saying bad words, quickly sizes up the situation, and decides that
caution is the better part of valor. Daddy heads back upstairs to pop
more popcorn.

Mommy finally manages to get Sammy out of the tree and sits down to try
and figure out a strategy for *keeping* Sammy out of the tree. Mommy sees
movement out of the corner of her eye and starts laughing. Daddy has tied
a string to the can of "Keep Away" and has lowered it down to the first
floor from upstairs (where he is safely out of the action). "Keep Away"
is the spray that people put on furniture to keep cats from scratching it.
Although all Mommy and Daddy's owners use their scratching posts and not
the furniture, Mommy has used this in the past to spray on electric cords
to keep Sammy from chewing them and it has seemed to work (since Sammy is
still alive and the cords are still intact).

Mommy takes a last big whiff of the delicious, heady scent of pine in the
house then starts to douse the tree with "Keep Away". Mommy sighs when
the smell of pine is finally overpowered by the smell of "Keep Away".

Mommy goes into her office to open the closet where she stores the
Christmas decorations. Mommy picks Sammy off of the boxes and sets her
gently down on the office floor. Mommy starts to pick up the first box
then sets it back down so she can pick Sammy off of the box and set her
gently down on the office floor. Mommy quickly snatches up the box before
Sammy can spring atop it again, but as she is lifting it, it suddenly
becomes twelve pounds heavier and Mommy drops the box to the floor where
Sammy sits on top of the box and grins up at Mommy wanting Mommy to "do it
again!" Mommy cringes as she hears the sound of breaking glass
ornaments - ornaments that have been in the family for generations. Mommy
sighs. Oh well, it isn't a good idea to use glass ornaments on a tree
with a kitten in the house anyway.

Mommy finishes putting the boxes of ornaments on the sitting room floor
and goes upstairs to get the popcorn for stringing. Mommy tries to enlist
Daddy's help decorating the tree, but Daddy has wisely made himself
scarce. Mommy picks up the bowl of popcorn, gets her sewing kit out of
the drawer, and heads back downstairs to start making popcorn garlands.

Sammy, having smelled the popcorn, hops up on the sofa next to Mommy so
she can help herself to some. Mommy says, "No, Sammy, this is for the
tree," and gently places Sammy on the sitting room floor. Sammy gives the
tree a dirty look for being greedy about the popcorn and hops back up on
the sofa to try to sneak a pawful from the bowl when Mommy isn't looking.
Mommy again reprimands Sammy and gently places Sammy on the sitting room
floor.

Mommy sits, happily stringing popcorn for 20 minutes without being
bothered by Sammy before she becomes suspicious of this quietude. Mommy
decides to check on Sammy's whereabouts, but first lifts the string of
popcorn, which has been trailing down to the sitting room floor, up into
her lap to check her progress. Mommy is quite dismayed to see that the
string of popcorn is very, very short - not nearly as long as it should be
for the amount of time she has spent stringing kernels!

Mommy places the string of popcorn on the sofa with the end trailing down
to the sitting room floor and starts to rise from the sofa. Before Mommy
can finish rising, she sees a suspiciously large kitten paw emerge from
beneath the sofa, hook the string of popcorn, and draw the end of the
string underneath the sofa. When the string of popcorn emerges, it is
minus one kernel of popcorn. Aha, the sneak thief has been caught
red-han, er, red-pawed!

Mommy squats down to peer under the sofa and spies Sammy sitting amongst
dozens of half-eaten kernels of popcorn. Sammy protests that she is
innocent as she licks bits of popcorn from her whiskers, Mommy doesn't
believe her!

Mommy sighs and sits back down to resume stringing popcorn - this time
keeping the end of the string on the sofa where she can keep an eye on it.
Sammy, replete with popcorn, takes a short nap underneath the sofa.

After all the popcorn has been strung into garlands, Mommy gets up from
the sofa, stretches, and begins to unpack the boxes of ornaments. Sammy,
awaking from her nap, comes over to help Mommy unpack. Sammy jumps into
the first opened box and starts investigating its contents. Mommy,
fearing cut paws from broken ornaments, quickly grabs Sammy up and gently
places her on the sitting room floor.

Sammy, miffed about being rebuffed, runs over to grab one end of a popcorn
garland in her mouth then dashes out of the sitting room dragging the
string of popcorn behind her. Mommy, fearing that her hours of work will
be destroyed, takes off running after Sammy. Too late! The end of the
popcorn garland gets snagged on the doorway as Sammy streaks by, the
string breaks and kernels of popcorn are strewn across the bedroom floor.
Mommy says very bad words and detours to the hall closet to get the sucky
monster. The sucky monster eats all Sammy's hard-won spoils and tries to
chase Sammy under the bed. However, Sammy is not at all afraid of the
sucky monster (or anything else thanks to being spoiled rotten her whole
life), and defiantly hisses at the monster until it subsides and goes back
into the hall closet.

Mommy goes back into the sitting room and places the remaining three
strings of popcorn garland on top of the mantle where Sammy can not get to
them (talk about closing the barn door after the horses have departed!).
Mommy goes back to unpacking the boxes of ornaments.

When Mommy has finished unpacking the ornaments she stops and looks around
at the tree decorations that are covering every surface in the sitting
room (Mommy is a bit daft when it comes to ornaments - never able to pass
up a sale on them).

Now Mommy is a bit (OK, more than a bit) obsessive-compulsive. Every
ornament is packed in its original box, every light on each string of
lights has been placed in its slot on its original cardboard holder, so
there should be no hassle with untangling lights or ornaments. HAH!
Mommy has not included the Sammy factor in her calculations of her
decorating plan.

Mommy takes the lights out of their cardboard holders, plugs them in (the
only way to see the total effect of the lights as they are being draped),
and starts to put them onto the tree. Mommy catches movement out of the
corner of her eye and turns in time to see Sammy chewing in a brightly
flashing light. Mommy, horrified at the prospect of Sammy electrocuting
herself, quickly unplugs the string of lights and rushes over to remove
Sammy's mouth from glass bulb.

Mommy bellows at Daddy to get his arse downstairs so he can hold Sammy
while Mommy puts the lights on the trees. Mommy does not hear an answer
from Daddy and goes upstairs only to find that Daddy has fled from the
house (cowardly leaving a note on the kitchen table saying that he will be
at the store shopping for Mommy's Christmas present - yeah right - and he
conveniently forgot his cell phone at home!).

Mommy goes back downstairs and starts putting the strings of lights on the
tree without plugging them in first and just hoping that she gets them
fairly evenly distributed. Sammy continues to grab at the lights and
Mommy strings them faster and faster so that Sammy does not have the
chance to bite through the wire.

Mommy finishes stringing the lights on the tree and begins to put the
store-bought garland on. Of course Sammy is right there "helping" by
grabbing the end of the string of garland and running in circles around
the bottom of the tree. Mommy feels resistance in the string of garland,
doesn't realize that it is wrapped around the bottom of the tree, and
gives a good tug to try to free it up. The tree starts to tilt, the
screws in the tree stand dig holes into the soft tree trunk, and the tree,
denied its support from the stand, topples over onto the sitting room
floor.

Sammy, delighted with this new game, jumps into the middle of the tree as
it lays on the floor and immediately becomes entangled in the strands of
lights.

Mommy comes very close to crying as she disentangles Sammy from the tree,
not-so-gently places Sammy on the sitting room floor, and tries to stand
the tree back up in its tree stand. Mommy realizes that the trunk of the
tree is too gouged up by the screws in the tree stand to ever stay upright
as it is, so Mommy lays the tree back down on the floor and begins to
untangle the garland and the strings of lights from the fallen tree.
Mommy assesses the situation and concludes that the tree will need shims
placed around the trunk in order to stay upright, so she heads to the
garage and begins sawing pieces of wood for that purpose.

After Mommy installs the shims at the base of the tree and manages to get
it to stand upright, she cleans up the spilled water from the tree stand,
refills the tree stand, and begins the frustrating job of untangling the
strings of lights and garland to get them off of the tree so she can start
from the beginning and get this darn tree decorated (it is now 7:00PM,
Mommy has been working at this task for 5 hours, and she is getting tired,
hungry, and cranky).

Mommy finally gets the lights back on the tree (again doing this while
they are unplugged so that Sammy does not electrocute herself by biting
into the flashing lights), and gets the store-bought garland strung on the
tree. Now it is time to drape the popcorn garland onto the tree, so Mommy
fetches it off of the mantle. Mommy is very hungry and contemplates
munching a few kernels of popcorn off the garland, but restrains herself
for the sake of the beloved Christmas tree. Sammy, however, is *NEVER*
restrained and manages to grab one end of the string to start chewing on a
kernel of popcorn.

Mommy grabs Sammy up, gets the garland out of Sammy's mouth, and rather
roughly places Sammy on the sitting room floor. Sammy, seriously miffed
about being denied her snack, jumps up onto the desk next to the tree and
gives it a dirty look, because she knows that somehow this nasty tree is
to blame for all her rebuffs by the, usually, compliantly solicitous
Mommy. Sammy is planning her revenge!

Mommy, blissful in her ignorance, begins to hang the ornaments lovingly on
the tree, pausing to smile at the "special" ones that bring back memories
of Christmases past. This one was first placed on the tree 31 years ago
for her daughter's first Christmas, that one 30 years ago for her son's,
others when each of the grandchildren gazed at the tree in wonder for the
very first time.

It is now 8:30PM, not even half of the ornaments have been hung, Daddy is
still not home from his "shopping" and Sammy has finally decided on the
form her revenge will take. Mommy has her back turned to the tree when
she suddenly gets that prickly sensation on the back of her neck that
tells her that Sammy is up to no good. Mommy turns around in time to see
Sammy jump from the desk top and fly through the air to land at the very
top of the tree.

Twelve pounds of flying kitten is just too much for the poor tree to
"stand" - pun intended (Mommy has to get *some* humor from the situation
or she'll go mad - OK madder). Mommy stands there, horrified, as the tree
slowly topples over to land on its side on the sitting room floor and she
winces as she hears the crunch of breaking ornaments. Mommy slowly sinks
down until she is sitting on the floor, puts her head in her hands, and
starts to quietly weep. Sammy walks over to Mommy, puts her paws on
Mommy's knee, and reaches up to lick a tear from Mommy's face. Mommy's
heart melts and Sammy is instantly forgiven.

Mommy sighs, wipes her eyes, takes a deep breath, then rises to pick up
the tree and remove all the decorations she had so carefully placed on it.
Strings of lights and garland are hopelessly tangled in the broken
branches, pieces of popcorn and ornaments are all over the sitting room
floor, and the water from the tree stand is soaking the carpet.

It is now 11:00PM, the tree is finally righted, and Mommy is getting weak
from hunger when Daddy arrives - purportedly home from his shopping
expedition. Daddy looks at the bare tree and says, "I thought you were
going to decorate the tree - what have you been doing all this time?"
Mommy contemplates the best way to commit murder, knife or gun, but then
decides that this would not be a good idea in a capital punishment state
(although she thinks a jury may understand the motivation in this case).
Daddy sees the look on Mommy's face, mumbles something about urgently
needing to take care of something upstairs, and quickly retreats to
safety.

Mommy is in the middle of draping the remaining pieces of popcorn garland
on the tree when Daddy comes back downstairs with a plate of sandwiches
and some potato salad and Daddy is instantly forgiven. Sammy, smelling
food, runs toward the plate of sandwiches but stops short in amazement
when she hears a growl coming from Mommy's mouth.

After she is finished eating, Mommy resumes the decorating of the *(&%#&^%
tree. The popcorn garland is missing more than a few kernels, the lights
are all bunched up in clumps, the ornaments are haphazardly hung, but it
is now 1:00AM and Mommy doesn't really give a flying fig how the tree
looks.

Daddy has lit a fire in the fireplace and brought some eggnog for Mommy in
an attempt to atone for his foul desertion (he dared come home without a
shopping bag and smelling suspiciously of a local bar). Finally, at
3:00AM, the tree is decorated and Mommy awaits her reward for all her hard
work as she stands back and instructs Daddy to plug in the lights so that
Mommy may view the Christmas tree in all its glowing glory. The lights do
not turn on. Daddy nervously unplugs them and plugs them back in several
times in succession. Mommy is aghast. Mommy not-so-quietly goes into
total meltdown. Daddy retreats upstairs. Even the unshakable Sammy
leaves the room. Mommy walks over and begins to throttle the tree. As
she shakes the offended vigorously back and forth, the tree lights
suddenly spring to life (in self defense) and Mommy stops trying to kill
the tree.

Mommy backs off slowly with trepidation of jostling the lights back on
again, but the lights remain shining brightly. Mommy sighs, puts her
favorite Christmas album into the CD player, throws another log onto the
fire, and pours herself a large glass of eggnog. Daddy, hearing the
strains of Christmas carols, cautiously reenters the sitting room and then
smiles at the decorated tree. "This is the best one yet!" he exclaims, as
he does every year, "You've outdone yourself!!" Mommy, looking at the
tree with its Sammy-induced injuries, knows that he is lying, but at this
point she'll take what she can get. Sammy, having forgotten about Mommy's
wrath, runs back into the sitting room ready to play some more. Daddy
promptly picks up Sammy and takes her upstairs with him so the Mommy can
sit on her sofa and admire her Christmas tree - he knows she needs at
least a few minutes of joy before Sammy starts her own redecorating of the
tree.

Happy Holidays you guys - you're a great set of listeners and have helped
Mommy get through her first seven months of Sammy!

Hugs,

CatNipped

"jmcquown" wrote in message
.. .
Top posting to save the entire story. I love it! Thanks for sharing that
rather exhasperating adventure!

Jill

Thank you, Jill. There is, of course, never a dull moment with Sammy
around.

Hugs,

CatNipped

"TBird" wrote in message
ink.net...
I haven't even begun to read this and I am afraid.

Very Afraid.

TBird ----- afraid

Well, you can imagine how afraid I was before deciding to go ahead with my
tree this year. My love of Christmas trees and my stupidity won out over my
good sense!! ;

Hugs,

CatNipped

"SUQKRT" wrote in message
...

In article . net, "TBird"
wrote:


I haven't even begun to read this and I am afraid.

Very Afraid.

TBird ----- afraid


With reason.

Yup. I just knew this was going to be difficult. You guys unknowingly
helped me through this traumatic experience - the whole time I kept telling
myself, "Self, this is going to make a wonderful 'With Mommy' story if you
can just get through it with your sanity intact." Oh well, I got through
it, but the "sanity intact" is debatable!

Hugs,

CatNipped

"Caroline S." wrote in message
news:qW5rd.14$Xp.5@lakeread07...
Loved it Catnipped! Great study break for me.
I am facing a similar scenario in a few weeks when I put up our tree. Baby
Catherine is 15 months old now, walking, climbing and being generally
Sammy-like, with the added bonus that she has opposable thumbs.
"No" is an invitation to 1) continue what she is doing and 2) giggle at
Mommy's funny tone of voice.

I sympathize with you.
-Caroline S.

Oh Caroline, what fun you are going to have! Baby Catherine is at the
perfect age for Christmas - old enough to know something wonderful is
happening and young enough to be awed and amazed by all the decorations and
festivities.

However, it's *much* easier to protect the tree from babies than from cats.
When my two were that little I just set the tree up *inside* their old
playpen (I would decorate the playpen with garland so it didn't look *too*
goofy). Cats, naturally, would scoff at this inadequate barrier, but it is
quite effective for keeping little hands from pulling down the tree.

Hugs,

CatNipped

"Kreisleriana" wrote in message
...

She's just invincible, isn't she?

Yes, and irrepressible, and incorrigible, and a true recidivist! ;

How can you discourage a cat when *everything* is fun to her? I had
the same deal with Mimi scratching the furniture. It just became a
game to her.

Well, it is very much my fault she's like this - I have spoiled her
*rotten*!!! She has gotten away with so much mischief because I think
everything she does is just so cute (and because I'm not really concerned
about the "things" in my life, the loves in my life far outweigh any damage
that may be caused to inanimate objects).

In one way I love that fact that she is so self-confident and feels that
there is no danger in the world and nothing will ever hurt her - I've made
her feel loved and secure in her home. In another way, I fear that should
desaster happen and she gets out, she will be totally defenseless against
the evils in the bit out.

Hugs,

CatNipped


Except, of course, she was only ever six pounds soaking wet. :P



Theresa
Stinky Pictures: http://community.webshots.com/album/125591586JWEFwh
My Blog: http://www.humanitas.blogspot.com

"Yoj" wrote in message
. com...
ROTFLOLWTIME!!!

It's a good thing I know that the inclusion of the words "with Mommy" in
the subject line are the equivalent of a BW.

(((((((((((CatNipped)))))))))))))

--
Joy
Owned and operated by Lindy and Nanki-Poo

Thank you Joy. I still can't force myself to put the "BW" on the subject
line because it feels so presumptuous to assume that something I write will
be found funny. This isn't false modesty, my own mother thinks the "...With
Mommy" stories are gross and not at all funny.

Hugs,

CatNipped