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#11
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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 |\__/| (=':'=) (")_(") |
#12
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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 |
#13
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ROFL! This is exactly why I'm still thinking hard about *not* having a
tree this year! ------ Krista |
#14
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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 |
#15
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"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 |
#16
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"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 |
#17
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"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 |
#18
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"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 |
#19
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"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 |
#20
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"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 |
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