Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch . . . .

I got home this afternoon after five days in the hospital, where I underwent major surgery.

The post-op instructions are that I am to take it easy-- very easy-- the next four weeks. No driving, lifting, heavy cleaning; limited stair-climbing, stuff like that.

I'm afraid I didn't do such a hot job of obeying all that the past few hours since my return: there was too much to take care of, too much to put away; too much orienting to to for the friend who's going to be with me the next couple of days.

But now I am in bed like a good girl, and my friend has gone home for awhile to take care of business there.

And I'm hoping and wishing she gets back sooner than later, because somewhere in the house, here on the 2nd floor, maybe even in this very bedroom, maybe actually under this very bed, something is putting out a suspiciously pungeant smell.

I have my suspicions about the suspicious smell.

Seems Gwenith and Huw were not spotted at all the past five days by the people who were taking care of my critters. I still haven't seen Gwenith; Huw materialized and ate something an hour or less ago. I wouldn't put it past them-- not one bit-- if they got revenge on me for my absence by Doing Something under the bed.

But I am in no physical condition to look. I have to wait till my poor friend Frieda* gets back and make her poke under there and see.

Children! Children! What are you trying to do to me!!??

Gwenith!!!!

This was once a heart-leaf philodren- dron.

A very valuable and historic heart-leaf philoden- dron, I might add.

It was cultured in the greenhouses of the Kansas City, Missouri, Department of Parks & Recreation, greenhouses that now have not only been closed down but have also been pulled down in the past year† because the stupid current City administration were unwilling to envision a time when there might be enough money to run them again.

It was an Adminstrative Professionals Day gift from my former boss several years ago, when I was serving the public good as a low-paid but hardworking tech in the Parks & Rec Archives. It was a souvenir.

And now, look at it. Or what's left of it.

Gwenith, you see, decided several months ago that she liked nothing better than philodrendron leaves. I was afraid for her because I've heard they're poisonous to cats. But the local Poison Control advisor said don't worry, philodendrons these days are cultivated to have almost none of the harmful compounds they used to. If she was showing no signs of trouble by then, there was no danger to her.

So then I was afraid for my plant.

I tried the old cayenne-pepper-as-repellant trick. But I applied so much I burned the leaves the kitten had left. I didn't give up on it, though. I moved it to a plant pedestal and nursed it back to health. It was putting out tender new growth, when my pink floofy kitteh figured out how to jump up there and nom them off anyway.

That's when I moved it to a shelf in the bedroom. But Gwen still found a way to get at it. By now there were no leaves left, but maybe, maybe, the roots where still good and it would rise again?

So I put an old calendar under the pot where I'd seen her jump up. It's floppy, and when she landed on it, it'd give way under her, she'd tumble off, and she'd learn to let the philodrendron alone, right?

And for a few weeks she did. It didn't grow any new leaves, but she let it alone.

Until this evening. I don't know what possessed her to try again, but she got up there from another angle, ate the smaller of the two remaining shoots, and ejected a quarter of the potting soil onto the shelf and the floor.

Gwenith, you pest! And then you have the cheek to come up on my lap and want to be petted, like nothing was wrong!

I cleaned up the mess and did some rearranging. The philodrendron is now on the third and highest shelf, where I hope it will make a new start.

But if some morning I wake to find my larcenous kitteh all the way up there making her breakfast out of the last, lone, lorn philodendron stem, I won't be at all surprised.

________________________

†I am reliably informed that the KCPR greenhouses have not been razed. Not for lack of intention, but for lack of funds to do the job. Same difference.

Sh!t Eating Grin

As if to prove there is no such thing as a dog without a mind of his own, yesterday morning I learned that Llewellyn is clever and well-trained when he wants to be; other times he's just clever.

I'd noticed this weekend a couple times that my Kitten Room security system of a bungee cord hooked round the doorknob with the other end hooked to a screweye, with a doorstop (aka a flat rock) between the door and the jamb to make a gap big enough to let in cats and only cats was not doing its job. It's always worked before. Had I just forgotten to fasten the cord hook to the screweye? Had the kittens been playing with the rock and pushed it out of the way so the bungee cord lost tension and let the door swing free?

Or has the cord gotten just loose enough that Llewellyn can widen the opening and push through?

I've never caught any of us in the act. But hearing the scrape of claws on the hardwood floor of the hallway around dawn yesterday morning, immediately followed by a thump, thump from the door of the Kitten Room, and given that the door was open when I finally hauled myself out of bed to face the worst, I suspect teh goggie.

It's not the cat food I'm worried about him getting. No. It's what I know he's treating himself to when I see piles of organic corn cat litter pawed out onto the mat by the litter box. It's what I can smell on his breath when he presents himself to me with the selfsame corn cat litter festooning his muzzle.

You've heard of a sh!t-eating grin? Mai goggie, hee haz itt.

Whut shal wie du, whut shal wee doo!

No place else to move the litter box and still have one on the second floor. Get a new bungee cord? Attach a chain lock on the outside of the door?

For the time being, I've looped the existing bungee cord around back of the doorknob. Gives it more tension. It's working, so far, but give him time, Llewellyn will find a way to outsmart it. He's too clever for his own good.

Renovation Superintendents

Though Gwenith has an important appointment Elsewhere.