Cooooolllldddd Feeeeeeettttsss!!

This morning, the guy on the radio said the air temperature was seven-below-zero F.

Llewellyn and I went out to the alley so he could take care of his business. After he'd done his wee, he started looking around for the best place to deposit his poo. But before he'd made even one complete pass over the available ground, he was lifting up one paw, then another, then another. Then he tried to lift several up at once.

"Hurry up, Llellyn, hurry!"

He veered away from the snow-mounded grass strip by the fence and headed out into the ice-packed alley. It only made things worse. If my poor dog could have found a way to levitate, he would have.

That does it. No waiting for a No. 2 this trip! So I called him back inside the gate to return to the house. But he couldn't even walk the length of the backyard, his pads were so miserably cold.

Well. When I adopted Llewellyn, I was looking for a dog that would be a) big enough to hug, b) big enough to intimidate strangers who arrived with dubious intentions, and c) small enough for me to pick up and carry if it was ever ill. At 45 pounds I figured he fit all three criteria. Now, obviously, I'd have to test assumption No. 3.

So I picked my dog up and carried him back to the house. He wasn't as heavy as I'd expected. And as I carried him, he turned his head and looked into my face with relief in his big limpid red-brown eyes. If dogs can say Thank you, I think mine just had.

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.

Cool Hand Llew

Since Saturday, we have snow! Snow on snow! Snow worth calling snow!

And my dog Llewellyn loves it.

He doesn't care how cold it is, he goes out and chases squirrels from one corner of the yard to the other. While my lunch goes frigid, as I get up again and again and again to go to the back door to check if he's ready to come in yet. Nawyet, Mommee, nawtymecominyet! Nawyetnawyetnawyet!! Gonnagitthaskwurl,yesyesyesyesyes!!

Enter the neighbor girl, Sophie*, who for the past three or four afternoons has dropped by to show me her new snow toys from Christmas. Two new toboggans. A snow brick maker. A snowball maker.

And to play with Llewellyn in my fenced-in back yard. She has dogs, but not a proper fence. And her dogs are runners. So Sophie comes and plays with my pup in the snow, and he likes nothing better.

Every time, I tell her that I have work to do and she can play out back with him by herself. And every time I come out and join the fun, too. And we all stay out till my dog lets me know his toes are getting cold. He lifts a forepaw and hesitates to put it down, then a back paw the same-- All right, that's enough! Time to go in for milk and cookies!

Whereat Sophie spends most of her time petting Llewellyn and cooing over how sooooooffffttt!!! his ears are.

(Well, they are!)

What I can't figure out is how my dog can tell the snowball Sophie has just thrown him from all the rest of the snow so he unmistakingly goes after it and eats it. He's been eating a lot of snow these past days . . . and I wonder if that's why he peed on the dining room floor just as I was sitting down to dinner this evening? He'd been out only two hours before!

Caught Red-Handed!

Or red-pawed . . .

About a half hour ago, Gwenith crept up to the study and slipped under the drafting table and behind the file cabinet. On your way to see if you can finish removing that register grille and go exploring in the ductwork, sweetie girl?

Deterred by the camera flash, she slunk away.

OK, think of something to keep that grille close to the wall . . . all right, this is it for the time being: A box of Biblical Hebrew flashcards wedged in with a log-splitting maul. I can't even budge that!

Scant minutes later, here she is again. O, we wants it, does we, my precious? No, my precious, no indeed! You getses that, you goes falling into the nassty hot Duct of Doom, my precious, yess yess you does! We preventses that, yess we wills!

Fear and Trembling

As readers of my houseblog will know, I've been having issues with my furnace.

I hope I will not have issues to report concerning my ductwork. Kitteh issues.

This is the grille to my study heat supply. It is not supposed to be halfway off like this. It was not like this last time I was up here, Saturday evening or so.


I recognize the work: Huw, or more likely Gwenith. She's the one who goes after loose pieces of plaster on the walls. She's the one who sits under my drafting table and fiddles with the computer leads. She's the one who, as a feral kitten, sloped down under the floorboards of my friend Hannah's* torn-up house and had to be lured out with tuna. Gwenith is secretive and curious and, under all that hair, small and wiry enough to squirm right down this vent, given half the chance.

I don't want to give her a chance. I fetched a screwdriver to make the loose screw secure.

But I can't. There's no hole at the wall to receive it. It's only providing a bit of tension to keep the grille against the duct mouth. No challenge at all to a strong and determined young cat.

Think of something else. I need to think of something else. No, duct-taping the grille to the wall won't do. Never mind what it'd do to the paint or the heat supply-- that floofy kitteh of mine would rip it right off.

The Just Deserts of Greed

This is-- or was-- a coupon for dog treats. I pulled it out of Llewellyn's food cannister a couple nights ago and put in on the table till I could see what it was for.

Next morning, I came downstairs and found it in shreds, scattered across the dining room floor!

I tried to put back together, but too many pieces were missing. Llewellyn, old boy, wii haedid uz a ttreetz koopon, butt U eatid it!

So it went in the trash for tomorrow's pickup. O doggie, my goggie, now we'll never know if these were treats of bloomiferous scrumptuosity. It's back to finishing the same old nuggets from the Three Dog Bakery. Foiled by your own precipitous greed!

(And my naivete.)

(Though being such a nice momma, I did save you a wee piece of turkey from Thanksgiving at my friends' . . . )

Itt Snoezez!!

Kanz it B eetid?

Sumbuddy tored up teh skiiy.

Ai kan jummp doan dere. Wach mii!

Stoopy goggie in teh whey agin. Ai goes bugz mai siszterz.