It’s a war of opposable thumbs versus the one-working-braincell-between-the-two-duo. For the last few days the kittens have been winning, striking major blows in their natural need to destroy any and all things in their sight. The worst of the damage, other than that to my peace of mind, has been to my deadline swiftly approaching jewelry making efforts.
I’ve been plugging away at production. Less than a week until the fair and my study is awash in all manner of things I’ve made. The big table is heavy laden with working supplies, tools and projects in various stages of completion. Different sets of components lay in open saucers - one full of sky blue crystals and petite pearls, another with lilac crystals and silver spacers, one with turquoise nuggets, one with garnet rounds and chips… - a mass of colour and sparkle in tiny contained spaces, easy to rearrange for visual inspiration, easy to stack for organization. The saucers, all those blue and white (Ralph Lauren - yum) coffee cup placemats that I never use for much else are finally earning their keep. The fact that I like the look and idea of using them helps my creative process and just makes me happy.
It also makes me extremely vulnerable. Massive irony this, but as I wrote the last line, I was once again the victim of an unprovoked kitten missile attack. Coco approached silently on padded paws, sidled up next to my dangling legs, launched herself bodily into the air, adjusted her trajectory mid flight with a power kick to my barstool height thigh, and landed directly on a dinner plate whereupon lay my current project, eighteen sets of earrings, all components chosen and skewered by head pins waiting for the final twist of the wire to permanently capture them and make them into wearable craft, an hour’s worth of design and assembly almost finished.
With a loud crash, Coco splashed down, sending a tsunami of sparkle in all directions. Her scrambling hind legs flung tools off the table as she body checked a tall stacked container of full of a rainbow of Swarovski crystals. Five pounds of chaos escaped across my formerly organized workspace to the slow motion symphony of beads cascading to the floor. It will take me quite a while to restore order, especially since getting down to the floor and up again has become such a slow careful process with my post-injuries modified mobility limited body.
Last night there were two kitty bombs. Truth be told, with their long long legs and lean bodies, they are natural springs. Vertical distance means nothing to them. Floor to high tabletop is no sooner thought than it is accomplished and the tabletop is their favourite hangout. That’s where they can sit and watch me, fascinated by the shiny stuff I work with, the string and wire games with which I constantly occupy myself. Is it their fault if they want to join in and play with, sometimes even eat, a few of my toys? (Yes, I have caught a few glimmers in the litter box of heaven knows what and I certainly never investigate to solve the mysteries.)
I don’t mind the observation. If they are sitting on the other side of my four foot square work table, having popped up from the other side, I have no problem glancing up occasionally and scolding them to leave my things alone as necessary. It’s the unexpected kitty bombs, well, there’s just no defense - except for kitty jail and I hate to use kitty jail unless I absolutely have to.
(No. I never use kitty jail for revenge.
Never.
Never.
Well, almost never.
I am human after all.)
Kitty jail is a pyramid of three cat carriers sitting on a bench just through the doorway from me now. Kitty jail is where they go when I just cannot handle the kinetic chaos a moment longer. I use kitty jail after incidents like last night’s kitty bombing of the kitchen counter when Esme rocketed herself onto the counter and careened into a display (set there, of course, for safekeeping), causing seventy-two pairs of earrings to crash to the floor. I use kitty jail regularly when the kittens have scramble and spaz attacks in the middle of the night and I simply cannot sleep for the sound of their explosive joy and eight tiny feet pounding the hardwood with no subfloor drumhead that is the floor of my raised home.
“Listen ladies,” I say as I tuck each long tail behind the small wire door, “You’re cats. Your kind sleep sixteen to twenty hours a day, depending on who you believe, and my kind only sleep six to eight.”
Innocent uncomprehending faces stare out through the bars of kitty jail.
“We’ve got to synchronize this sleeping business and I chose the next six hours as family sleep time. Snooze or stew. Your choice.”
I find that, knowing the kits are safe and unable to perpetrate mischief, I have no problem falling asleep to the piteous meyowling of my p-o-w’s.
Nor does the sound of Lucy’s self-satisfied laughter bother me at all.
Lucy, by the by, never occupies the third cell of kitty jail. She, a veteran of the long game cat-human war, has learned far more subtle techniques of waging battle. “Accidentally” walking through my legs, watching over her shoulder as she bounds away to see my ungainly human body go down. Sheer shrewd cat joy.
Oh, and she, having full use of her golf ball sized brain
(as opposed to the single working brain cell the kittens pass back and forth),
knows that hair balls are precious ammunition, not to be wasted on the mundanity of the floor.
No, hair balls must be hoarded and then strategically dispensed on the freshly washed and made bed or (the age-old classic) in the shoes left by the front door.
Ah well, break over.
I must clean up the debris from the latest skirmish and get back to work.
Yes, Coco decisively won that battle and I took some major damage.
My only defense lies in the judicious use of the feline prison system.
Here kitty, kitty!
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