Lillian’s big adventure
Jun. 13th, 2010 11:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeFrom today forth, I am hoping that the lawn and garden area enclosed by our picket fence, the area right outside our front door, will be a dog-free zone. For the past two years, R. has had Thor do all of his elimination there, as the path of least resistance, but (a) the pee has led to large bald patches in the lawn, and (b) R’s idea of how often to clean up the more visible doggie by-products is very different from mine. The latter is a problem this time of year because I like to sit/work/read out there every day, and we have visitors sometimes, and we don’t need flies congregating, etc. Later this week I will finally start repairing the lawn. Meanwhile, Thor will now use the back yard, provided he can be supervised enough that he doesn’t dig holes in the flowerbeds, and provided someone cleans up after him...
So this afternoon R. let him into the back yard through the sliding door, to consider this new way of life, and Thor rolled about happily on the lawn then came back inside. I then went about my activities – working, two trips to Safeway, the usual stuff – for about an hour and a half, then I took a book back there to see if it was shadier than my reading spot by the front door.
A suspiciously Lillian-colored cat disappeared under the deck.
I called, “Kitty kitty!” for a while, with no response, and crouched down to try to coax out this “new” cat, then suddenly I realized that that sliding door had been open for a few minutes, and that that this might actually be my Lillian. A quick check of the house confirmed that she had apparently escaped.
I crouched on the deck, my head under the adjacent rose bush, and now called specifically for Lillian (who has never in her life been addressed as “kitty, kitty”). This was met by silence for a while, and then some very quiet meowing, quite unlike her usual full-throated half-Siamese voice. Then, abruptly, Lillian’s head popped out under the rose bush, some leaves weirdly stuck to her face, and she turned her gaze upon me and just stood there.
I couldn’t coax her onto the deck, and finally had to climb further under the rose bush, grab her, and wrestle the poor cat up out of there. I ended up with a lot of rose twigs in my hair, but she was fine. Thank heavens she was responsive to my voice, and that she (who is very, very fat) didn’t get stuck under the deck.
So this afternoon R. let him into the back yard through the sliding door, to consider this new way of life, and Thor rolled about happily on the lawn then came back inside. I then went about my activities – working, two trips to Safeway, the usual stuff – for about an hour and a half, then I took a book back there to see if it was shadier than my reading spot by the front door.
A suspiciously Lillian-colored cat disappeared under the deck.
I called, “Kitty kitty!” for a while, with no response, and crouched down to try to coax out this “new” cat, then suddenly I realized that that sliding door had been open for a few minutes, and that that this might actually be my Lillian. A quick check of the house confirmed that she had apparently escaped.
I crouched on the deck, my head under the adjacent rose bush, and now called specifically for Lillian (who has never in her life been addressed as “kitty, kitty”). This was met by silence for a while, and then some very quiet meowing, quite unlike her usual full-throated half-Siamese voice. Then, abruptly, Lillian’s head popped out under the rose bush, some leaves weirdly stuck to her face, and she turned her gaze upon me and just stood there.
I couldn’t coax her onto the deck, and finally had to climb further under the rose bush, grab her, and wrestle the poor cat up out of there. I ended up with a lot of rose twigs in my hair, but she was fine. Thank heavens she was responsive to my voice, and that she (who is very, very fat) didn’t get stuck under the deck.