As if I didn’t have enough problems sleeping.
Woke up with a start this morning. No alarm cat Siameezers screaming! That’s not right.
I’m looking at the clock it says 8am. A full 2 hours late for cat breakfast. Even the dogs seemed unsure of this weirdness.
Oh, oh. I gotta get moving. I have a clinic appointment today. I got downstairs. The cats are on the fridge looking strange. I get their food on the plates. Turn around to make my coffee. Something scratches my back. What is that? I jerked around and my hair flies over my arm with a whack. What the heck? I feel down my hair and there is a sharp thing stuck in my hair. No there’s 2. Round, sharp and stuck good, my hair is in a knot around them. Oh, crap! It’s sweetgum balls. Those who don’t know, the Sweetgum is a junk variety of tree that grows allover the south. They have seed pod things that are round and spiny. They are ouchies if you step on one barefoot. Alas, the trees down here can’t all be Magnolias and Pine-trees.
The big mystery is how they got in my hair. I got them out with hair mousse (remember that stuff).
We got to the clinic. I got put in the infusion room and had time to ponder the vagaries and mysteries of life. I start ruminating on my hair/sweetgum ball query. I did not place them there. I don’t think I rolled around on the ground underneath a Sweetgum tree, yesterday. I would’ve noticed the balls last night anyway. I brush my hair into a pony tail before going to bed, every night. They had to get in my hair while asleep. I go through the the crowd in my bed last night, a Yorkie, a Beagle, Mr.Wrekker and 2 Siameezers on the headboard. Someone is gulity of bringing two sweetgum balls to bed with them. I brushed Yorkies hair after walkies. Beagle? No where to hide them. Mr.Wrekker is a possible culprit. He spends an inordinate amount of time in the woods. Nah. I think he might’ve noticed a sticker ball stuck to hisself. It has to be the Cats. They don’t go outside, though. They were acting very skeevy this morning.
We get on the road home (after corndogs, yay!). Didn’t think about anymore. DIL was very chatty. I get home and unlock the door to get in and as I opened it Cats fly. Usually they meet me at the door, begging for food. I stepped in and I hear crunch, underfoot. Dogs are around my feet I finally get to see a crunched sweetgum ball. I picked up the Yorkie and she had one stuck on her neck hair. What?
Ok. These 2 cats are screwing with me. They’ve found a secret way out and are bringing these things in my house. I walk the house looking for open windows and exits I never considered before. I’m looking at the big vent thing in the laundry room it’s firmly screwed to the wall. A cat jumps on the dryer. It’s Meeko, she has a Sweetgum ball in her mouth. :eek: Where’s Bear?
Last seen in the mudroom. I walk toward there and he flies by me up to the beams. Something’s in his mouth. :eek:
I give up. They are clearly shapeshifters and can walk through walls.
I think it’s naptime.
Oh, cats are full of surprises. Once, years ago, a cat of mine showed up with a flying squirrel in her mouth, inside! And flying squirrels aren’t terribly common in these parts.
Maybe your sweetgum balls are coming in on smaller critters?
Any small critter is immediately noticed by those Cats. As in Moths, birds, a lizard or 2, a centipede once, and just last week a frog. That caused a froggy rodeo. Cat, dogs and me all trying to rassle it. I won, before froggy lost a limb.
I did have a baby squirrel get in one time. Before I had the cats.
It’s because they’re Siamese. Those cats are smart and crazy.
When I was first reading your post, I was picturing that you’d been out sleepwalking, and picked up the burrs in the middle of the night. Glad it wasn’t that, at least!
Oh, crikey! Never thought of that. I do sleep walk. I have door alarms. I’m setting them tonight. Jeez!!
Beck, if you’ve never read Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, by T.S. Eliot, I suggest that you do. Eliot attempts to explain cats through poetry, and does a pretty good job–at least by human standards. Our feline friends may disagree.
Anyway, it sounds like you need to read “Macavity the Mystery Cat.” An excerpt:
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,
He’s broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.
His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,
And when you reach the scene of crime—Macavity’s not there!
You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air—
But I tell you once and once again, Macavity’s not there!
There’s a lesson there for you.
I’ve read those. Never thought it was really true. My mind has been changed living with these two. And just think I assured the breeder I was an experienced cat carer. Oh, those heady days of kittenhood. They fooled me into thinking I was an expert at this.
Dang, was I wrong. So wrong.
Thankyou for reminding me of Macavity.
Thanks, Beck. Right now, I’m looking over at Tigger, fast asleep on the other chair, but who is no doubt dreaming of his “ineffable effable, effanineffable, deep and inscrutable singular Name.”
Either that, or he’s dreaming of new and exciting ways to bug the crap out of me tomorrow. As he does every day.
I did not sleepwalk last night. That might be because I didn’t really sleep.
No sweetgum balls in the bed.
There’s that.
The Cats are acting some what ‘normally’
Well, I just jinxed it. :eek:
I’m sleepy as heck. I’m laying on my bed with the laptop.
Mr.Wrekker is packing for his Mexican fishing trip. He’s in and out.
The cats are on my headboard keeping one eye open for the big Wrek coming in.
I’m lounging around not moving much. I stretch my foot out and something scratchy is under my covers. A freakin’ sweetgum ball is in my bed. I fish it out. I show it to the Cats. Crickets. Bear squeezes his eyes shut. Meeko looks innocently at it, and puts one paw out. They are not gonna cop to it.
Am I a crazy cat lady?
I guess this means, that yes I am a crazy cat lady.
My nice nap was interupted by a cat falling on my head. Bear was as embarrassed as much as I was astonished.
Your cats levitate, so why wouldn’t they be able to shapeshift?
Also, check your screens. Tricky cats can pop screens in or out.
~VOW
It’s been record heat this week. No open windows. The air conditioning is on, non-stop. I’ve found one more sweetgum ball on the stairs. I’ve got my eyes peeled watching the cats. They’ve been super bored and aloof today. It’s a trick.
I looked in the mud-room to see if there were errant balls floating around for some reason. Nope.
My experience is that when cats make a mistake, they pretend they did it on purpose.
Absolutely! After, say, falling down, or jumping in alarm at something completely ordinary, mine have always moved a few feet away, then proceeded to groom themselves, with an expression that clearly states, “I meant to do that.”
Let’s see, Bear was embarrassed after falling on my head. So… really he was just acting embarrassed because he actually jumped on my head and wanted to gaslight me into feeling bad for him for falling. Thereby convincing me he was pitiful and needed extra liver treats.
Gah!! ::eek::
I’ll need a therapist (for me not Bear).
^^^Sometimes I write something, upon te-reading even I don’t understand it.
I have found several more sweetgum balls today. Mr.Wrekker left after breakfast to meet his friend and catch a plane to Mexico. So, I’m assuming he didn’t drop these things allover the house. I’ve decided they must of come off some of the stuff he was packing. He brought his old sleeping bag in the house. He wouldn’t need that on his trip. He wanted me to look into having it dry cleaned sometime before deer season. I’m going with the premise when he pulled it out of the storage bag sweetgum balls were in there. So maybe I’m not crazy.
It’s drones. Drones are coming into your house at night bearing sweetgum balls and dropping them all over you as you sleep.
Believing that the sweet gum balls, the fruit of the tree Liquidambar styraciflua, had been delivered by her cats or her husband’s camping equipment, Beckdawreck did not realize that she had entered…The Twilight Zone.
