Discriminating Cookie Monsters

Wedding #3 was two weekends ago which concludes this year's weddings for me.

THANK GOD.

I am ready for a break from all the formal social gathering where I have to gush during the vows, make small talk with people I haven't seen since high school, and try to figure out the enigmatic paradox of just HOW do you balance an appetizer plate and wine glass and actually manage to EAT the appetizers without sticking your face in the plate...while teetering in high heels (cute ones by the way).

If you're reading this and just about to drop an invitation in the mail to me, please ignore me. I'm a whiner. I will be more than happy to doll up in my little wedding outfit, gush, teeter, gab and somehow eat appetizers (although how I'm still not sure). And all the while I will do it without whining. Promise.

So wedding #3...

The husband, the BestFriend and I packed up and headed down to Carmel Friday evening for what turned out to be an entertaining 2 days of consuming copious amounts of wine, bacon, cheese, and biscuits. Why the interesting array of food you ask? Because when you go shopping at 11pm on a Friday night for light snack foods for the weekend (and after already imbibed one or two glasses of wine) you tend to shop like a stoner. But I will get to that little tidbit of a story another day.

Upon arriving in Carmel we shuffled off to the post rehearsal dinner schmooze-fest. The dainty affair was held at a delightful B&B a few blocks from downtown Carmel. I'm sure you can imagine how quaint and charming it was, including all the duck decoys, knick-knacks, and hand-made quilts to make Grandma proud. We schmoozed, drank wine, ate cookies.

Ohhhhhh the cookies...

The BestFriend brought these cookies to my attention. They were fluffy yet chewy, sweet and chocolatey, and there was drooly caramel tunneling through them. Ohhhhhh the nummy nummy cookies...

Naturally I had to make my way over to the source of these cookies, which were on the coffee table in front of a Laura Ashley print davenport. I use the word "davenport" because I'm sure, in a place like this, "sofa" or "couch" is just plain inappropriate. So, the husband, BestFriend, and I make our way over to the davenport and sit ourselves right down in a row in front of the basket of cookies.

We proceed to eye them carefully. We have to pick just the right one you see. Being that I'm not the sort to binge myself on large quantities of cookies I had to choose just the right one.

In other words, the largest one with the best ratio of chocolatey-o-liciousness and caramel-ly ooze.

Then the unthinkable happens...

Random person walks by and drops THIS bomb: "Oh, those cookies are SO good - you should try one. The oatmeal ones aren't as good as the chocolate chip ones though..."

Oatmeal? Did she say OATMEAL? I didn't see no fricken' oatmeal cookie intruders!

BestFriend and I look a little closer and realize that there are cookies in the basket that look distinctly like they have OATMEAL in them, intermingling with the chocolatey-o-licious ones. And they had raisins. RAISINS. I despise raisins in my cookies!

The audacity of WHOEVER put that basket together to just mix both types of cookies together, two types of cookies that look IDENTICAL. And with such abandon. Really, how cavalier!

So now there is risk involved - should I pick the WRONG (gasp) cookie, I would feel compelled to finish it not wanting to waste food. I wouldn't be able to feed it to the husband because of his whole take-me-to-the-emergency-room-now variety of lactose intolerance. I would have to eat it myself. I would not get to eat the chocolately-caramelo-y cookie because I HAD to skip going to the gym today and sat on my ass during my lunch break instead. Because the world sucks. Because life has it out for me. Because I like to worry myself about things like not eating more than one cookie instead of important adult stuff like paying the mortgage or not getting hit by a car.

But most importantly the BestFriend and I had two glasses of wine on empty stomachs and were having more fun being goofy and melodramatic about something so asinine.

So now we found ourselves trying to figure out which was which, and the husband just sat back and watched this whole bizarre debacle from behind his wine glass.

BestFriend: how about that one?

(pointing to what was SOOOO an oatmeal cookie)

Me: No, see the oats - I distinctly see oats.

BestFriend: This is unbelievable - fricken' unbelievable.

Me: I know, I know. But if we just focus, MABYE we can get through this.

BestFriend: It seems like those over there might be safe.

(pointing to a cluster of cookies)

Me: Hmmmm...maaaaaybe. Are you willing to risk it?

BestFriend: Not sure. HERE! This is one for sure!

(handing me what looks like neither one or the other)

Me: Are you sure? I mean, absolutely sure?

BestFriend: Yea.

(Notice I'm the guinea pig here?)

Me: It kind of looks like it could be oatmeal...

BestFriend: Nah, it's fine - go for it.

I take one bite. And wouldn't you know it? The gods have it in for me.

Me: It's OATMEAL!

BestFriend: Oh NO! That SUCKS! Here, try this one.

(She hands me another cookie)

Me: But what about this one?

(holding up the partially nibbled oatmeal cookie)

BestFriend: Get rid of it.

Me: What am I supposed to do with it? Stuff it down the couch cushions? (Before you think I'm a horrible house guest, and subsequently start checking your couch cushions for moldy food, keep in mind I said this mockingly)

BestFriend just looked at me, denying nor confirming my recent suggestion. I compromised and put the partially eaten cookie on a napkin on the coffee table, took the second cookie and bit into it.

Needless to say it apparently wasn't my night and the BestFriend SUCKS at picking the chocolate cookies from the oatmeal ones.

Cookie #2 goes on top of cookie #1 on the coffee table.

At this point some of you readers out there might be asking WHAT is WRONG with us. I offer you no excuses or explanations. All I can tell you is that we were two women, goofed up on some good wine with a mission to find a chocolate chip cookie in what seemed to be mostly oatmeal. And for those of you who know my BestFriend and I at all you'll know that once we set our minds to something we are determined to accomplish it. It may mean driving to 4 or 5 different stores, throwing out a batch of Baklava and starting fresh, or taking one bite out of 37 cookies before we find the one we want. But we will accomplish the set task.

By this point in time I have decided it is now up to me to pick the next cookie. And picked I did - and OHHHHHH was it good. And I picked one out for the BestFriend and she was happy. Apparently I have the cookie-picking talent. Some sort of chocolate-caramel radar most likely inherited from my dad.

And then the realization of what we had just done hit me. Two sad partially eaten cookies sat unloved, and undesired, on the coffee table. The waste! And what if someone were to see what we had done? And JUDGE us? If it were only one cookie someone passing by might think I merely did not like the confection. But two cookies with ONE bite taken out of EACH? Something needed to be done to cover up the evidence of our wreckless abandon.

BestFriend (apparently reading my mind): do something with them!

(she thrusts the cookies at me)

Me: What? What do I do? Oh my god - we can't just leave them here!

BestFriend: What about that couch cushions?

I should interject here to point out that we were giggling this whole time and none of the suggestions we made were meant seriously. At least I hope so. Who really knows.

Me: We can't do that!

Husband: What about in here?

(pointing - I kid you not - at a knitting basket next to the couch)

BestFriend: Ooooh yea! That's a good place! Do it! Do it!

Me: I can't put them in there! Someone might SEE!

I would like to interject here as well that you might notice I'm more concerned about someone seeing me hide the cookies in a knitting basket than I am about the suggestion of stashing baked goods with someone's knitting.

I put the cookies back on the coffee table. And then a plan formed in my head that was both discreet and foolproof.

I took another napkin and, in all my suave-ness, casually threw it over the cookies on the table. Then I sat back and waited a few minutes while chatting with the Husband and BestFriend. Anybody watching me would surely loose interest and not in the slightest suspect that I was trying to dispose of two perfectly good, only partially chewed, cookies. THEN I nonchalantly leaned forward, scooped up the now disguised pile of cookies, wrapped them in the napkin a little more.

And shoved them at the Husband.

Husband: what do you want ME to do with these?

(honey, please forgive me for involving you in our crazy antics)

Me: go throw them in there...

(I point at a garbage can across the room)

Husband: sigh. you guys are nuts.

He went and threw them out, like the wonderful, loving, dedicated man I know he is. I'm sure he was pondering all the while just what he got himself into when he married me. All I can say is HE proposed to ME - he got himself into this willingly.

Crisis was over! We had succeeded!

At what I'm not exactly sure. A variety of things really. Proving we are crazy, that's certain.

And after all is said and done all I can say is that I wish I had been someone else in the room witnessing this whole scenario - I'm sure we were hilarious to watch.

Little House in the Ghetto

Quick word on the knitting front: it's sooooo not happening right now.
Let me tell you, finishing a project for the sake of "finishing" a project is not the best motivation. I have no use for the damn afghan when done - which doesn't exactly leave me leaping for it every chance I get. And I'd much rather be knitting something cute like a fuzzy scarf or a cuddly sweater. But I'm so stupidly pragmatic that I don't want to spend money on the materials when I have a perfectly good project already in mid-knit.
Maybe if something were to happen to the unfinished project in question. Say, it were stolen for example. If I were to one day discover it was no longer in my knitting basket by the coach right by the front door (you can't miss it). What could I honestly do? I would have to move on with my life and start new knitting projects.
Of all the things my cats get into...and for some inexplicable reason they have NO interest in my knitting.
Stupid useless cats.
But what I'm really here today to discuss is the ghetto and why it appears to be just following me around wherever I go.
Mary had a little ghetto...
little ghetto...
little ghe-tto...
Enough with the nursery rhymes.
I've written on this topic before - some of you may recall the offbeat story about WifebeaterGuy and OversizedJerseyGuy.* At the time I found it amusing that after moving just mere weeks prior to a cleaner, more "quiet" neighborhood, the ghetto seemed to follow me there. Well, it didn't stop there.
The weekend of the 4th of July (yes, I'm a timely writer aren't I?) we had stopped by the house in Sacramento on our way to our final destination of Donner Lake. We packed, we watered the plants, we stood on our porch and watched the ghetto copters fly hither and thither, we did laundry.
Now before you picture our neighborhood as a place where children sell crack on street corners in lieu of lemonade and instead of "keeping up with the Jones' " we're "keeping up with the Stoners", please bear in mind that our neighborhood is actually very clean and in a desirable, highly sought after community.
At least, I try to tell myself that while watching the cop cars slowing coast up and down the street with a copter hovering low overhead.
One minute I'm packing the car, the next I'm practically hitting the ground as a police helicopter cruises DIRECTLY overhead with an intercom spouting something unintelligible. As I'm trying to decipher why exactly a helicopter is flying so close to the ground over MY HOUSE I turn around to discover there are 5 cop cars creeping along the street coming and going in all different directions.
Now, I have a little experience with this sort of police activity. Ghetto Mary remember?
They're looking for someone.
Hoooookay - back in the house I go.
But not before noticing that the sidewalks are full of residents trying to figure out what is going on. They, apparently, are not so familiar with the ghetto.
And don't our neighbors have jobs?
Seriously? Work? Every heard of it? It usually keeps you busy at 1pm on a Friday afternoon.
Although I suppose they could be asking me the same thing. I'm a slacker ok? Whatever.
So I head inside not wanting to be a victim to what usually happens when there's a ghetto copter, 5+ cop cruisers, and a paddy wagon (yes, now there's a paddy wagon) looking around for some criminal.
And the helicopter kept flying RIGHT over our house. Nothing more comforting than a police-lead manhunt dead-ending at your house.
Let me take this moment to reiterate that my neighborhood is NICE and QUIET. (mom, this whole story is entirely fictitious. I lie. None of this happened. I'm having hallucinations...flashbacks! Just please don't call me in hysterics.)

*A note about WifebeaterGuy and OversizedJerseyGuy: they were last seen a week after the above offense chatting on the porch throwing back some brewskies, tending to the BBQ. It's always nice to see that after getting into a pushing fight and throwing collapsible furniture you can let bygones be bygones and get drunk together. Of course, I'd like to add that I was pretty disappointed later that evening when there was no show of drunken brawling, chair throwing, or scared-like-a-little-girl running.

Animal House, Installment II

Thanks to my handy dandy list I remembered that I was going to write a second installment on the topic of my house and its animal-ness. Just WHAT exactly I was going to write about I'm not sure. So, you see, what we have learned here is that while lists are useful in keeping one organized, they are not of such a useful-ness if one has not added notes.

Perhaps if I recap a little on the topic at hand my memory will stop working against me and actually DO something for a change. No promises. This blog might quite possibly end up entirely in vain. But at least you, the reader, will most likely enjoy watching me struggle.

In Animal House, Installment I we learned about the beginning adventures of Boo, Bartleby, and Bunny. The Three Musketeers. The three B's. Two cats and a rabbit...

Ok, I'm stalling.

What the HELL was I going to write about?

Wine. I'm more interesting with wine. But I can't very well drink wine at work now can I? Huh. Well would anyone KNOW it was wine?

(hi mom, I'm really NOT a lush)

So the animals. Well, we crammed them all together in our quaint apartment where they hissed, growled, and stared each other down. That was, like, almost 2 weeks ago. And...

Oh yea! Victory! Halleluiah - my brain has functioned in my favor!

Ok, so, the second installment.

The following day after we moved the bunny into the apartment my landlord had to come in with a maintenance guy to fix our dishwasher. Before leaving for work in the morning I decided to leave the cats in the bedroom so they didn't torment the maintenance guy with incessant meowing (Boo) or hissing (Bartleby).

Now you see, the bedroom is a magical place. Promptly remove your minds from the gutter. I'm referring to the cats perspective. The cats are banned from the bedroom and therefore they believe it is a place where wonderful magical things take place like copious amounts of catnip is readily available, raw tuna is delivered every hour (on the hour), and all the furniture is upholstered in sisal rope and carpet. Before you think I'm cold and heartless for banning the fuzzbutts from the bedroom please take into consideration that the husband is horribly allergic to them.

So blame him.

(love you Honey)

By being contained in the bedroom for the duration of the afternoon the cats were ecstatic. They demonstrated their happiness by sleeping for 8 hours straight only stopping occasionally to clean themselves. Sleeping is a dirty business.

Upon returning home I immediately flushed the cats from the bedroom and shut the door. Life had returned to normal. Boo went to eat, Bartleby went to hiss at the bunny. And then...both cats returned to the bedroom door and sat there.

Meowing.

And they stared. And got excited every single freakin' time one of us walked by the door. And Meowed. And meowed and stared. Stared and meowed. Oh my god all evening LONG.

We cooked, we ate, we reduced our brain cell count in front of the TV. The staring, the meowing, it never ceased.

The evil red-eyed cat-eating alien - aka the bunny - no longer existed.

Never mind eating or cleaning themselves, forget water or the liter box, war, peace, starving children in Ethiopia. The cats can't get into the bedroom, call CNN.

Being the long term cat owner I had a feeling this wasn't going to be short lived. And at 4am, when the pathetic meows from the other side of the door continued I was beginning to question just how much I loved my cats. Or any cats really. Did I even "like" them? 5am rolled around and neither one of us had obtained much "sleep" if you could call it that.

The cats were determined to be let in. And I was determined to ignore them.

Here's a little peak at my thought process at 5am:
Why aren't they hoarse yet?
Do they really think that after the 782nd meow I will let them in? Are they thinking "well I can see how after only 781 meows she might not be convinced we want in, but 782 is definately going to convince her"?
I can't give in to this.
Forget all you people with your idle threats and weak spines! I am not one of you! I will stick to my guns and follow through!
I really have no choice - the husband will suffer!
But sleep is SO nice.
What is that? Are they scratching at the door now? The little shits are actually scratching at the door?
Just how much does he suffer anyway. It's just a little runny nose...and watery eyes...and the sneezing...and the itching.
There must be something I can do.
Maybe I can rig up a fire hose and drench them upon throwing open the door.
Where would I get a fire hose at this hour?
A garden hose would probably suffice. Oh, but the mess. That would be a lot of water to mop up.
What would I be terrified of if I were them. So terrified that I might stop pissing me off...

And then I thought of the most brilliant plan. Up I leapt out of bed, threw open the door, marched right over to the closet and yanked out the most horrible nasty devices I own.

Two cat carriers and the vacuum.

Both cats were nowhere to be found at this point.

One cat carrier went in front of the bedroom door. If they wanted to sit there and meow at us through the door they would have to do it while sitting next to their arch nemesis.

The other cat carrier went at the farthest point from the bedroom in the living room where I fully intended to put Bartleby, the main meowing offender, should he decide to continue the meowing. He could meow all night long (all two hours left of it) but he would do it TRAPPED where I couldn't HEAR him.

The vacuum went in the hallway to the bedroom as an obstacle for them to have to get around to get to the bedroom door.

I then retreated to the bedroom and crawled into bed. I lay waiting for just one meow. Just ONE. But nothing came. Not a single meow.

The plan had worked.

That day was the most miserable day I have had in a LONG time - minimal sleep coupled with psychological torture does not a happy day make. But I was victorious. I had put my foot down and kept it there! It was me vs. the cats and I had skunked them!

I win I win I win!

Thank god for coffee.

Because I have no memory.

I'm going to write a list. Yes a list! Yea! I love lists. Lists are fun because you can cross things off of them! Oh how I love the crossing off part. I will do things JUST so I can cross them off the list!

I suppose that's sort of the point. Ahem. Anyhoo...

But most importantly I love lists because I can't remember crap. Oh sure, I can remember all kinds of stupid little trivial facts. But not the stuff that matters. So in order to sleep at night I keep an occasional list. This is how I keep myself "organized". I use the word "organized" "loosely".

Heh. Look at that! I just used the word "loosely" loosely. Isn't it great how by merely putting something in parenthesis you can use a word mockingly or sarcastically?

Was I going to write a list here?

Right.

My list.

I keep forgetting about all the things I want to blog about. And then when I have time to blog, I can't think of anything, I mope, drink wine, and watch the Family Guy. Which is a hilarious little program! But doesn't help much with the blogging. Although the wine can contribute quite well.

Sigh. Again with the not getting to my main objective.

Get to the list already!

Ok, here is my teaser list of things to come. Maybe. Depends on how my wine supply holds out...

- Seriously, the ghetto? Still hanging around.
- Animal House, Installment II
- Animal House, Installment III
- "Finishing" my knitting projects? Notice the parenthesis?
- Bacon, Biscuits, Wine, and Fontina - the 4 Food Groups
- How fad diets are ruining MY diet
- The damn MeMe that's burning a hole in my inbox

Ok, that should keep me blogging for a while. Feel free to make requests for which topic I should tackle first. Of course I will not be held responsible for any creative license I take (i.e. ignorning you). And a note to you smart asses - don't bother asking me to do installment III before installment II.

Cat Collecting?

As I'm eating my lunch today I stumbled across this little story about a cat "lover".

Apparently the neighbors complained of a "stench" which is what brought this veritable cat breeding farm to the attention of the authorities.

A stench?

How about calling the po-po about the fact that it smells like the County has moved the waste water treatment plant next door?

People, there were cats crawling in her WALLS. And let us not forget she had 86 cat carcasses just lying around. Perhaps she felt that rigor-mortis was just as good as taxidermy?

Now I know how easy it can be to take on large quantities of felines. They're cute...and we've covered this, they're so darn snuggly-wuggly.

But.

Seriously, a big literary "but".

COME ON!

What sort of level of lunacy are we talking about? They started inbreeding and multiplying! Are we to assume here that this woman just went about her daily business like it was normal to uncover that, yet again, one of her cats had a litter of kittens?

CrazyCatLady: Now let's see...where DID I leave my coffee cup. Oh look at that, more kittens. Huh...darn coffee cup, where could it be?

And what about the inbreeding? Did she think the extra eyes, tails, and limbs added charm to the cats?

You can imagine my surprise when I read that not only does she have a husband, but also has a daughter. All of which who LIVED in this house. Of course this woman is, like, 82 years-old which would make her daughter roughly in her 50's if not older. Living at home with mom and dad at the age of 50? Why NOT collect cats? And the husband? What's his excuse for not running for the hills? I'm thinking that the ammonia from all the cat piss has eroded these people's brains.

And how do you sleep?

Seriously.

How?

If anyone has an answer I'd love to hear it because I only have 2 cats and sometimes they keep me up at all hours of the night and they're not even allowed in my bedroom. I think they must be doing construction work in the living room. And I think to myself they must be building me a new entertainment unit or something. And yet every morning I come out and there's NOTHING to be found. Maybe they're constructing a means to escape. A tank or helicopter perhaps?

Huh. A theory to explore another time.

Anyway.

I just don't get it. And I know that not all things in life are meant to be gotten. But seriously. What the fuck?

And THEN, after the po-po kicked her and her merry band of cat-HOARDERS out, boarded up her doors, and left to have a scone and a latte, she returned to smuggle cats out. Yes, in fact, 30 of them. What sort of vehicle do you suppose she had? It better be a big one because I can't imagine trying to cram 30 cats into my 4-door sedan.

And it is at this point that I find extreme amounts of humor in this whole situation. This 82 year-old woman trying to squeeze 30 inbred cats into her car to "rescue" them.

CrazyCatLady: Now Fluffy, move your tail just a bit so I can squeeze FuzzBuns in there - no, your OTHER tail. There we go...now I'll just shut the door...oh I'm so sorry Tiger! Did I get your leg in the door? Oh dear...well, you have 5 others so I'm sure you'll be live.

What else can I possibly say about this. The woman needs a new hobby.

Animal House, Installment I

The things we do for animals. Oh the silly, inane, bizzarre and selfless things we insist on doing for furry four-legged things that can't talk. And we do it because they're cute and fuzzy and oh gosh, so snuggly-wuggly.

I am a self-proclaimed animal lover. Not in an obsessive tack-postcards-of-baby-snowseals-to-my-cube-wall sort of way. I just love animals. They're cute and fun, and well, they ARE so snuggly-wuggly.

I have two cats. In fact you can read about one of them here on this crazy cat person congregation website. I haven't gotten around to creating Boo's cat page yet. Accuse me of playing favorites all you like. In reality I was just being lazy and didn't have a picture of him on my computer (without a big glass of wine as the focal point). Please! I may be a lush, but the crazy cat people don't need to know that.

That was like 2 weeks ago and I still haven't gotten around to fixing one up. BAD cat owner!

What is this? Am I digressing?

Anyway.

My two cats rule the roost at home, which is a reasonably large small, mediumly smallish but on the larger size apartment.

Enter husband.

He has a bunny. Bunny is a white albino rabbit about ye big (holding hands out for you to see - see?) and she has, up until now, lived at our house in the suburbs.

Yes we have a house in addition to our reasonably large small, mediumly smallish but on the larger size apartment. That will be covered in another blog. Maybe.

Since we only make it up to the house on the weekends, and over the summer that's not even true, bunny was starting to "act out" shall we say. If she was a child we'd put her on ritalin, plunk her down in front of the tv and feed her enough fatty carbs to weigh her ass to the couch. But come on, let's be serious, that would be considered animal abuse.

So we decided it was finally time to combine animals at the one location where we spend most of our time so we can give all fuzzy parties concerned the attention they need. And that would be the apartment.

So Tuesday night we fetched bunny from the house on our way back from Tahoe (for the 4th of July) and made the 2 hour trek to San Jose with her in the backseat. The husband dropped me at a cooking class and he went home to clean her up and gradually introduce her to the cats. Upon returning from my class the husband had just let bunny out of the bedroom and the cats were getting their first chance at either:

a) pouncing at her,

b) becoming fast friends and doing eachother's hair or,

c) staring at her like she's an alien that just flew in from the planet EatCatsAllDayLong

...a little background on the cats. They are spoiled. They are indoor only, fancy spensive cat food fed, frequently groomed, pet, and loved - spoiled. As far as they are concerned there are only two cats in the whole wide world, a tank full of fish, and two humans. Oh, and occasionally a "visitor" that they ignore.

...a little background on the bunny. She was raised with cats. She thinks she's actually a cat. She doesn't hop, she moves her back legs independently as if she were a cat. And she has a brain the size of a walnut.

So bunny, a crazy alien lifeform to them, hops around the room nonchalantly. Boo seems to think something is not quite right. But he's cool with change. It's really not a big deal. He stays where he is, she stays where she is, and that's just fine. Should she come too close he'll just kind of walk away making a worried "Boo noise" that only Boo knows how to make. Bartleby on the other hand. Heh. I had the misfortune of HOLDING him when the bunny was actually let out of her cage. Silly me, thought if I were holding him I might provide COMFORT or SANCTITY to the little brat. Instead I got a shredded arm for the effort.

Which of course prompts me to scruff him so he doesn't either leap on my head and scratch my eyes out or leap on the bunny and scratch her eyes out. So here he is, scruffed, angry, puffed up to the nines, starring at the alien with the bright RED EYES.

And then we all made a big mistake.

We laughed.

But is was FUNNY I tell you! The little snot was putting on a hilarious show of simultaneous aggression and downright fear. How could we not laugh?

Oh brother.

Bartleby hates the laughter. He hates the ridicule when it's directed at him. Imagine a small man with equally small parts. They just don't take the laughing so well.

So he's scruffed and seeming to relax a little, and then the laughter, and I can feel him tense and get angry. He looks me square in the eyes and hisses. So I realise now that the best course of action is to let him go and he can run and hide like the scaredy little brat I know he is. But the problem is, well, he's wound up tight like a little spring and when he's like that, when released, he usually scratches the hell out of something (me) before running and hiding. Seeing as how I already received my fair share of war wounds for the night I was hard pressed to go about releasing him in as delicate way possible.

I begin to lower him to the ground and he seems to be going with it. His eyes flick from me, to bunny, to me again. I can see his brain power is spread thin between trying to figure out how to get away from me AND avoid the horribly evil unidentified white thing with legs and red eyes.

And I'm giggling - SILENTLY I should add.

Then his back legs hit the ground and instantly back up they go to SCRATCH the HELL out of my forearm. AGAIN.

People at work are going to think I'm a Cutter.

I realise at this point there is no grace in letting an irate pointy object go - so I just open my hand and off he flies. Under the table.

He's a brave one. Scared of the little bunny rabbit.

Bunny, now returned to her cage, happily snacks on some hay. Totally unphased that she is now living with two predators in possession of very sharp claws AND teeth.

The cats, now rescued from the SCARY ALIEN, spend the rest of the evening staying far from the cage. Totally unaware that there now is plump juicy Prey living with them. Totally unaware that THEY are in fact the predators in this equation. Go figure.

One big happy family.