Mar 25 2011
Lost the Battle
Well, Clyde won the battle of the painting.
But if Rob has anything to do with it, Clyde won’t win the war.
I was awoken by a crash this morning. Not thunder, not hail, but pretty loud all the same. I didn’t even have to get downstairs before I could see what happened. The painting was no longer above the shelf over the couch, as you see here (aka the Good Old Days – who knew?):
It was on the floor. Miraculously, it wasn’t broken, though I can’t say the same for the vase you see in the middle of the shelf in the picture above.
On the bright side, none of Rob’s pottery was broken (I have the premier collection of RobCo ceramics on the west coast), and the painting was unharmed.
It’s about five feet wide and four feet tall, so it wasn’t easy for me to maneuver, but I managed to get it across the room and lean it against the staircase. As I waited for the coffee to perk (and perk me up), it occurred to me that there are no good answers here. If I put it back up – well, if Rob does – the Battle of the Painting will resume. Also I had previously thought that Clyde tried to climb it to get my attention, but apparently it’s just a hobby.
If I leave it where it is, it may well suffer the terrible fate of the records, and be clawed to death by the Demon Kittens.
If I put it away, I’ll lose my window to the city and the joy the painting has given me over the past fifteen years.
My living room now looks bleak and sad:
By the way – Rob made that shell-shaped plate and its stand.
I told Megan about the whole fiasco, and pretty soon Rob came over to inspect the damage. His thought was that Clyde probably approached the shelf from the side, instead of the front. So he stapled some cardboard to ends of the shelf and baited it with a huge plastic dragon:
to see if Clyde can still get up on the shelf. If it foils him, Rob will make something out of wood and fasten it to the ends for permanent foiling.
Needless to say, the cats have not gone anywhere near it or shown the slightest interest in the giant plastic dragon over the past six hours, even though it’s rainy and depressing outside and you’d think they’d be bored. Maybe I’ll find out tonight.