Dec 28 2009
Audracious
A day of naughtiness really takes it out of you.
Audrey has expanded her repertoire of victims to include birds now. By the time I saw her with it, it was too late, and all I could do was shudder and pity the poor creature. Nature, as my stepmother used to point out in her rich, golden voice, is red in tooth and claw, but I can’t change this Nature channel.
If the early bird gets the worm, the early cat presumably gets the early bird. And mice. So Audrey, after about twelve hours of beauty sleep, is ready to go out and hunt in the dark, pre-dawn hours. She alerts me to her schedule by clawing the glass in the balcony door.
I have considerably less enthusiasm for getting up in the dark than Audrey does, and I figure if I get up and let her out, it will only encourage her (not that encouragement appears to be necessary). So last night, I equipped my otherwise elegant bedside table with an ugly plastic spray bottle filled with water. When the inevitable Audrey alarm went off, I grabbed the bottle and squirted in her general direction.
Pause.
Scrabble-squeak-thump-scrabble-squeak-squeak-squeak!!
Squirt.
Silence.
I subsided into my pillows, tensely waiting. Nothing happened, so I tried to go back to sleep. I had reckoned without my annoyance and the cloud of swear words hovering over my sleepy, yet awake head. Sigh.
As I lay there in the dark, debating getting up, I heard Audrey clawing the hand-carved redwood banisters. After I yelled at her, getting up was inevitable.
It was still dark, so there was no way I was letting her outside. Also, I clung to the faint hope that if she gets me out of bed and doesn’t get to go out immediately, she’ll give up on the whole project. She did keep going to the front door and clawing it, though, despite my verbal discouragement.
Around 7:30, I let Audrey and June outside, Henrietta being far too old and wise to leave the comfort of the heater.
Audrey: 532. Suzy: 0.