My mis-adventures with Shadow

Many of you know about Shadow the cat. She and I have a love/hate relationship. I love, and she hates....but I digress. When Justin is here, things go pretty smoothly. She goes her way, I go mine. She doesn't pay me any attention (until Justin pays ME attention and then I get "the glare") But when he's gone, she is forced to acknowledge my presence. I give her what she wants most in the world...FOOD!

We have been doing our little dance where she pretends to like me to get food for almost a week now during this current TDY and getting along pretty well ... until the other night. One of us almost didn't make it out alive. In the light of day, I can see the comedic value in the story (which is why it's making the blog) but that night?? Well ... NO!

Picture this: It's about midnight. I'm comfy. Sleeping soundly. And I'm awakened to this...this...NOISE. At first, I laid there motionless. The room was dark. Everything was quiet except for these screeching, screaming noises coming from downstairs. I didn't know what it was. My mind was racing. The CAT was the furthest thing from my mind. So I crept down the stairs and what do I find?? Shadow, standing at window by the front door, her face pressed into the glass, screaming at the top of her lungs...and on the other side? Another HUGE cat ... doing the exact same thing. They are nose to nose. Separated only by double paned typhoon strength safety glass.

At first, relief washes over me. It wasn't some screaming banshee that had crept into my house to do ... whatever screaming banshees do. And it wasn't the world's loudest burgular. But it was the two loudest cats on the planet!! So I continue down the stairs, yelling for them to be quiet. Imagine my threats not working!! So I begin to bang on the glass to get the stranger cat to go away. No luck! So I risk life and limb and pick Shadow up and take her upstairs and hope that she has the memory of a gnat and that the other cat will give up and go away quickly. No luck. Back downstairs I go...chasing Shadow as she screams the whole way to immediately press her nose back against the glass again. So I then lower the blinds to the window so that the cats can't see each other...we now have bent blinds! I am probably now the most hated neighbor in all of Terrace Heights...My final plan was to just pull the blankets over my head, say something under my breath about how she may be a set of mittens by morning, and fall back asleep. What do you know - that one worked. At least for me. I think she and the other cat screamed all night! Ahhh...the mis-adventures with Shadow. Things like this never happen when Justin is here!!