I've mentioned in a few entries that Foot Foot, our older cat, isn't taking too kindly to our kitten, Jupiter Jones. We were certain we would have to protect him from her, given her tendency to aggressive behavior toward anything else with four legs, but nothing could have prepared us for the fact that she is full-on, stops-out terrified of him. Yes, she will growl and hiss as if prepping for homicidal acts, but only just before (or in tandem with) hauling butt so fast she's a blur. We didn't know Foot Foot could move so fast, never mind catch air going around the turn to zip up the stairs, yet she does. And "catching air" doesn't just mean she leaves the floor by a few inches; I'm talking about a height of at least a foot or more.
But our astonishment over her air-catching ability is nothing compared to the shock she delivered Friday evening. Didgeridoo Boy and I are still a mite freaked out - we'll talk about the event, laugh some, and then go back to staring and shaking our heads. For a keenly alarming second, we thought Foot Foot was a goner - and a flying goner, at that.
Shortly after Jupiter's arrival, Foot Foot decided to take her own apartment in the dining room, which is shut off from the rest of the house by a French door. She stayed (dramatically prone) in a makeshift cave under the buffet for a while, then moved to glaring through the windows of the door while still refusing to set foot in the rest of the house. And then one day, she decided that it was time to come back in. Jupiter bounced over to her, and she hissed and dashed up the stairs. There was a barricade at the base of the stairs that he hadn't learned to clear yet, so she had another haven.
But then Jupiter learned how to get over the barricade. He now chases her up the stairs on a daily basis, or tries to - his ascent is still unwieldy enough to mean Didge can usually catch him before he manages to create further havoc. But sometimes Didge misses, and Jupiter is able to trail Foot Foot all the way up, resulting in much hissing, growling, and other feline lamentations. This, as you can probably already imagine, is what led to Friday evening's event. Foot Foot jogged into the living room, Jupiter gave chase, and they were both sailing around the corner at the base of the stairs before we could even consider reacting.
Didge made a mad dash in that direction while I went for the Evil Kitty spray bottle, intending to follow. After about half a second of thundering scampers, Foot Foot and Jupiter sounded as though they were setting up for a devil of a showdown in the upstairs hallway, and failed to pipe down when Didge got to the top of the stairs, stomping and clapping his hands. That wasn't a good sign, so I decided to stay downstairs for the time being, and backed into the living room to call upstairs to ask if everything was alright. I could see Didge over the edge of the balcony - - he seemed to be trying to decide which cat to pick up. Finally, he chose Foot Foot, and started trying to shoo the kitten back over to the stairs. Foot Foot, still growling, didn't seem to care for being held.
I think she thought the kitten was going to make a jump for her, or that she was angered past the point of generating anything resembling a rational thought. Whatever the case, she was very well determined to get away from Didge, and made claw-flinging Jello of herself trying to get down, all the while remaining bunched up in an angry ball. From my vantage point down below in the living room, it was highly amusing - up until the point she somehow ejected herself from Didge's hands. He tried to catch her, but to no avail - Foot Foot's front paws caught the rail of the balcony, and she launched out and over the living room, dropping about twelve feet down to the floor, holding her legs out like a flying squirrel. While we were mid-exclamation (I won't tell you what word we shouted in unison), she landed with a substantial thud, got up as if not one thing in the world was amiss, and ran straight to her food dish.
And then Foot Foot ate. That's all. She ate. She was (and is) fine. We ran to check on her, and she looked at us like we were crazy. Then she went back to eating.
I'm going to shake my head for a few minutes now, if you don't mind.
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