September 20, 2009
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Destruction
There's something about waking up in the morning and finding the apartment you live in completely destroyed, not by some angry Taiwanese bloke with a bulldozer but by 2 kittens who proclaim innocence at all times. The fact that these same 2 kittens go to bed with you and sleep by your side makes it all the easier to forgive them, until it comes to the time for clearing up the mess. And of course, 2 kittens can do it like Lionel Ritchie - all night long.
With Claire working night shift, she spends a lot of her time her in my apartment, during the week and weekend, locking the cats out of the bedroom for one simple reason. The kittens fight and chase each other, and invariably knock things down, smash things or beat the crap out of the wind chime I have in my bedroom, smashing it against the window with a racket loud enough to wake up her family. And they live 80 km away. I am surprised the window has not broken - such is the ferocity they use. So when I get home in the evening, they are of course pleased to see me, because it means they get to go back in to the bedroom.
Waking Claire up is a difficult task for me. The other morning I left the apartment - it was Claire's day off - and waked her 3 times to say bye. But she did not want to wake up. She woke for mere seconds, and dozed off once more. This is typical for the girl who does not want to admit to being tired. All I would need to do is open the door for a few seconds and let the kittens do their thing. Ginge goes straight for the wind chimes. Grace jumps on the bed and sits on Claire for a few seconds. Being the restless kitten that she is though means that it is an absolute max of a few seconds before she starts to move somewhere else, always within range of being stroked.
But every morning and evening it is the same thing - during the time I have been sleeping or in the office, they have worked hard to destroy everything inside the apartment - chairs strewn on the floor, bits from the artificial plants that my landlord so nicely decided to leave in the apartment when I moved in 8 years ago, and anything that had not been firmly in place when I left is on the floor when I get home.
I had a kangaroo - one of those stupid things that anyone who goes down under thinks is a good idea to take home as a souvenir - which has been annihalated and completely ripped apart, I had plastic flowers (I found them whilst cleaning my apartment.... don't ask!) which have now also been discovered by the cats and no longer exist in a floral way, and even the cockroaches have worked out that this is not a place for them to be. At least, not if they want to survive.
And for all their destructive powers, the two babies still have that amazing ability to just look at you in such a way as for everything to be perfectly alright. How could anyone be angry with a face as sweet as these?
