cat - 1, girls - 0

yeah, that's right. that was the score from last night, but we're up for a rematch on thursday night!

that's how our evening turned out last night. summer and i were going to give the cat her twice-yearly haircut (otherwise known as "shaving the cat"). it's usually quite an ordeal and if you've never experienced it -- you have NO idea of what it's like! if you've ever read the joke email about "how to give a cat a pill" -- you could multiply that by 10 and you've have an idea of what it's like to give a cat a hair cut.

so this was what we had planned for our evening last night. grandpa was going to watch the girls while summer and i shaved the cat. we started the movie for the grandpa and the girls, and then started prepping the area for the cat make-over. summer measured out the cat drugs (a little calmer-downer to keep her from killing us in the process) and then caught the cat. amazingly, summer managed to give the cat the medicine all by herself -- and that in itself is quite amazing (reference back to the email on "how to give the cat a pill"!).

the instructions on the cat "calmer-downer" says to give her 10 drops and wait 15-20 minutes and give her another 5 drops. so, summer shut the cat in my bathroom while we waited for the 15 minutes to pass, knowing that it would take time to measure out the next drop of medicine and also time to catch the cat -- even in a closed-in and fairly small area (10 x 14).

when we went back in there and opened the door -- the cat was gone! now, we know that she can open the door, but the door was shut when we got there and we know she isn't smart enough to open the door, walk out, and then close the door behind her. we were beginning to wonder, though, because we could not find her anywhere. there are just not a lot of places to hide in the bathroom, other than the covered litter box and she's much too stuck up to hide in there!

we looked and we looked, and then we started looking other places in my bedroom like in the closet, under the bed, behind the laundry hamper, and more. we double checked the bathroom, double checked the closets, and still couldn't find the cat.

that only left one place for her to be -- under the jacuzzi! after summer had shut her in the bathroom, the cat had opened one of the service doors to get under the jacuzzi and crawled under. the doors fall shut behind her unless opened all the way -- so we had no idea to look under there. after getting under there, she had crawled back to the furthest spot on the other side -- just out of reach of a broom handle or anything else!

all we could do was shine the flashlight under there as see her watching us -- and growling every time she thought we were going to try and touch her! summer tried calling her out, enticing her w/ food, going off and leaving the doors opened (like we weren't interested in what she was doing!), calling her some more . . . . but nothing worked.

jasmine stayed hidden under the jacuzzi until summer had left and the drugs had worn off. then she came out and plopped down in the middle of my bed just like she was the queen of the nile. she had won the battle and she was feeling rather smug about it. what she's doesn't know is that she hasn't won the war! she'll be getting a haircut on thursday and we now have child-proof latches on our grocery list to prevent the cat from getting under and/or hiding under the jacuzzi this time!

here is a picture of what jasmine looks like. this picture was taken in december, 1997, so summer has changed quite a bit and jasmine hasn't changed much in looks but her attitude has taken a fairly constant downhill turn since then. at that time, she thought she might be a princess. now she's fairly sure she's the queen and willing to teach anybody a lesson who might think otherwise! unfortunately, she is fully clawed and has a full mouth full of teeth -- so be forewarned!


i post this now so you can see how much difference there is when we get her shaved. she goes from looking like an elegant princess to more of a drowned rat. it's kind of like cat-grunge! amazingly, though, her attitude and personality are much more pleasant when she looks like a drowned rat! must support my theory that some people are nice because they have to be as they can't count on their looks to get them through life.

after we get the cat-grooming done -- i'll post another picture for all to see the difference. if there are any injuries to any of the workers, i'll post pictures of those, too. just so you know what a dangerous job this is!