Wordy Wednesday

Remember Gracie? And Chessie aka "Evil Cat"? Yeah, them. Our wonderful four legged critters. Well, one three legged and the other four legged.

Well, recently, Gracie demonstrated her huntress powers by catching a lightning fast salamander (lizard). She didn't kill it. Instead, she treated it like it was a live "toy". She'd placed it in the middle of the floor, let it go, and then pounce. Cruel, I tell you, cruel!

She didn't have it for long because Dan rescued the poor thing and set it a free outside. She was one mad cat because we took her "toy" away from her. I wish I had gotten a picture of the critter because it played "dead" for the longest time. Oh well.

And then on Sunday night, Gracie went nuts around some folded up packing boxes in the Master bedroom. I thought to myself, "oh great, not another salamander". She tried so hard to get to whatever it was she was after. Dan tried to help (to rescue it); but, it was just too much work to figure out what and where the little critter was. Gracie eventually gave up; but, stayed close by.

And then on Monday afternoon, I noticed Chessie behaving like a kitten (she's 12 years old) in the Master bedroom on my side of the bed. When she noticed that I was watching her, she immediately went into what I call "pretty kitty" mode - squirming on the floor while watching me.

I went to look and spied a a tail of a critter and I thought myself, "oh no, she killed a salamander". Chessie continue to squirm around on the floor and gave me looks like "look Mommy! Lookie at what I got for you". Ugh.

I went to take a closer look and thought it was kind of huge. I suddenly realized it was not a salamader. I slowly approached the critter and holy Hannah!


I panicked at first. I immediately instant messaged Dan and facebooked about it. I then got a little box to cover the critter with and place a book on top of it as I couldn't deal with it myself. Chessie was fine when I did that because she knew that I knew. I praised her and at the same time, worried over Chessie and Gracie. But, apparently, they didn't get stung because they're healthy and happy kitties.

And then, once I calmed down, the memories flooded my brain. I remembered being awakened suddenly by Chessie early in the morning when she took off excitedly from bed to the floor. She was banging around the nightstand. Because I was so tired and sleepy, I let her do what she was doing and went back to sleep.

And, I remembered when I woke up in the morning, she was waiting for me by the bed (my side). And, when I got up, she immediately went under the bed a little and started pawing at something. I thought she was playing with one of my hair doo-dads and didn't think much of it. They do that a lot. And, I was groggy from lack of sleep and wanted to get breakfast and see Dan off.

I now realized Chessie was trying to show me her "kill" by her body language. I also realized that this was not her typical morning behavior as she's usually pestering and begging Dan (He feeds them in the mornings). That unusual behavior alone should have woken me up; but, it didn't.

She must have dragged it out for me to see later because she really was proud of her "kill". Ugh!

Dan took care of the scorpion for me as I just couldn't deal with it. He was surprised at how big the critter was as he thought it would be a tiny little thing. He had no problems using the box to scoop it up with and took out a pocket knife to poke around and examine it. Men! Ugh!

He did set it just like so for me so that I could take a picture. But, I couldn't stay near it for long as it gave me the heebie-jeebies. Yeah, I know, I am such a girrrlll. Ha!

My two pictures didn't come out all that great - probably because I was too nervous around the critter. So, I'm thankful that Dan took a few with my camera and got the one above for me.

I never dreamed that a scorpion would be inside our house! And, I am worried that we might have another scorpion because both Gracie and Chessie are hunting from time to time in our bedroom. Before, I would think nothing of it because it was always salamanders (until now). And, of course, I would always try to "rescue" them from the cats because I believe in letting them live instead of suffering at the cruel hands, errr, paws of my cats.

Well, I don't think I will be "helping" those critters anytime in the future. Seeing a scorpion for the first time in our house has scared me to death and made me paranoid.