Day 34

September 17, 2018

Pictures definitely do not do the events of this early morning justice...  

To set the stage, this has been the state of our kitchen window for awhile...  We desperately need to get the screens replaced...

Notice the hole in the screen.  It is positioned behind the glass window, but still definitely a hole. So anyway, in Jordan at this time of year it's still pretty hot but just during the day when the sun is out.  So if you time it just right, you open your windows in the late afternoon and all throughout the night and in the early morning and it overall keeps the house much cooler (we don't have AC).  So for as long as we've lived here, we've kept the window open at night.  (and yes, that is my mountain of clean dishes- no dish washer either)

Ok so early early in the wee hours i started hearing like cat yowling- not just little meow's but these awful noises and I was half asleep so didn't fully realize what it was.  When I started waking up,  I'm thinking goodness what in the world is wrong with Leo?  (the cat we are keeping for friends).  He really has not ever been very vocal during the night (well except for the one night Maddie closed him out of her room where his food is).  Anyway, it was a very strange noise.  Not completely uncommon because there are TONS of stray cats in Jordan out on the streets and yes, tons in our neighborhood.  It's kind of a normal nighttime sound except it seemed very loud and very close.  So I headed into the living room (first closing my bedroom door behind me, thinking that if Leo was doing something bad it would not make Jason happy and I didn't want him waking up and having to deal with it...).  So I glanced into the living room and saw something small and black streak across the room.  Ok first, Leo is not black.  Or small.  So panic is setting in.  In case you don't know me, I don't do bugs, or small fast unknown animals.  My first thought was that Leo had somehow captured a rat and was chasing it around (He has already done a stellar job killing cockroaches and spiders).  Then I hear additional noises in the kitchen and realize there are multiple unknown animals....So as I'm entering panic mode, I go in and wake up Maddie- my resident go-to tough girl who can handle killing all the things (or at least dealing with whatever things there are that might make me shreak and jump on the couch).  I'm realizing as I"m waking her that maybe, just maybe, there are additional cats in the house.  Bless her.  I practically drag her off her bunk bed, tell her that there are CATS IN THE HOUSE!!!! and she has to HELP ME DO SOMETHING...  Needless to say we are both a little jumpy but she heads into the kitchen while i stand on the couch and watch (did I mention there are unknown animals streaking across the living room?).  (Oh but first, both of us realize we have not seen Leo- again PANIC!  If these cats got in, Leo could have gotten out!  I started looking and found him kind of cowering on the back patio where he likes to hang during the day when Maddie's not home...).  Whew- ok.  Leo is fine- back to the pressing problem

I'm standing on the couch trying not to scream (remember we do not want Jason to wake up) and Maddie heads into the kitchen and immediately I hear "OH MOM OH MOM OH MOM"  More panic and kind of a lot of loud, crashing sounds... Apparently when she entered the kitchen there was a mad scattering of all the neighborhood cats (she counted "4, maybe 5- at least 2 really big ones") that had made there were into our kitchen and when she went in and flipped the light they all scrambled out of the dog/cat food area and wherever else they were around the kitchen and back onto the counter and out the window.  Except for one poor little sweetie... (the black streak).  Every time he tried to jump on the counter he would fall back down.  He then went into panic and started circling our kitchen island (more muted screaming from the peanut gallery- that would be me...) and finally ended up under the stove.  At which point I told Maddie to GET HIM OUT.  (She may or may not have glared at me a time or two during all of this by the way).  

(I mean, closing her in the kitchen with the kitten was a good idea so it couldn't get out and run through the house, right?).  She got a broom and kind of poked him out and he eventually made it back onto the counter and out the window only falling a few times.  He did however knock a frying pan to the floor and i guess it was about the time the last little kitty made it's way out the window, frying pan crashes to the floor and Maddie and I practically collapse (I mean I had been working hard- all the standing on the couch and yelling ideas at Maddie), so yeah about that time that Jason appears in the hallway and says some version of WHAT in the world are y'all doing?  I briefly try to explain that don't worry honey, there were 4-5 stray cats in the kitchen, we got them all out, a few things crashed, oh and don't worry Leo's fine!  He stands there and looks at me for a second and says "I'm going back to bed"...  

Besides a somewhat brief explanation a few hours later when we were all up, we have not spoken of the cat invasion again.  

But hey, guess what we got today on all windows?  New screens...