Wild child

I have a feeling that having a cat is a lot like having a teenager, in that they both can make you look like a really bad parent with their shenanigans, most of which are out of your control.

Unbeknownst to us, Sophie the cat spent the night on the roof. She has also climbed a tree and refused to come down — TWICE. The second time, she was so high up that Noah couldn't get to her with a ladder extended up the tree with rudimentary rungs nailed directly into the trunk, followed by some expert climbing.

The second time she was in the tree for five days, and we and the entire neighborhood were trying to coax her down with cans of tuna and chicken and cat food and pans of milk, to no avail. Even better, any time we'd enter or exit the house, she'd start wailing. With gusto. I SWEAR to you it sounded like she was yelling "heeeeeeaalp!" After getting really desperate (yes, we even called the local fire department but apparently this city is big enough that they actually fight fires rather than rescue cats), we finally got the name and number of a rural tree man who for the bargain price of fifty bucks scaled the tree like Tarzan and had her down in five minutes.

I'm not surprised about the roof incident, though. When they were kittens we took them on a visit to my parents' house in Chicago. My mom thought Clyde would murder them, so we kept them in our bedroom during the day. When I went up to let them out of the room for the night, Zoe came crashing through the miniblinds — FROM OUTSIDE THE SECOND-STORY WINDOW — and Sophie peeked her head up over the window ledge from the first-story roof. It had literally been cracked a centimeter so they'd have some fresh air, and they opened it. Two kittens opened a heavy storm window. Who knows how long they were partying it up out there.

I was just chatting with one of our neighbors and she was telling me about how Sophie loves to luxuriate in the sun on their deck and even stare directly into their dining room through the sliding glass door, taunting their yellow lab. I don't feel bad about this, however, because their dog (one of Cody's best friends, though she's typically infinitely more well-mannered) took a crap in our yard.

Even stevens.