Monsters in the house

We had some excitement this weekend -- unfortunately, it wasn't the treat bag being left out kind of excitement. It was the wrong kind of excitement. We had a pipe burst upstairs. Water was everywhere, including flowing through the ceiling fan in the living room like a fountain. Fortunately Dad was home. Unfortunately, it took him some time to get to the water shut off switch because it had been buried over time. Now there are fans running constantly, and strange people in and out of the house.

We've been locked in the room over the garage, living with Dad like a couple of college roomies. Mom is up in Cincinnati until Tuesday night, so she's stressing from afar, and imaging the worst possible scenario since she's not there to see it for herself. We all were having a really good weekend until late Saturday.

The cleanup crew is really good, and Dad has a lot of confidence in them. But in the meantime we'll protest about our captivity, and wake Dad up at 5:00 am talking because we want to go battle those loud fans that sound like monsters.

It has been very stressful. In the midst of all the chaos Dad managed to wrangle three of us. Poor Huggy Bear was scared to death and was hiding in the garage under a piece of furniture. Dad got him safely into the bonus room over the garage with the rest of us, but I'll tell you, there was a moment when Dad couldn't find him that he worried HB had managed to sneak out. Thank goodness that wasn't the case.

Like Mom said, it is all being taken care of. The carpet isn't ruined, no furniture was ruined. The house is still standing. It's just not fun right now.

On the bright side, we all took turns snuggling with Dad last night. Josie even got under the covers with Dad.

Strange hissing monster in the closet

So yesterday Mom and Dad were rushing around getting ready for the Willy Wonka opening night at the theatre, Mom was putting on the opening night party and Dad was going to be juggling during intermission. So Dad was downstairs getting some stuff together to go, when Mom was upstairs about to get dressed so they could leave. Mom stepped into the walk-in closet to get her clothes when all of a sudden she hear a ::hiss:: ... Mom stepped back, looked around to see where it came from. I sounded like it was coming from the shelf where Dad had hung Mom's pants after they were ironed. She didn't see anything and stepped forward and again ::hiss::! Again Mom steps back nervously. She does a quick scan and doesn't see any of us. She was thinking maybe we were hurt and in hiding in the closet, but doesn't see a cat.

She calls for Dad and he rushes up. Mom says, "I think something's in the closet. It keeps hissing." The attic access is in the closet, you see, so Mom was thinking some critter had gotten in the attic, then made its way into the closet, maybe a possum or a mean hissing lizard. So Dad slowly inches into the closet and sure enough ::hiss:: again.

He steps back quickly, tells Mom that she may want to go to another room, and he starts clearing items away from the closet floor (like the small dirty clothes pile) that something could hide in. Dad is looking around the closet trying to come up with a plan: trash can to catch "it" in (whatever "it" is), or "do I grab it?" He even considered bringing us cats in to hunt. And then he saw it -- saw where the hiss was coming from -- right there on the shelf: the IRON was letting steam out after ironing Mom's pants!

(Seriously, if there was a critter in the house, did Mom and Dad not think we wouldn't be all over that in a heartbeat? Humans can be so silly.)