Dark and gloomy

Good morning!!  It's 7:02 am and I'm drinking a hot cup of tea and looking out the window.  It's a dreary old morning this morning.  It's all of 30 degrees in Old  Calhoun County, with humidity of 63% and a wind chill of 22.  It's not near as cold as the tv said it would be, although it's suppose to be all of 11 degrees tonight.  Isn't winter just grand??

Now, I know that there are many of you out there that truly enjoy the cold weather.  There's nothing wrong with that.  I just don't happen to be one of you. I would rather be toasty warm sitting by a fire with a good book than to be outside building a snowman or scraping a windshield.  I guess it's the fact that I'm a Good Old Southern Girl that causes me to dislike the cold so much. (Although I'm not from that far down South, just far enough to be a Good Old Southern Girl.)  Or maybe I have "thin blood" or something.  

Whatever the reason, I have no use for being cold.  

So, I was sleeping soundly under a blanket and a comforter with my pups keeping my feet warm when I was startled awake by what sounded like an explosion.  Or maybe that was just because of the dream I was having in which I was Mel Gibson's sidekick...but that's for a different post. Anyway a noise startled me awake.  So I lay there for a moment, deeply immersed in the pleasure of being warm on such a chilly morning, trying to think of a reason NOT to get up and see what had caused the racket that chased Mel from the room.  

Sighing deeply, I put my little bare feet on the cold floor and promptly screamed.  You see it's like this, it was cold last night so I decided to sleep on the couch in the living room...you know the room with the heat in it.  The living room is also the room with the television in it and the room in which we spend a good deal of time, watching said television, or playing guitar and singing, or -just sitting and talking.  It is also one of the rooms which make up the Feline Five-hundred Footrace and the site of the UFFC (Ultimate Feline Fighting Championship).  I just happen to be announcer and referee for both events.

Now for those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about, let me give you a little background information.  I have two cats.  Not much information is it?  Well, if you've ever lived in a house with TWO or more cats you don't need more information.  If you haven't had the pleasure/pain of sharing your living space with more than one cat, all I can say is LUCKY YOU!!

Now for the "rest of the story".  Periodically the contestants of both events try to bribe the officials by leaving them anonymous gifts.  This morning I was the recipient of one such anonymous gift.  When I put my little bare foot on the floor it came into contact with a very cold, very wet, very dead and possibly regurgitated mouse.  Or should I say mouse PARTS?

Now, under normal circumstances I would be happy about the lessening of the local mouse population.  But normal circumstances don't usually involved being half asleep and bare footed, nor do they involve gross, wet, sticky "stuff" clinging to said bare foot!  Let me tell you, the disposal of said "stuff" involved much gagging and cursing.  It also involved a good deal of Feline Laughter.

Not one, but BOTH of the guilty parties were sitting on the love seat, staring intently at me while I hopped around like a one legged stork cursing and trying to get said "stuff" off of my foot while not spreading it around the room like cheap frosting on a fattening cake.

I swear I distinctly heard laughter.

By the time I had managed to dispose of my "gift" neither cat was to be found.  It was as though Moses had parted the Red Sea and the cats had crossed over to the Promise Land.  They were just no longer around.

If you have managed to stop laughing long enough to give thought to how I started my morning, perhaps you could manage to find a little, tiny drop of sympathy for me.  It was not a pleasant way to start my day.

So anyway, I'm awake, the cats are in hiding and the dogs are still snoring loudly under the covers, nice and warm.

One of these days I WILL have kitty slippers!!