{"id":1061,"date":"2016-02-18T05:38:15","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T13:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/?p=1061"},"modified":"2016-02-18T05:45:29","modified_gmt":"2016-02-18T13:45:29","slug":"bring-your-best-game-thursday-hidey-cats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/?p=1061","title":{"rendered":"Bring Your Best Game Thursday\u2014Hidey Cats"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Neighborhood

Neighborhood Garden Cat<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019m not running a contest today because I want to talk about something that happened with one of our cats last night. For years, we have kept our cats inside and they have been purrfectly happy, except for one little girl we adopted from the animal shelter. She absolutely unequivocally refused to use a litter box. She would \u201cgo\u201d outside, only\u2014even in the rain! So Dinah became our only inside\/outside kitty. Thankfully, she didn\u2019t succumb to a coyote, dog, or owl attack, like many cats do. Nor was she run over by a car. She died of a brain tumor, of all things. RIP dear Dinah.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to 2016. Late yesterday, we had mattresses delivered. We propped open a screen door for the hefty delivery guys, and I stood guard so no cats would inadvertently escape. Neither Sophie nor Lily would normally run for safety outside because their safe area is inside, but you never know when something might frighten them in that direction. Once the delivery men had left, we closed the door and settled back into our life.<\/p>\n

However, when it came time to feed the cats, only one of them came to the kitchen. Lily \"alyzaylilymidjuly09-010\"was nowhere to be found. And she\u2019s the one who never misses a meal. If nothing else brings her to the forefront, it is mealtime.<\/p>\n

Well, we called and we searched and Lily did not even respond–this is so unlike her. We opened closets and cupboards that haven\u2019t been opened in weeks, we looked high and we looked low\u2014there was no Lily. Could she have slipped outside unnoticed? After searching outside, under cars, in the garage, neighbors\u2019 yards, we were just sick. What could have happened to sweet Lily?<\/p>\n

About twenty minutes had passed when we decided she\u2019d been swallowed up by the large gob of plastic wrap the delivery men carried out and she was in the back of their truck. But before the phone call went through at Sears, we spotted Lily\u2019s little face peering out from behind the TV set. She enjoyed her dinner. We did not. We were still too upset.<\/p>\n

All is fine. She\u2019s on my lap purring as I write this.<\/p>\n

\"frypay11\"Do you have hidey cats? I thought we\u2019d discovered all of our cats\u2019 special hiding places\u2014in the linen closet among the folded towels, up in the lining of an old mattress, in the closets (of course), under the beds and under the blankets. Where are your cats\u2019 favorite hiding spots? One of my grandcats hid in the car engine once. Could have been disastrous. As it was, he only got a bit of a haircut. Another grandcat liked to explore the inside of the oven. Once, he burned his paws\u2014yes, the oven was hot that day\u2014and he immediately jumped into the sink and walked around in cool water.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t tell you how happy we are to have Lily safe with us and I sure hope she never puts us through anything like that again.<\/p>\n

One neighbor suggested Lily was trying to help me come up with a storyline for my next Klepto Cat Mystery. I can sure write that script from a deeply emotional place now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not running a contest today because I want to talk about something that happened with one of our cats last night. For years, we have kept our cats inside and they have been purrfectly happy, except for one little … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1061"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1063,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions\/1063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}