And how was YOUR weekend?

I was busy making half-finished Hallowe'en costumes for a bunch of dolls for a meet I had no intention of going to. That was alright though because they're still not finished. I'd say the most finished out of 3 or 4 is only about 40% done so it may not ever happen.

Because of my sojourn (truth!) in Austin, I dumped boarded my two cats at my father's house with a stern admonition to not let them outside the house, no, never, nunca, jamais. My father does not like cats.

After I came back, the cats remained there because, as my sister reported, the cats were in the house but had gone into hiding, which meant I could not just swing by and pick them up and I did not have time for their foolishness during the week.

So, Tootsie Pop Owl, how long does it take to wrangle two single-owner agoraphobic cats? Answer: Two days.

I wish I was kidding.

The cats are named One of Two and Two of Two. Two is the younger by a year and is inbred and crazy, even beyond normal cat crazy. Once I got to the house, One eventually came out and sat with me but refused to go beyond the end of the hallway and would sit just inside the bend and howl until I came back. Two was nowhere to be seen and she could have been anywhere. According to reports, she only came out at night and ate and drank and disappeared again. So I spent the night at the house waiting for her to emerge so I could ascertain the location of her hidey-hole. Fine, I found it, easy enough. Any sudden movements or loud noises and she was off like a shot though so no hope of simply tackling her.

The next morning, I ran some errands since I couldn't do them once I had the cats and came back to the house. I armed myself with old clothes and a flashlight and went looking. She wasn't where I had last seen her. I systematically took apart the room she had been hiding in and discovered several hours later ... she has changed hidey-holes entirely. Two is extremely shifty and if she wants to be hidden, she will stay hidden, to the point where she will not move or make any noise whatsoever, even if you're stepping on her, so her movement or noise will not raise an alert. That meant I had to wait for nightfall again. I found the room she had been hiding in and had to work my way through blocking her exits until I had her cornered which took another couple of hours because, like a French comedy, she ran from room to room before it occurred to me to start closing doors. Once I had her pinned down, I had to extract her from under a vanity while she fought like the dickens, without making a sound. As I said, she is shifty and she fights like a rabbit so even while I had her head and front legs secure, she struck out with her back legs and clawed me into sausage pieces.

One was of no help and pretended to help me but gave me false leads and got herself locked in closed off rooms.

So I spent my weekend tracking and extracting my own cat from my own father's house and next time I go anywhere, I am boarding the cats at whatever the cat equivalent is of a Dickensian workhouse, end of story.