lost and found

I often lose things as I'm not a very organized person, but this week we've lost a few interesting things that warrant a post.


First story:

The other night after I put the boys to bed, they were still up goofing around in their room, which is normal. James came and asked me for some tweezers, which is not normal. I'm used to requests for water but not tweezers. I got the tweezers and went in his room. He was pretty embarrassed but finally told me why he needed them: he had something up his nose. I looked up his nose and couldn't see anything. I brought him to the bathroom for better lighting and way back up in his nose I could see something--but it was really high. He told me he had tried blowing it out but that wasn't working, so I gently put the tweezers up his and pulled this hard plastic thing out:

I think it might have been a craft eye from one of his school projects, though I'm still not sure. James just said it was garbage. It's amazing how large the nasal cavity is. I don't know how it got through his small nostrils. Lovely.
He did change the story the next morning. He said he got some garbage up his nose, then he sneezed and "it rocketed out". I thought that was pretty funny.



Okay, next story. It's about Leon. You can probably guess what happened. We let him out last evening and he didn't come back like he usually does. I was very sad. Here's some pictures of my precious cat:

with my sister Marie, post about her coming soon :)

Lounging in the sun

This was taken 5 days ago!! We had enough snow to sled.


And here he is waiting at the door like he usually does when he wants to come in. Or, if he doesn't want to come in, he still usually comes after I call him a few times, especially if I put some food out.

So last night I put a can of food out, expecting that my little trick would work. He still didn't come, so I warmed up a new can of food (Leon likes wet food) and put it on my nice china and put it on the door step. I know he doesn't care about china but I thought it was a nice gesture....still no Leon. By 10 pm we had both taken turns wandering our neighborhood. I spoke with a neighbor and she said another neighbor put up a sign for her missing black cat. It just so happens that Leon didn't have his collar on last night. He often takes it off, and this last time he took it off outside. So there's two missing black cats with no collars! I really didn't think Leon would simply wander off, so we figured he was either taken in by someone or--shudder--eaten by a coyote. I drove around calling his name, but still nothing.

We went to bed a little sad. I think Eva was a little sad too. She was doing her "cry-meows" and waiting by the door. Finally she came to bed with us. We had left a can of cat food out just in case Leon came back. We slept with the windows open so we could hear any noise. Around 5 am we heard a noise outside that sounded like the tin can moving around. Jason went downstairs expecting a raccoon or something, but he was really excited to see a black cat at the door eating the cat food! He opened the door but the cat ran away. Leon would not have done that, so he knew it wasn't Leon.

This morning I made a bunch of signs to put up and headed off to my exercise class. While I was gone, Jason put up a few signs. He saw the other missing cat sign and called the lady and left a message. She must have been talking to another neighbor because right after that she showed up at our door and said "I think I have your cat". Apparently someone had found Leon last night, had assumed he was her missing cat, and brought Leon to her. (Side note: her sign says "REWARD" so I wonder if she paid the person who found Leon). The lady said Leon looked exactly like her cat, down to the 10 white hairs on his chest. But he wasn't getting along with her other cat, and that's when she noticed he had claws, so she knew he wasn't her cat. She put Leon in her garage where he spent the night. Jason picked him up and brought him home, then texted me that Leon was back. I had a big smile on my face as I left the gym.

Leon is sleeping now and is a bit grumpy. I don't think he liked spending the night in the garage. And I don't think we'll let him out at night again.