One thing I'm grateful for is that Shira is a relatively quiet cat. And when she does talk, I love hearing her little chirps. On the other hand, I have Maggie Mayhem. That cat talks enough for ten cats, usually in the middle of the night or very early in the morning. Last week, I decided enough was enough. I needed some sleep and listening to Maggie talk and headbutt the lamp by the bed was interfering with that goal. So Maggie went to jail. Jail was the bathroom in my basement. Due to the oddities of plumbing, furnace & water heater location, and crawl space access, that bathroom is about 7 ft by 12 ft -- nice and big. It's a fine place for isolating cats. Normally, the cart containing my assorted cat show and care stuff is parked on the back wall under the door to the crawl space. The cats have figured out how to open the door and go in the crawl space, then walk on the heat ducts to get out into the rest of the basement. So I moved the cart, thinking the door was plenty high that Maggie couldn't escape.

I was right about Maggie's inability to open the door without the cart. What I hadn't counted on were her accomplices. I'd left Shira and Zeke out and they apparently felt sorry for Maggie. One of them (I suspected Zeke) climbed up on the heat duct in the storeroom, went into the crawl space, and opened the door from that side. Half an hour later, all three cats were back in my bedroom.

The next night when Maggie acted up, I tested my theory about Zeke's involvement in the jail break. Zeke & Maggie were sentenced to the bathroom and I left Shira out. I could hear her walking on the duct work into the crawl space, but Zeke and Maggie never managed to escape. I guess Shira couldn't figure out how to open the door from the back. I might as well have put all three of them in jail, though. After Shira couldn't get the door open, she periodically came upstairs to tell me about Maggie and Zeke's predicament. So much for a peaceful night.

The next night when Maggie was a pest all three went to the basement together. Ah... how much better I felt after a good night's rest!                             

(Please note that you will see a number of photos of our cats and kittens that I've taken outside in a natural setting. The LostWoods cats do NOT go outside unsupervised! When we do go outside for pictures and occasional adventures, there is always one person and usually two watching them closely. We do have an outside, fully enclosed run to which the older cats are allowed access, but even then we check on them often.)

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