Sage Tales

Sage Grass Cat

Last night I spent a good deal of time fixing the wrongs of Sage. Most of the time he really doesn't mean to break, destroy or tear up stuff, but his klutzy-ness often wins out. I live in an old school house. By old I mean built sometime in the early '60s. The new part anyway. The old part was destroyed in the fire of '72. What this means is very high tile drop ceilings, large (6 x 6 ft) windows and concrete block walls. Most of it the original versions. Which translates into 'nothing is as easy as it should be' when I go to fix things or even hang a picture on the wall. So I tend to let things pile up before taking restorative action. Take the curtain and curtain rod that Sage got tangled up in and now have been hanging half off the wall for a month. Or the screen that Sage knocked off another window trying to impress one of the outside cats. And the light bulb that has been burnt out since Spring (which I cannot blame on Sage, but would like to).

All of these little jobs called for carrying the ladder in the house and setting it up. This is always a disaster. Let's just say "Grace" isn't my middle name either and leave it at that. Once the ladder was set up, I immediately had 'help' and had to crawl around a very large very determined (if not graceful) cat to even get up the ladder. Surprisingly I was able to get the rod re nailed into the curtain board and it stayed! Wow, that was easy. While moving the ladder (after extricating the help), I managed to almost knock one of the low hanging cafe lights down, and I did manage to spill a whole box of small nails. This isn't surprising. What is surprising is that I still always forget and leave things on the top step of the ladder. Think things like pink paint (still finding spatters from that incident), hammers (which hurts)and the like.

Sage and his beloved (and heavily guarded) cat tree

So the light bulb changing and the curtain rod hanging went well. Even the rehanging of the screen went good. But it was hot, and even though things went well, they didn't go smooth, so I was getting a bit testy. When I went to pick up the gazillion nails that had spilled all over the floor, Sage once more took over the ladder. Which was fine.

Now, I think I've mentioned Sage is a klutz, but he is a pretty serious klutz and has very, very tender feelings. While he is big and ornery and sometimes downright mean, he absolutely hates to get 'yelled' at (and his definition and mine of yelling are very different). Especially if it is something that just 'happens' when he is either playing or poking his nose into my business. Things that he thinks it's unjustified for him to get in trouble over.

Sage In A Bucket

So back to Sage on the ladder. By this time he is sprawled across the second to top rung and the little brace shelf. He barely fits. I'm very hot and sweaty and have been crawling around in the floor rounding up tiny nails for ten minutes. I want to get the ladder down and out of the house, so I can move on to outside chores. So I tell Sage to get down. Maybe there was a little bit of a tone, but I thought it was a reasonable request. Nope, he was just gonna lay there, thanks very much. So I reach up and try to lift him down. (No easy feat in itself) I might have said something else in a ' firmer tone'. Okay, I did. Something like, come on Sage get down! Now his feelings were being flayed, and he was sure I was gonna knock him off the ladder, on purpose. He glued himself to it and started growling. I was muttering and prying one paw off after the other. By the time I was done, the growling had escalated in pitch and length. So I had an unscheduled break. Sitting in front of the fan, holding a large, very upset growling cat. We had a long talk, (with lots of you better not bite me comments thrown in) and when he was finished growling I let him down. He was ruffled, his feelings smashed to bits, but he would be okay. I knew this because he turned around and tried to bite my ankle.

So, this is how he copes. Anytime I raise my voice in irritation or anger at him, he becomes this growling, hysterical beastie. It takes him awhile to get over the trauma of it all. I guess sometimes the big guys are the sensitive ones. ;-)

Baby Sage & Teddy Bear

(This little bear looks so much, much worse now...)