I am not dead.

I haven't posted lately for a variety of reasons.

My last post was made from Orillia. I left there and came back to Windsor, but only for about twelve hours, and then I was off to Lexington. From there, SouthernKitten had a business trip to Indiana and I tagged along. Really, I could have posted from Indiana while she worked,and in fact meant to, but really, I guess I'm too lazy.

From there Southern Kitten and I came back here, but again, only briefly and then we were off to celebrate my birthday in Toronto. Since then I've been here. Southern Kitten left a few days ago and since then I had a bit of a financial crisis and had some technical difficulties with the internet.

It's all resolved and I'll be home for a while now, so, with any luck I'll get back in the habit of posting.

Now that the excuses are out of the way, on to something (hopefully) more entertaining..

***

The trip back to Windsor with SouthernKitten was not entirely as easy as one might have hoped. We got a little over halfway, well into Ohio, when Devilcat's sitter called.(Devilcat is SouthernKitten's, uh, kitten [cat, really, but he'll always be her kitten]) Seems that Devilcat had not been adjusting well to his temporary home. Consequently he'd been locked in a room upstairs. After a couple days of this the sitter decided that maybe he'd open the window and give poor Devilcat a little air.

This was not a good idea.

No one knows exactly how, but somehow Devilcat managed to pop out the screen and escaped out the second story, over asphalt, window.

The sitter looked for four hours, enlisting the help of several friends before he called. They made posters and everything. Clearly fearing the wrath of SK once she found out. He called just as we were entering the small municipality of Piqua, Ohio on I-75.

I could tell from the one side of the conversation that something bad had happened to Devilcat. Frankly, I feared that he'd fallen to his death. SouthernKitten asked that we pull over for a bit so that she could collect herself and then was ready to get back on the road north to Cold Cold Canada. This didn't seem like the best plan to me. Continuing north with a sobbing girlfriend in the passenger seat did not seem like much fun. (She figured I could just turn up the radio very loud and drown her out) Spending the next several days in Canada with the same girlfriend, now worried sick and likely occasionally still sobbing, also did not seem like much fun. (I didn't want to have to carry a radio everywhere) So I suggested maybe we should head back to Lexington. She didn't think we needed to. After repeating and rephrasing the question about a dozen times, she decided that maybe it was a good idea after all.

Devilcat is a... unique creature. He's declawed, which most of the time is good. (If he weren't, I'd have no legs left beyond the mid-shin level and he'd be a lovely rug) In this instance, out in the wilds of suburban Kentucky, no claws was a liability. As was the fact that his considerable girth means that running more that 15 feet requires a nap and his antisocial demeanor means that he won't respond to anyone but SK.

All this really meant that I thought that SK's immediate presence would substantially up the odds of a happy ending to this tale. (He comes when she calls. If anyone else tries this, including me, the most they get is a disinterested look)

So I turned the car around and we trundled back towards Kentucky.

About half an hour short of Lexington, SK's cell phone rang again. The sitter and his crack team of searchers had located Devilcat. In the middle of his neighbour's back yard.

So, Devilcat was successfully recovered and everyone was greatly relieved. Since it was now after midnight we decided that we'd crash at SouthernKitten's place and resume our trip the next day, after a bit of a rest.

All in all this little detail had meant that we'd covered a total of about 60 miles in about 7 hours using a full tank of gas.