By @GlenysOConnell
I hide plants.
There, I've confessed.
W
hile everyone else
is out there nurturing their pretty green garden plants and jewel-toned flowers, I’m hiding
houseplants. It's not like this is some dark secret vice or anything - like talking to dead
people or collecting booze bottles or having a mad crush on Justin Bieber (if I was blah-blah years younger, maybe…)
No, I hide plants for their own good. Ever
since a certain young lady came to visit for a while, brought by one of my
sons, there hasn't been a safe place for plants anywhere in my house.
Her name's Miss Kitteh and she eats house
plants. Now there's a dark secret vice if ever there was one.
It all started when the aforementioned son
decided he was changing jobs and couldn’t keep his beloved cat with him until
he had got settled in his new apartment. I sighed a bit (we already have two
cats) but agreed. Of course, it was only going to be for a week or two.
That was three months ago.
And in that time, Ms. Kitteh has cut a swathe
of devastation through my pride-and-joy house plants. Even worse, she's got the
other cats chewing on them as well.
So I have plants hidden on a high shelf in
the bathroom. And two on the guestroom window sill - a forbidden spot for cats
but unfortunately, one where the plants get forgotten at watering time. Then
there's in the window behind my desk, and another - one of my favourites -
hidden on a filing cabinet behind my office door. And that door is kept tightly
shut.
I occasionally wake up in a sweat (yeah,
it's an age thing) wondering if I remembered to close that office door. Of
course, I then elbow DH awake to ask him if he noticed it was closed. It's a
good thing he's pretty patient. Or maybe just too tired to care.
Of course, I've read that some house plants
are dangerous to cats if they chew them. That may be so, but nothing seems to
upset Miss Kitteh's digestion.
What worries me is how I'm going to retrain
the other two to stop chewing, once Miss Kitteh goes back to her rightful
slave. I mean, owner.
She's a former stray with sharp claws,
sharp fangs and an even sharper temper. But you know something? We'll miss her
when she goes to her new home.
Like, really.
Glenys O'Connell, a card carrying member of the Crazy Cat Lady Club, can often be seen waving her arms to stop traffic while she rescues turtles, frogs, snakes, chipmunks and other assorted creatures on busy highways. Friends predict that one day she'll be smucked by a fast moving transport. But until that day, she plans to keep right on writing - right now working on Never Kiss Another Frog - a romance writer's guide to dating for women who no longer believe in fairy tales! Visit her at Romance Can Be Murder! or on Twitter at @GlenysOConnell
So what else is exciting? It’s snowing again. Not that I saw much this winter. We were colder than normal in the Florida Panhandle but still warmer then Connecticut. 
