WILD KINGDOM

9 July 2003

The hunter spotted his prey. Slowly, cautiously he waited for his opportunity. His tail twitched anxiously but he bided his time. Suddenly his target was on the move. Instantly the two were in a race to the death--leaping over obstacles, one running for his life, the other hoping for a morning snack.

This is the scenario which greeted me around 5 a.m. this morning. There was rustling, then crashing and then the thump-thump-thump of feet, then more rustling and crashing. From my perch on the couch, with my leg dutifully in the upright and locked position, I opened one eye and saw Chew, the Mighty Hunter in hot pursuit of his prey. What his prey was was not immediately apparent. However, as I struggled to get to my feet to check out what had gotten the cat so wired, a tiny figure zipped past on its way to the front hall. Chew was in motion in an instant.

The whatever-it-was (I assumed it was a mouse) apparently ran behind a bag because Chew sat there forever, staring at the bag. I got tired of watching and went to make coffee. When I came back, Chew was still sitting there. I got my book and started to go back to the couch when Chew was in the laundry room. There were scuffling noises and next thing I knew there was Chew with four teeny paws wiggling on either side of his whiskers, a tail waving frantically, the mouse's head inside the cat's mouth.

Hard to know what to do in a situation like that. I decided to let nature take its course and may the best beast win.

Chew dropped the mouse to play with it, the mouse made a mad dash for the kitchen and the last I saw of him, he had run under the stove.

My day today has been a cat sandwich--it began with Chew the cat chasing a mouse and ended with a production of "Cats" at Sacramento's Music Circus (to the best of my knowledge, there were no mice eaten during the performance).

In between was 400 miles of highway that had to be covered. We managed to leave Walt's sister's house at 9 a.m. on the dot, as scheduled. I felt bad that Walt had to do all the driving this time. On the ride down he had Jeri to help him, but she was staying behind to do wedding stuff. He was stuck with me, with the use of only one hand, and his 90 year old mother with macular degeneration, and very little usable vision. So he had to do it all.

We had a couple of brief rest stops, and then a lunch stop at a place out in the middle of nowhere (which pretty much describes most of Highway I-5) called The Apricot Tree. This restaurant's claim to fame is that its owners have been collecting metal lunch boxes for years and own more than 1200 of them, and they use them to decorate the restaurant. The beams are topped with lunch boxes and the dividers between the booths are plexiglass boxes which contain thermos bottles. Now you can't say that isn't different!

A mere 8 hours after we started, we were arriving at Walt's mother's retirement community. We had a quick dinner in the dining room with her and then went to see "Cats." Not exactly the way I would ordinarily choose to end a long day on the road, but I had to review the show--and now (1 a.m.) I have to write the review.