Cats in the Belfry

My tainted pussy is at it again. The expensive Bengal cat that lives in my home became a major headache for my sister and her family this past week.

Three days before Christmas, my real estate agent called. An anonymous Washington Redskin player who already owns a home or two in Atlanta wanted to see my house the very next day.

I had to set my pina colada down in the Waikiki sand to call my mother and ask her to make sure my house was presentable for my potential buyer. That meant, of course, removing the cat and her litter box from the premises for the better part of three hours.

Lauren and my mom drove the cat to my sister’s house and asked if they could lock her in an empty room of their basement. In return, they offered to take Holly to lunch.

When they returned, Lauren went to get her cat. Only the cat wasn’t there. After searching the room and calling for Bella, Lauren heard a sound coming from the ceiling. Two ceiling tiles were missing, and Lauren quickly realized that her cat had jumped from a dresser to the top of the armoire and gotten into the ceiling between the main floor of the house and the basement. There was nothing to do but wait for the cat to come down on her own.

By the time Bella finally emerged – eight hours later -- Holly’s husband was beside himself, certain that Bella had left some souvenirs in the ceiling.

But he couldn’t really raise too much of a fuss. Not when their own cat, Liza, lives between the walls.

Several months ago, he had to knock a hole in a basement wall in order to repair some plumbing issues. Liza the cat, who spends her days hiding from the four children and only comes out when they’re in school or in the bed, discovered that hiding place, and since then, no one has seen her during daylight hours.

Liza’s plight got me to wondering about something. I understand the Christian faith’s skepticism about reincarnation. But I also think that God is creative and has a huge sense of humor. Simply sending a serial killer or terrorist to hell is way too boring. Wouldn’t it be more fun to turn a radical Muslim into a pig the next time around? Or sentence Saddam Hussein to be a homeless cat who gets adopted by a family of four small children who “love” him so much that he’s happy to live between the walls? I can hear God saying, “You liked harassing innocent people, so we’re going to give you a taste of your own medicine. And this next time around, your 'palace' is going to slightly resemble the hole you crawled into when you were hiding from US troops.”

Osama Bin Laden could return as Lady Gaga.

Michael Vick could come back as a fighting gamecock, and if he’s a good boy from now until he dies, he gets to strut around the sidelines at South Carolina football games.

The dude who just tried to bomb a plane by setting his own crotch on fire? God’s probably saying, “No reincarnation. I’m gonna go ahead and give you those 72 virgins you think I promised and let you spend eternity wishing you hadn’t blown your own dick off.”

And since my tainted pussy is, apparently, the difference between selling a house or not, in her next life, she is going to be a real estate agent.

A Scandalous Christmas

This morning at breakfast, as I sat eating fresh pineapple and looking out over Waikiki Beach with Diamond Head in the distance, an article in the The Honolulu Advertiser caught my eye.

Oahu, it seems, is experiencing a Christmas tree shortage. Hundreds of buyers got in line at 4 a.m. yesterday in hopes of snagging one of the trees being flown in at the last minute from Oregon.

For me, it brought back memories of the Great Christmas Tree Scandal of 1995.

In the late 1980s, my parents bought a condo on St. Augustine Beach, and they were there every chance they got. Of course, they always spent the week after Christmas at the beach, usually leaving the day after Christmas to get there.

From the time we kids first married and the issue of scheduling our holiday gatherings arose, Mom and Dad were always great about saying, “We want everyone together, but it doesn’t have to be Christmas Day or even Christmas Eve. Sometime in the week leading up to Christmas is perfectly fine with us.” Part of the reason, I think, was that preachers work on Christmas Eve. And if Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, they work on Christmas Day. Like most families, for the Adams, holiday flexibility is a matter of survival.

In 1995, though, we somehow managed to celebrate the Adams Family Christmas actually on Christmas Day at lunchtime. Mom and Dad were planning to leave for Florida after the celebration.

We loaded our children into the car and drove to Grammy’s house. Morgan was five years old, and Lauren was not quite two. As we pulled into their driveway, Morgan said in a horrified voice, “Why is their Christmas tree in the road?”

Their limp and lifeless and sad tree was already at the curb on Christmas Day, flecks of tinsel blowing off the tree and across their yard in the cold December wind. They never have, and never will, live it down.

This year, when it came time for me to decorate a tree, I understood how my parents felt. My artificial trees were ruined in the water heater flood back in September. Since I’m moving to Florida, I didn’t want to buy another artificial tree and then have to move it. But I didn’t exactly have a vehicle big enough to bring home a real tree.

I found a Christmas tree farm in North Carolina that would ship trees to my front door. I ordered a 6’ Fraser fir for the rec room and a 7’ one for the main level of the house. The trees arrived two days later, and Lauren helped me pull them from their boxes.

The 6’ tree was my height. And the 7’ tree wasn’t 7 feet tall. I grumbled, and Lauren laughed, but what were we going to do? Send them back?

After an hour of sawing off lower branches to get them into their stands, I was covered in needles and sap. I picked up the “6-foot” tree and made my fourth attempt to shove it into the stand. When it still didn’t fit, I began cursing and slamming the tree and stand against my newly-replaced hardwood floors while telling Santa where I wanted to put the trunk of that tree. Lauren’s eyes got big, and she said, “Mom, why don’t we take a break and go get some dinner?”

I went upstairs to grab a jacket and saw the 3x3 inspirational card I keep next to the mirror in my bathroom. It reads, “Attachment to the way things should be is the source of all your suffering.”

“Should” is a dangerous road. See, my family should be intact. My kids should all be home, and we should be decorating the tree together. I should be watching the man of the house wrangle with the artificial trees that never got ruined. My basement should never have flooded, and my beautiful house shouldn’t be on the market. “Should” is a recipe for misery.

So rather than sitting around and shoulding on myself, I’m in Honolulu to see Petras and Baptiste, the two boys from Europe who lived with us and are now a part of our family, play in a tournament in their last year of college. While Atlanta is enduring freezing rain, I’m sitting on Waikiki beach drinking a pina colada and listening to Bing Crosby sing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.” I’ll be home on Christmas Eve to celebrate with my children, but because of scheduling difficulties, we won’t actually celebrate Christmas with my mom and dad and the rest of my family until the day after Christmas.

And since we’re leaving for St. Augustine after that celebration, my trees will be already down when all my nieces and nephews pull into my driveway.

They won’t be on the street, however. I’ve cut a deal with the guy selling trees in Honolulu. When I get home, I’m going to overnight him two slightly dry Fraser fir, and we’re going to split the profit. It will forever be known as the Great Christmas Tree Scandal of 2009.

Since that’s the way it is, that’s the way it should be. It should be a great Christmas.

Sexy on Display

Several years ago, I actually inspired an item for sale at Victoria’s Secret. Well, sort of.

My sister, Holly, and I were at the Mall of America in Minneapolis for our annual Christmas shopping trip. The mannequin in the window of the Victoria’s Secret was wearing a sexy little Santa suit, a red lace bra and panty set lined in white fur and completed with a Santa hat. I nudged Holly and said, “I bet Kevin would like that for Christmas.”

Her eyebrows shot up. Grinning, she said, “Yes, he would.” We entered the store and began looking for the little Santa suit. It was nowhere to be found, so my sister asked a sales associate, a spandexed and stilettoed twentysomething who was rearranging tiger-print bras, if they had sold out of the Santa suits. The girl looked at us with an expression that said, “Who let the nutjobs out of the psyche ward today?”

“It's for display only,” the little snot informed us as she rolled her eyes. We slithered out of Victoria’s Secret, somehow ashamed to have been asking for an outfit in the display window. Like we were some sort of perverts with a Santa fetish, some real-life ho-ho-hos. “It’s for display only,” I said, mimicking the snotty sales girl, “not for personal use.”

Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who asked. Because the very next year, we walked into the very same store to see a mannequin clad in a fuschia-colored Santa suit. And behind the mannequin was a whole rack of the outfits just waiting to be taken home for personal use.

A pretty blonde approached and asked if we needed help. Holly said, “I want one of those Santa suits.”

“Aren’t they pretty?” the girl gushed. “It’s like Christmas, only pink! And it's accentuated.”

I looked at the padded hot pink bra. It was studded with tiny rhinestones and lined with the white fur. Accentuated, indeed.

Holly paid for Kevin’s gift and brought it home to Georgia. On Christmas Eve, after all the toys were put together and laid under the tree, they exchanged gifts.

Unfortunately, it was after midnight and they were both battling the flu. So the much-appreciated gift was set aside to be used at a more opportune time.

The next morning, after the excitement over their toys had subsided, one of the four-year-old twins noticed the box. “Mommy! It’s beautiful!” the girls said, obviously thinking Santa had brought the pretty outfit for her. Holly, already busy with the breakfast she was preparing for the extended family, quickly grabbed the box and stashed it in her bedroom.

Later that morning, as Kevin’s parents, our parents, the grandmothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and two teenage exchange students sat enjoying the breakfast casserole, cinnamon rolls, and freshly-squeezed orange juice that Holly had so carefully prepared, one of the twins came running out of her parents’ bedroom with an open box in her hands. She headed straight for my dad, stuck the box into the space between his face and his breakfast plate, and excitedly said, “Look what Santa brought Mommy!”

The Santa suit was back on display. It was, I think, a new twist on the old saying, “Use it or lose it.” Because everyone in that room lost it -- except for Kevin’s mother, who somehow pretended not to notice.

On Monday morning, Holly and I are going to Lenox Mall to celebrate her birthday and to finish our Christmas shopping. At some point, we will pass by the Victoria’s Secret on the main level of that mall, and I will nudge her and snicker and say, “I bet Kevin would like a sexy little accentuated Santa suit for Christmas this year.”

And my sister will say back to me, “It’s for display only.”