Kudzu, the cat that likes to "get high".

For those of you who haven't met Kudzu, she is my room mate and she is a character. If you read Kudzu's first day of Rehab you'll have some background on her addiction to catnip. This entry takes her addiction to a higher level. 

Kudzu and I spend our evenings loving or fighting, most often a little of both. She lies about having been fed all the time, and she knows exactly how to get what she wants much like her mother. She has completely shredded the textured wallpaper in my red dining room, there are white marks from her claws about three feet up the wall along the entire room. She uses this space as her scratch-post whenever she REALLY needs attention. And don't misunderstand, she adores her actual made-for-cats scratch post, but as you know we oftentimes crave variety in our lives, whey should it be any different for sweet daemon Kudzu?

Most recently it has become extremely apparent that Kudzu likes to get high...

Kudzu has begun to dart out of the house to explore the world outside whenever I'm not paying attention. She is fascinated with the azalea bushes surrounding the house. Something is on them that she can't stay away from. When she darts out the door into my garage, it's fine, because the garage door is usually closed. When she darts out the front or back door, I have to lure her back with treats as I've been afraid she'll wander too far and there are some pretty nasty-looking cats in our neighborhood. 

The other night while it was raining (which, let's face it, has been every night the past few) I decided to keep the door to the backyard cracked during the downpour, knowing Kudzu wouldn't go too far. I've never seen a cat take such thrill to darting in and out over and over. She was drenched by the end of it. 

Last night while watching a movie with my men, Kudzu scratched and howled at the door to the backyard. I let her out. It wasn't raining. There's a bell on her necklace that lets me know where she is, and she's pretty good at coming to me when I call. So I set her free. 

I don't have any trees in either of my yards (well, I do but they're shorter than the house at this point) so I wasn't too fearful of her getting stuck in one. About 3 minutes in to the outside adventure, one of my men started to whine, and I'm not talking about Blackjack.  Markus began to worry, "you want me to go check on her?"

"She's fine. Do you need to go check on her?"I replied calmly as I made breakfast for dinner - my fave.

Five minutes in to operation: let-Kudzu-explore-the-outdoors-on-her-own, I walked outside to call for her, I could tell Markus wasn't going to stand for his darling daemon cat to be left frolicking in the cold and wet for long. He couldn't stay focused on the TV show we were watching, kept looking out the window, walking in and out of the kitchen stay out of my kitchen when I'm cooking, fidgeting, asking Jack if he needed to go outside, etc. 

Sure enough, Kudzu came when I called, she was SO PROUD of herself, all growed-up. I asked her, "boo-boo what are you doing up there?" and as the words left my mouth I saw Markus through the window hurriedly putting on his shoes. 

Like I said, she loves to get high and she made it to the highest place available: the roof. She was eyeing the chimney when I spotted her (thanks to the bell) and it was clear she wanted to come down, but couldn't quite figure out how. Markus was abhorred, "she could get stuck up there!"

Our "family outing" ended promptly when Markus climbed in the chair I had collected from the dining room and lured Kudzu off the roof. 

Next time she explores the outdoors I have a sneaking suspicion she'll find a way to come in through the chimney shoot!