You’ve heard that old saying, right? “Oh, go take a flying leap!” Well, I’ll never say THAT again with quite the same reverence.

My freakin’ cat (yes, I am mad at her right now) is trying to kill me and I am CERTAIN of it now. Up until now, I thought I was just being paranoid as she twisted under my feet as I walked down the stairs, or as she darted underneath me while I walk . . . anywhere, or as she leaves her toys lying in my path so that I can step on them in the middle of the night on any random trip to the potty. All for the pure intention of making me stumble and fall like a sack of potatoes. I thought it was pure paranoia. But no. NO! Now I am convinced.

Notice the innocent look. “Who? Me?” HA! I’m not buying it anymore Sista.

Today, I took a vacation day. I had intended on painting that dang bedroom downstairs that has sat empty for three months now, but I started in on my home office. That, too, has been sitting in a dormant state for three months and collecting. . . let’s just say CRAP. It is the last room in the house to redecorate and by the time I got to it back in the day, I was worn out. And out of money. So it’s been sitting and collecting CRAP. No style. No class. No color coordinated theme. No organization. Nothing. I can live with the no style, the no class and the no color coordination, but the no organization. . . that’s been driving me insane. Batty! So I started cleaning up and cleaning out and moving furniture all about. Gosh, that sounds like I was doing the Hokey Pokey.

Anyway, my office is in my loft that overlooks the living room. There’s a standard railing there to add to the open airiness of the room and Monkey, my FREAKIN’ cat, has been infatuated with this railing since I brought her home. It made me so nervous that I moved my sofa in front of the rail to block the open rails that she used to poke her head through threatening to jump. Well, I missed my sofa. It used to be in my bedroom and I’ve been terribly unhappy with my room since I moved it out. There’s just a big gaping hole in the whole layout. It doesn’t flow.

So, I bought some foam board to cover the gaps in the railing. I moved the sofa away about four feet and I was sitting between the sofa and the railing using double-sided tape to put the board up. Just working along. Measuring, taping, hanging. In the meantime, Monkey is roaming all over the room all distraught because things were being moved around. She didn’t like this. I think it upset her delicate balances or something cuz she was acting weird.

THEN, as if to show ME how upset she was, she climbed up on the sofa (which was not unusual, so I was not alarmed in anyway) and jumped from the sofa to the top of the railing. The railing that is approximately 15 feet from the WOOD floor below and only barely over an inch wide. Needless to say, the four foot jump from said sofa to THIS railing left her with more momentum than she had anticipated and add her lack of front claws to steady herself with. . . let’s just say that she went S.A.I.L.I.N.G. It was like a really bad scene in a movie. And it happened so fast! So fast! I can’t even describe how FAST it was. Either that, or my reflexes SUCK. Because she hit the ground before I could get up off the floor.

Since I was blocking the view through the railing, I had to stand up to look over. And when I did, she was gone. Vanished. I RAN downstairs and looked everywhere calling out her name. Everywhere. It’s not a big house. But I couldn’t find her. Then there she was . . . just laying in her normal spot by the back door looking out. . . as if nothing had happened. The little freak of nature!!!

Now she KNEW something was wrong. I don’t know if she thought she’d done something and was in trouble, or if she was hurt and just wanted to be left the Hell alone. . . whatever it was, she didn’t want me near her. All I wanted to do was make sure she was okay. I couldn’t imagine her escaping that fall injury-free. I reached down to see how she was and she ran. And she kept running. Finally, I deduced that she was running on all fours okay. She appeared to be fine. Perfectly fine. HOW? I have no idea. The sound of her hitting the floor alone was so horrible that I’m quite sure I’ll have nightmares.

This was taken just a few minutes ago just to give you some perspective of my heart attack. I think she’s down there looking up at me and meowing (cuz she is in mid-meow), “Go on! Take a flying leap!”

In the meantime, I’m thinking about those invisible fences that people use for dogs to keep her off my damn railing. She couldn’t possibly get that lucky twice.