Frannie is fascinated by the corn husk flowers on my dining room table.  She sniffs them, bats, them, even tastes them.  I don’t allow this, but she hasn’t quite gotten the message yet.

Kukla and Ollie, on the other hand, are very fond of lying on my computer keyboards.  Sometimes they type very unusual coded messages.  At other times, they just create music as they hit a certain key that trills a repetitive musical tone.

I think they like the light of the screen shining on them as they have also learned how to turn on the reading light behind the bed in “their” room and in spite of all of the times I have gone in and turned it off, when I next go into the room, it is switched on and all four cats are curled up in a ball on the bed underneath it.

When Ollie somehow landed on this particular spot on the computer or possibly connected with something on the screen that was making this repeated tone, I lifted him off the keyboard.  Unfortunately, he resisted the idea by reaching out for a clawhold and when I finally got him detached, the key he had curled his claws around came off with him.

You should know that this is a brand new keyboard I’d had installed just a month or so ago after Morrie ruined the other one by jumping into the pool and splashing water on the computer, wiping out the keyboard.  I fear my animals have proven to be a bigger item in my budget than I had expected.

Forty minutes later, I had figured out the correct assembly method for the three interlocking pieces.  It was not easy, but it seemed right.  They all fit together and everything seemed snapped into place—until I tried to snap it onto the little mounded nub on the keyboard.  I had to force it down and although it caught hold, the key didn’t work unless I POUNDED it in a manner totally unacceptable.  Prying it off again, however, proved to be even harder than making it work.  When I finally did, on my third attempt, it launched itself—each part in a different direction. The kittens found this very distracting as they tried to locate the pieces before I did. In the end, I located the pieces and put them in an envelope in my computer case. Whether I tell the computer repairman the true story of how the injury came to be will be determined at a later date.

Sometimes it is necessary to resort to a foreign language to get the true level of your frustration across. I hope my Jewish friends forgive me as I once more vent in a language I have no claim to.  Oy vey just seems the right thing to say. Did I spell that right?

Frannie? Get off the table!!!!