Where Are All the Cats Coming From?

Or, in proper English, "From whence come all these cats?"

You may remember how The Great Garbage Disposal Destruction, through the wonders of raw sewage, gave me the leverage I needed to get a new kitchen and you may remember my subsequent moanings about the issues of a remodel (i.e. it's dang expensive). But despite the coma-inducing sticker shock we have gone ahead with the project and are currently Under Construction.

I haven't said much about it because what is there to say about exposed drywall and dust inhalation? It's just not that glamorous no matter what Extreme Makeover Home Edition and that annoying host with the soul patch would have you believe--in fact as goofy as Ty Pennington is, a picture of him is more interesting than the picture of my kitchen right now so you'll have to make due.

The thing I find so amazing about the whole process is that if I were to walk onto any car lot in the nation with the amount of cash that it takes to remodel my small-ish kitchen I'd have salesman swarming over me like cats over a salmon dinner. Hmmmm . . . cats and fish . . . we'll get to that point in a moment.

But needless to say instead of eager salesman waiting on me hand and foot, desperate to satisfy every kitchen desire of my heart I'm chasing down installers and salesman, trying to coordinate deliveries and measurements, all for something that I haven't actually seen and don't know how it will look. In essence, I've seen no show model as a demonstration, had no test drive, have no idea whether I'll even like it. I mean I have a pretty good idea but I'm not sure. And I need to be sure when this kind of money and inconvenience is involved.

In an effort to prepare for the upcoming chaos, I decided several weeks ago to defrost the refrigerator and see what the elves had been hiding behind the corn dogs. To no one's surprise I came up with some very old salmon and halibut leftover from Andrew's hunting and gathering frenzy last summer that was now sporting the Mother of All Freezer Burn. I'm not a big fish fan (obviously or I wouldn't have forgotten about it now would I?) and put the packages in a plastic grocery bag which I then set outside the door on the back deck. It's Alaska, and in March it's still freezing outside so I figured I'd leave it there and then take it up to the zoo.

The zoo? Oh I don't know, I remember when I was a kid my Mom once said that she was taking freezer-burned meat up to the zoo as a donation and though I've never actually done this, somehow it seemed a good idea at the time--I hate wasting things and I didn't want to throw the fish into the garbage cans in the garage for fear of the smell. So zoo it was, the poor caged animals could be fed freezer-burned meat.

Only problem is I forgot about the bag. We rarely use the French doors until summer and I forgot that I'd stuck that bag outside. The thermometer climbed, the snow began to melt and still I failed to remember about the poor little zoo creatures. March came and went, then April progressed until temps were hitting 50 and 60 on the sunny side of the house--the side with the bag of no-longer frozen fish. Then the zoo came to us.

One morning I woke to find that we'd had visitors and that the neighborhood cats had taken a fancy to the ripened meat we were offering out back and during the night had got into the bag. I opened the door to a crime scene of Biblical proportions with rotten salmon and halibut strewn on the deck, the smell of the juices nearly knocking me out.

Oh they'd had a great time with it. While cleaning up the mess, in my mind's eye I could see a sudden rash of neighborhood cats mysteriously dropping dead from food poisoning and wondered if they'd be able to trace the source back to me. Great, just great. My deck now smells like the inside of a whale's stomach and I get hauled down to headquarters for killing Crazy Cat next door. This remodel is going to be fun.

Technorati tags: Alaska, kitchens, motherhood, appliances, remodeling