I reeeally need to get one of these pronto. The reason will become all too clear if you read on.

So, as you may have seen over at Modern in MN, the wood fired oven is officially up and running! Over the past week or so we've been hanging out on the patio in the evenings, enjoying a smore or two while working our way up from small, not-so-hot curing fires intended to heat the oven up just enough to gradually drive out any remaining moisture, to full on, raging infernos that have flames shooting out the front of the oven and get things hot enough to char a pizza crust completely black in less than a minute. So much for running back into the house for a split second to grab my tongs.

Anyway, you'll recall our two indoor kitties, right? Well, early in the spring when we started leaving the sliding doors open most of the time, our younger cat M-Ah figured out that she could open the screen door by pushing on the back edge of it. So we started making sure to keep it latched to prevent this, but it took her all of half a second to figure out that if we were outside, the door wouldn't be latched, a fact that she continues to exploit about ten or twenty times a day.
This is otherwise known as every time we go outside, she does, too.

And now the dog knows the trick, but that's another story for another post.

Anyway, my 17-ish year old Angela, who, it should be noted has no claws and almost no teeth left, and who has NEVER been an outside kitty, is M-Ah's partner in crime. Unlike the dog, she's too stupid to have learned the screen door trick from her sister but she's smart enough to be the first one out the door as soon as soon as it gets opened. Because it takes pudgy M-Ah a minute to un-wedge herself from between the back edge of the screen and the glass before she can benefit from her own labors.
So we've just learned to accept that the cats will get out and because they never go far, we don't really worry about it anymore. (And honestly, as harsh as it may sound, if that's the way my little old lady wants to get to the end of her life, I guess that saves me the drama of deciding when it's time for the one way trip, you know?)
Anyway, there we are, enjoying another gorgeous evening, relaxing and having a beer out on the patio, when all of the sudden Boy mumbles something, jumps up from his chair and grabs Angela in mid-scamper heading back into the house.
Hello Boy? Since when do we want the kitties to NOT go back into the house?

Well, woot woot for Boy, because here's when:


So much for being a mild-mannered, helpless indoor kitty, huh? And have you tried prying a freshly killed mouse from a cats' mouth lately? Not. Fun. Turns out those two remaining teeth are still pretty sharp.