"Minnie' - A Kitty Stuck In A Tree Over Christmas

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It was about noon on the day after Christmas. I had been playing with all of my new tree climbing toys from Santa for about a week as I could not resist opening them early. I was thinking about climbing a tree since the weather was beautiful (50 and sunny), but I had tweaked a back muscle changing out a garage door opener two days previously for my lovely wife and it was still reminding me how old I was. As such, I had about decided to just give my back a rest when ---- "Brrringgg, Brrrinnnng!!!" What was that strange sound? After a minute, I realized that it was the Kat Fone! It had not rung in months! Blowing away clouds of dust, I picked it up and tried to keep the eager anticipation out of my voice. "Hello, Bob Reese here, how can I help you? PLEASE DO NOT BE A WRONG NUMBER!" -- well, so much for keeping eager anticipation out of my voice. It was 911 services for the county; a Ms. C had called them about a kitty stuck in a tree for four days, and they still had the creepy flyer that I dropped off at their office many months ago about a weird guy who wanted to save cats stuck in trees. Wow, I had thought that particular flyer had gone straight to the circular file. Anyway, they gave me Ms. C's contact information. I called Ms. C, got the facts that Minnie had been stuck in a tree in the back yard for four days and lived in West Point, which was only about 20 minutes away.

So much for my tweaked back muscle, there was a kitty to be rescued! I just had to hope that adrenaline would get me through it. As I pulled up to the house, I could see a young black cat hanging out in the crotch of an oak tree about 20 feet up, visible over the roof line from the front. I knocked on the front door, met Ms. C, and hauled my equipment to the back. Two young boys were playing in the back with the family dogs, who they assured me were friendly with Minnie. As I set up my equipment, Minnie was meowing and running back and forth on a long limb that just about reached the roof, but not quite. I was able to use my new super-dooper sling-shot (the technical name is 'Big Shot') to set my climbing line in the tree above Minnie. I climbed up using my new single rope technique gear (lots-of-neat stuff) wearing my spiffy new green Christmas helmet (thanks Bryan and Faeh!) and was soon even with the limb that Minnie was on. During my climb, Minnie got a bit nervous and retreated to the end of the limb. But as I was tying in at the limb, Minnie decided that I was her ticket to her food dish, and she was in my lap purring up a storm before I could get the Kat Bag unpacked! When I opened the Kat Bag, she climbed in with very little encouragement and was a quiet kitty all the way down. Ms.C took charge of her and Minnie was soon enjoying a long delayed meal in her kitchen. It was a trivial rescue thanks to Minnie; it took longer to unpack/setup/pack than it took to actually rescue Minnie!

After the adrenaline wore off, my back muscle reminded me that it was still there and started twerking like a Miley Cyrus wannabee, but it had been worth it!