badness

Hazel lives to perform.

Just now, I can only see the black side of her nose, because she is peering around the corner at me, with just one eye, contemplating which of the tricks in her repertoire she should resort to next. At the moment, the kitchen table is ripe with possibilities. Even if there were not a wad of embroidery floss, a pen cap, and a roll of wrapping paper to knock on the floor with a dramatic flourish, she would tear more shreds in Olivia’s plastic bag full of dvds or dive headlong into a pile of newspapers with the velocity needed to scatter them across the kitchen.

She is 8. She should have outgrown this nonsense, but--at 7 pounds--she really hasn’t outgrown anything.

Plus, especially for the Christmas season, there is a tree to tackle. I know better--well, let’s say I’ve learned better--than to hang anything breakable near the bottom, but you can still make a lovely racket with what is there. If you tire of the basement door game.

The basement door game. That’s the one in which you (and by you, I mean Hazel,) sit at the top of the basement steps, behind the door which is left open just enough so that you can access your food and litter box. You push the door open all the way. I close it, because I don’t like the basement door wide open. You push it open again. I close it. Repeat until you decide you’d now prefer to jump from chair to chair staring at Chessie. Or stare at Rachel. She’s reading Jane Austen, but you can make her notice you’re staring at her. You know you can.