I think I'll take the finger in the eye.

My worst residual problem is eye pain. But with a salt water rinse, and some leftover pink-eye drops, I hope I’ll be fully binocular by morning.

See, here’s the thing about the anatomy of the 12’ no-man’s-land (aka county right-of-way) behind our back fence: It is full of huge bamboo (flute-makers may apply,) a couple decades’ worth of fallen limbs, and vines to make Tarzan proud. I could have picked a more agreeable site to spend 6 hours of the day getting a kitten out of a tree.

But Otis didn’t ask my advice before scampering 4 feet up an old silver maple, then thinking hey cool, and going higher. Twice, actually, before getting to the first crook and realizing he was completely out of his league. So he pretty much spent the next 6 hours crying piteously, while I attempted to get him down.

Becca was home for the first couple hours of effort and, after much coaxing failed, we implemented plans A and B. A was my Little Giant ladder. The only extension ladder I can manipulate without dropping it on my head with unfortunate consequences, or breaking a window. Sadly, it did not extend enough, and put us (standing on the highest safe rung) just over half-way there. So on to Plan B. After much detangling of line from itself and the aforementioned flora features of the back lot, we succeeded in heaving a bear bag (used for suspending your food, safely away from bears, on camping trips) over a branch near Otis. Then, we pulleyed up an open-topped picnic basket, enticingly loaded with a cup of tuna. He did not care to get in that basket. Barely even gave it a passing thought. Then Becca had to go to work. I had to take a break. Still, I didn’t want to remove the option, so I tied an orange juice jug, partially filled with water so that it would just be outweighed by Otis, to the other end of the line, and went to do some necessary errands.

When Jeff and I got back, Otis hadn’t budged. I brought 100 feet of poly rope back with me though, and I doubled and knotted it in such a way that a daring and agile person might use it to climb enough higher than the ladder permitted to snag a cat. Once at the top of the ladder though, I found myself less daring than required, and returned to the drawing board.

So did my Mom, who--learning of my plight, and knowing me to be, essentially, an army of one--came to help. We tied a sheet to the tree, and she held the other corners while I ascended the ladder and attempted to push Otis from the other side with an extension broom. Alas, due to the angle of the tree, and the thickness of the underbrush, there was no means to connect sufficiently brush-to-cat, and Mom had nothing to catch in her makeshift fireman’s net.

Mom left because she had to. I wondered, via text, when Rachel the tree-climbing wonder-daughter might be able to perform a rescue. But, being a real-life employed teacher of children, there was no way for her to get here by dark, and I was left to ponder. And fret. In installing the rope-which-I-couldn’t-climb, I’d removed the escape basket. That seemed wrong. I couldn't give up for the night with no such option in play so, taking a tip from the internet (go net!) I re-threw the bear-bag. (This took about 20 tosses, and as many detanglings.) I got it. This time I hoisted a laundry basket--the floppy kind with two handles. With the tuna, of course.

The nice thing about the floppy laundry basket was that it showed a greater willingness to snug up close to the branch, in a way that the stiff picnic basket had not. Before I’d even gotten my orange juice jug counter-weight tied to the other end of the line, I saw--in addition to the shadow of the tuna container in the bottom of the basket--four paw shadows. I did not waste time. I lowered the basket-kitty contraption and snagged a kitty who was never so glad to be apprehended.

Oh, my eye. It was on one of the about 60 or so trips up the Little Giant that one of those ubiquitous vine or stick things poked me in the right eye. It still hurts, quite a bit. Otis is sacked out on the dog bed, having been properly cuddled and fed. I do not wish for him to go outside ever again. I’m afraid he will.

Jeff used to propose that cat brains looked as follows: One neuron, dangling by a thread in the middle of the skull. I surely hope Otis’ neuron absorbed some aversion therapy about trees today.