The House of Worsham would like to introduce...

PETE the Magic Cat!!! Do not be Fooled by his cuteness of appearance for he is a formidable Magician of the First Order of Merlin.

*applause*

Now...for his first trick...it is called The Disappearing Seaweed. This isn't just any trick now folks...the key is to apparate the seaweed out of the wicker basket on top of the 4 ft. high bar and have it reappear magically next to the dog bowl. The key to the trick is the dog bowl. It places full blame on the dog and grants our hero a clear conscience. (Of course the fact that the dog could in no way reach her 80 lb hiney to the top of a 4 ft. bar and delicately extract one item from a wicker basket so precariously placed is of no consequence.)

The seaweed should appear thus after trick is accomplished:

*note -- have tall, pretty, blond female assistant clean up random bits of seaweed and plastic bag on the ground before photographing for the world.

For his next trick The Great Pete will be performing the most fearsome trick of all...

*drum roll*

Cat Pulling Yarn Out of Butt !!!!!!

*gasp*

Yarn is to be completely unrolled and strewn about room for full effect! The secret to this trick is to have a cat yarn stash located somewhere in the house that no humans know about. Make them think they have ALL yarn put completely out of your reach and then, voila! Magic!

Yarn should be appropriately untangled...like so...

*note upon doing trick arrange it around the room for a most dramatic and crowd pleasing effect. Tall, pretty, blond female assistant can relocate it for photographing so as to get it all in one shot.

...and that concludes our entertainment for this evening folks.

Stay tuned for next time.

--Pete the Great Magic Cat

The Great Mouse-capade

When we returned from xmas break and were putting away things in the pantry...I noticed that there was a bag at the bottom that had been 'broken into'. Immediately thinking of Petey (because he is the king at breaking into plastic bags that smell good) I thought we'd left the cabinet door cracked or something. Of course, he does have monkey toes so he could have broken in himself. Thief!

However, I went up a couple of shelves to sit away a can of soup and I noticed other things were chewed open too...the granola, a carton of chicken broth, some Homemade Gourmet seasonings, etc. Obviously that was more items than Pete could loot in a night so I came to the correct conclusion that we had a mouse move in (or maybe it was pre-existing?!) over Christmas.

So...we snooped around and found some droppings and I went and picked Pete up and put him the "Mouse was here" area. He got sniffy so Warren and I thought we'd see results...he's brought us presents before! lol (We really did mean to pick up a mouse trap but then got caught up in the fun of watching Pete on the hunt...and it gave him something produtive to do.)


After Pete got a whiff, he went on Mouse Patrol every night. I'd catch him perched up on top of the table keeping an eye out for it.


A couple of nights go by before we saw REAL evidence.

At 4:30 a.m., I was awakened by a commotion coming from the kitchen. I walk blearily into the dining room and there is Warren standing at the entrance to the kitchen holding my good rolling pin (!!!) and the kitchen rug. Petey is sitting in front of the open pantry door on alert, his tail whipping back and forth rapidly.


The rather fat field mouse is up on the highest shelf perched on top of a box of cereal.

Pete decideds that the mouse needs help coming down because it isn't going to voluntarily jump down. So he commences to CLIMB THE WIRE SHELVING!!! I have never seen anything like it! He was griping the edge of the shelving with his orange-cat-monkey-toes and pulling himself up with his body vertical in the air...like climbing a tree but not really...which is why it looked so funny.

The mouse sees Pete on his way to "rescue" it and decides to make his getaway by jumping over Pete's head into the kitchen.

Warren and I of course run screaming from the kitchen and I go stand on a dining room chair, which was right behind me and Warren runs to stand on the couch...about 5 seconds later Pete comes prancing out of the kitchen holding the mouse by the tail! And heads toward our bedroom! We yell, "NO Pete! " At which Grace finally wakes up and comes out of the bedroom which deters Pete from entering and he drops the mouse!!!! OMG! The chase was on!

Mouse and Pete are flying around the living room/dining room, Grace isn't awake enough yet to comprehend what she is seeing, Pete and mouse are just a blur running around and finally end up in the extra bathroom...where I go shut the door. Then I realize it could get out from under the door....which it did.

Into the extra bedroom which had lots of boxes in it.

The next day Warren rearranged the room so most extra boxes fit in the closet.

No mouse.

Pete kept patrol going for a few days.

As of yet we have had no more break-ins to the pantry, we haven't smelled anything, and there have been no "presents".

We think Mr. Field Mouse moved out.