Caught, Red Pawed

This blog is going to be quick because I am off to the old house to paint. More painting. Ugh. I am so sick of painting. Painting, painting, painting. If I was worried about seeing this house go, I’ve gotten over it with all the painting. And, over the ten years that I’ve owned that house, I did enough painting that you’d think there’d be no more painting left to do.

When Oliver was a juvenile I refinanced my house. To do this, I needed a new appraisal. And that meant finishing the stairwell. Fast. It was 2 a.m. and I was painting away. I’d painted every other step of the stairs so I could still go up and down. I used this great, rich scarlet paint. While the floor dried, I was painting the trim around the door the same color.

I heard a tiny mew.

I look down from my ladder and there is Oliver, holding up one tiny red paw. It didn’t take long to figure out what had happened. From the paint tray there were paw tracks leading down the steps and into the basement. They went about twenty feet before fading out. Oli had tried to clean his own feet. Then he came to me to confess…and beg for help.

There’s a lot that goes through your mind at a time like that. Is concrete paint poisonous? How much did he lick off? Do you get extra points on your appraisal for adorable cat prints?

It was about 4 a.m. when I finished washing Oliver’s feet. They’d faded to a delightful, very girly pink. They stayed that way for weeks. I went back to painting and worked for about five minutes before I decided that it would be two full days before someone came looking for me if I fell down the stairs and broke something. I stopped.

And never started again.

So last month I finished painting the walls in the stairwell. And now I’m off to do the doors and finish that floor. Bye bye, cute little kitty prints.

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