Cartoon: MOUSE!

The following cartoon portrays a true story involving Little Girl, my first Himalayan and a mouse. Luckily I had my camera handy and was able to take pictures.

One early morning, I noticed her sitting motionless by an old heating grate in the hallway.

"Little Girl, what are you doing?" I asked her and walked over to check it out.

Apparently, she had chased and trapped a mouse in there!

The grate is just a metal box with bars over the top, no longer in use, no wiring attached. As the whole unit lifts easily out of the floor, my husband was able to take the whole box outside (um, yes, while wearing just his boxer shorts) and set the poor mouse free.

This temporarily left a hole in the floor, with only a layer of insulation between the floorboards and an approximately 10-foot drop onto the concrete floor of the basement below. Both of us neglected to consider that Little Girl, likely thinking the insulation layer was solid and still intently focused on her mouse, would go into that hole.

And drop ten feet onto hard concrete.

Poor baby! She was okay, only slightly chipped one of her front teeth. It was pretty scary, tho and I felt so bad for her!

Here's the story, in cartoon form.
Per usual, there are errors here also: note in the "Help falling!" pic, I drew her front feet BACKWARDS! She should have her little pads showing, not her claws. This can be easily fixed with a little cutting and pasting, but somehow, I can't bring myself to change it.

Click to enlarge:
You know, I hadn't realized until today that after Little Girl died, and then Smoosh only four months afterward, I completely stopped drawing these kitty cartoons. Those deaths were so incredibly painful, that I couldn't even deal with deciding what to do with the sweaters I was wearing at the veterinary hospital when they died. It was only this summer that I was able to go through this big box of stuff I'd packed away that reminded me of them and sort it out. I was finally able to wash those sweaters and begin wearing them again.

That 30- second Praline sketch I did a few posts down is the first kitty cartoon I've drawn in over two years.

I still say I am no artist. You'll note the above cartoon is very rough and drawn on printer paper, for crying out loud. Still, I enjoy drawing these -- and had forgotten how much I enjoy making them until this week when I began posting them here.

So I thank all my kitty friends and their humans for introducing me to the Kitty Blogosphere and renewing my interest in drawing again. I spent yesterday doing sketches of flatfaced kitties, trying to figure out how to capture that "grumpy" look but without making them look too grumpy -- not easy. I'm happy to say I may have found the right combination of grump and cute.

Hopefully I'll have some time to start working on some new cartoons soon!