12/24/2015: Merry Chr... Oh, no - not again!

I was all set to do a quick "Merry Christmas" post from all three cats, but Clinchfield, as usual, had other plans.  He does like to make work for me.

I wish I had posted the archive reports of Clinch getting trapped inside our dining room table.  We can take care of that now.  If you're friends of mine on Facebook, you've probably seen my posts about Clinch being "in jail."  To refresh your memory, or if you missed my posts, here are a few pictures:

Picture taken 8/29/2015 by Steve

Picture taken 8/31/2015 - yes, he did it again two days later

(I got to get him out this time)

Here is what Clinch would have written in his diary if he could hold a pencil:

Dear Diary, I have found a perfect hiding place, one where I can see and hear everything but where no one can get at me, especially that pesky female the authorities call "Fe". I cannot get to my favorite toy, the large male called "Pixel", but that is a small price to pay for this perfect location. However, the authorities don't think I can get out of this "TAY-ble" just because I jumped down in here from up above, where the bars are farther apart. I'm sure I could jump back up there. Maybe. Possibly not. Either way, I never get the chance to try. The authorities have cathandled me out on my two attempts then pushed the chairs back so I cannot get back to the hideout's entrances. Why do I never get to have any fun?

We kept the chairs pushed back until my Mom and stepfather came for lunch late in September, then, figuring he wouldn't do it again, we pushed them back in.  How wrong we were:

Picture taken in the wee hours of 9/27/2015

(he was lucky I was up so I could extract him)

Again, we kept the chairs away from the table until we had company, which was this past Sunday when Dad, Barb (my stepmother), Uncle Howard, and Aunt Pat came for dinner.  Clinch showed no signs of jailing himself again until today.

Steve gave me this adorable solar-powered elf that dances:

The best sunlight was on the dining room table.  The elf danced away, and his "click click click" drew Clinch over to investigate:

I swear this table was clean just a few days ago

When he walked away, I could tell he still wanted to play with the elf, so I thought, "Oh!  I should shoot horizontal like everyone says you should," and turned the camera.  I started shooting, moved to turn the dining room light on so the video would hopefully be clearer, and realized that Clinch batting at the elf from underneath the table again was all he could do.

I did cut out most of the window's glare, but right before that, if you look carefully on the left side of the screen, you can see Clinch climbing in the table.  There is sound later in the video, but you'll have to turn your volume up a fair amount.  I should figure out how to fix that.

Sorry it's not all that clear and is a bit jumpy.

Now we have the chairs pushed back away from the table again and are likely to keep them pushed back indefinitely.

So, now I'm to where I thought I was going to be at the start of this post.

Merry Christmas from

Pixel, who didn't want to pose by the tree

Fe, who is making her first appearance on this blog

and, of course,

 Clinchfield, who has thankfully not tried to climb the Christmas tree (yet)