Christabelle, the Vegetarian Cat

For the past few days, Christabelle, the princess of the bookworm house, has been begging to go outside. She is an indoor kitty, but she enjoys an occasional stroll on the porch. She lets us know when it's time for her excursion by running out the front door ahead of us and parading up and down the porch, looking for a new plant to nibble. After a few minutes, the front porch becomes boring because all of the plants are down below in the garden, plus there is road noise; and the occasional tractor or log truck sends her racing for the door.

To appease her whim, we take her out on the back porch where it is quiet, the herb garden grows right up against the porch edge, and she can visit our outdoor cat Purr. Christabelle makes a beeline for the herbs. She seems to enjoy sniffing lemon basil, but to satisfy her green plant craving, she goes for shoots of grass that spring up. I was so concerned about getting her outside and making sure she was going to stay for awhile that I forgot my camera until she was almost done in the basil, but I managed to get a few shots, albeit under protest from the Princess.

Here she is contemplating her next snack. My little vegetarian has made it impossible to keep live plants inside. She destroyed a plant I wanted for my apartment several years ago. I had to take it to my grandfather for intensive resuscitation, and when she would go to visit my mom when I would go out of town for extended periods, all plants had to be put away -- far, far away -- out of sight and out of smell because Chrissy can find the most ingenious ways to get to her little green yum yums if she has the slightest inkling that there might be something edible in the room. I am extremely happy that our new house has a fireplace mantel and several tall pieces of furniture that she can't climb, jump upon, or hop from a low table to subsequently higher ones until she reaches her plant. At least here I can keep flowers from my hubby safe and unnibbled on the mantel or high and out of reach without having to build elaborate barricades of books to keep her away. For some reason building fortress walls around a vase of roses takes some of the enjoyment out of getting flowers from a thoughtful man.

Strangely enough, she doesn't want to play in the grass or walk in her favorite green stuff. Christabelle is too prissy for that. She wouldn't lower herself to eating anything she walks on, so she never leaves the porch or walkways. Miss Priss simply cranes her neck to see what she can nibble from the solidity of a clean concrete stoop. Today was a good day for yum yums because we've had too much rain and humidity to weed eat this week, and the grass that escaped into the herbs were just right.