0607grendel

GRENDEL AND ME (0607)

This is Where You Keep Your Valuables!

I was talking to Grendel the other day, as I was becoming a little concerned with his recent sharp increase in hunting skills. It has brought about an increase in pointless (from my point of view) debates as to whether he should be bringing his captures into the house for sharing and possible dining. As I have said in the past, he was separated from his mother before she could teach him the killing phase of the hunt. Thus he plays with his food and has never been hungry enough to make the connection.

Nonetheless, his increased numbers have included a few weaker captures who could not fare well in the existing catch and release program, and thus he has sent a couple of his preymates to their final reward.

I have thought about a lecture on civility and restraint, but feel that a prime predator like himself might not respond in a manner of political correctness. Fortunately the neighbors have not seen the cute little vermin cadavers as I dispose of them post haste. Convincing him of “humane” behaviors also might be a little hypocritical since we both watch CNN everyday. I would hate to respond to some of the questions he might have of our foibles. Asking him to not predate would like asking the moon not to draw our oceans, or the young man to keep his eyes on the road. Birds gotta sing; cats gotta pounce on birds whats gotta sing.

With this in mind he slipped away from me recently on a safari. (read walk) He is ingenious in finding ways to hunt on his own, and he had his heart set on the critter rich condo below us that has enough bird feeders to alter some migration patterns of North America.

Some of the unit owners are a bit cranky, and it was one of them whose complaint led to Grendel’s leash life. When he goes down there to hunt I stay up because my very presence near his condo is almost as bad as Grendel’s and I never even caught a bird or a chipmunk.

So when he goes down there I stay back hoping not to exacerbate the cranks. Mind you he is in harness ad 6’ leash on these sorties. I worry that he could get the leash tangled up under their decks and get caught somewhere where I can’t help him.

I resigned my self to another hour of worrisome fretting for him to return when I espied a monster tom who patrols the area claiming it is all his territory. He’s older, bigger, tougher, and has a wretched attitude when it comes to his territory. He’s a boulder of whupass looking for a hill, and Grendel wandered down into his jurisdiction. Now I am really fretting. Yet if I go down there it’s another letter of complaint from the cranks and throwing rocks at the tom would be akin to building a missile defense system in eastern Europe. Putkin would have a fit.

I thought the best solution would be to leave the slider open. That way when Grendel comes sprinting home, running for his life with that scurrilous ruffian in hot pursuit he could get into my study where terrible tom would not follow.