Foiled!

The tree got moved this morning.

This whole escape with Portia was charming, until I got up this morning and stepped in the giant water puddle forming around a drowned sheep ornament. Now, it's on.

To rewind a bit, yesterday after I got home from work I followed a trail of downed ornaments. Portia had decided to skip the fourth and fifth day and leap straight into day six. Two ornaments were in the dining room, one in the living room, another behind the trunk. Then I got ready to feed the cats and saw the piece de resistance:

a floating ornament and another about to get the same treatment. And a cat, glaring at me for not taking the "It's diner time, human!" hint. I fished out the poor bedraggled bear-in-a-bead-wreath ornament (it's upside-down in the picture), squeezed as much water out as I could, and got all of the dry ornaments back up on the tree.

Foolish me went to bed hoping that might be it. No ornament had been taken down twice, nothing had been damaged (miraculously, for if Nico gets involved, his claws of doom usually spell the end), and the remaining new options on the tree were getting slim. I had even brought Frankenmouse back out of hiding as a means of distraction.

This morning? First, the sheep. Then five other ornaments down and out, and we had repeats. Thankfully, a tiny tree is easy to move and in about a minute everything was relocated to a small table (converted antique sewing machine) on the other side of the living room. The table was pulled away from every access point (i.e., the recliner), and Frankenmouse was strategically placed in the middle of the floor as a payoff.

We'll see what's left when I get home from work.