I have a very good reason for investing in new candles in 2019, especially the battery-operated ones. Those of you who have been to my home know that I am a huge fan of candles in whatever form and operate on the premise, the more the merrier. I use them to accentuate a corner, a dinner table, or during prayer and meditation, and lately, in the bathroom during a nice long soak in the tub. That was 2018.
When winter rolled around and I began having candlelit breakfasts, my cats seemed very much at peace with the atmosphere, despite being a bit befuddled as to why we were having a meal in the middle of the night (sunrise these days is at 08:15). During the holidays, we had an increased number of candles (Advent being the perfect excuse) but whenever the meal was over, I blew them out, because my dear half-deaf, half-blind and partially-functional-nose senior cat Lolita is impervious to most things. She has waltzed past candles so many times without noticing that her tail had caught fire but I was always there to blow it out.
One should never multi-task when you own such a ditsy cat like Lolita. I turned my back on her for a minute to get something from the kitchen and quickly finish a final sentence for the blog entry, when I smelled the familiar odour of burnt hair.
Lolita.
The Dingbat!
This time it was rather intense so I went running towards the kitchen. I found my crispy black cat, whose entire left side hat caught on fire but she rolled around in the kitty litter and then marched off to get a bit to eat, which is where I found her. The fire burned only the surface fur and no flesh was touched, but it gave me royal scare. I scooped her up and made a beeline to the bathroom, shoved the laundry aside and shampooed her three times until all the crispiness has disappeared.
Needless to say, I had a shouting cat who disapproved of the shower, finding the second and third shampooing utterly redundant, plus there were two concerned cats on the other side of the door. After towelling Lolita down and drying her with the hair drier, I finally set the best smelling cat free. No trace of the previous disaster that gave a new meaning to bad hair day… albeit the strange new hairdo, fluffy on one side and short matte on the other. Sorry, no photos available of this moment because I was too frazzled.
FrogDiva Thoughts 