Poor Kitty. A short while after I came home this evening, I lit a set of good smelling candles I have displayed on the coffee table and settled on the couch to do a little work on my laptop. Kitty came over and jumped up on the table to watch my activities. Distracted, I didn't really pay attention to her until I started to notice a funny scorched smell and a thin stream of smoke rising above my monitor. Kitty had flipped her tail too close to the candles and it caught fire! Completely freaked out, I leapt into action and patted her until I was sure the mini-flame was out. Kitty was unfazed. She hadn't made any noise the whole time, and when I picked her up to give her a squeeze, she immediately started purring. In case you don't know, singed fur smells horrible, and the scent hangs around. If nothing else, she had to notice THAT, but I can't be sure at all that she knows how close she came to becoming a little Kitty fireball. The tips of her fur are now incredibly rough where the flame touched.

Good lord. The unforeseen stresses of pet ownership. Em came over later to watch The Girl in the Cafe (so good and so different than I expected!), and the apartment still reeked of burnt hair. Knowing that she's okay, we had a good laugh over the Kitty fire scare.