Best Holiday Wishes

My Dad sent me this email today. It's worth a read:

Dear Brig,

I wanted to call you yesterday to tell you about the following, but
with the funeral and conference, I ran out of time. Yesterday the
painters were using a blow torch in our library to try to get some
stubborn old paint off from the ceiling near the wood molding and set
the library on fire! It was crazy. I heard them shouting Fuego! Fire!
and rushed in with our fire extinguisher while Ephraim was up on a
little ladder trying to smother the fire with a large cloth. When I
opened up with the extinguisher, I hit him in the face with a blast of
carbon dioxide, and he fell off the ladder and knocked his head on the
corner of the shelf over the fire place. The impact cut his scalp open
and there was lots of blood on the shelf and on the drop cloth. But I
did put out the fire. The firemen and ambulance showed up a minute or
two later and got poor Ephraim patched up and out of the way. Some of
the wood above the fire place was still smoldering, and the firemen
insisted on using their big black crowbars to rip off the paneling
which made a lot bigger mess than the fire did. Of course they found
nothing underneath. Just when everything was beginning to calm down, a
painter opened the back door to ventilate the house, and Kelsi, who had
been braying like a blood hound, rushed into the library and bit a
fireman on her boot (I should have said firefighter). Her teeth didn't
penetrate the boot, but she wouldn't let go, and I didn't dare pull her
off because she was so mad. The firefighter kept shaking and kicking
and dancing around and cussing like a drunken cowboy, but Kelsi stayed
with her growling furiously from deep in her throat. Another
firefighter got some pepper spray out of one of the big boxes they had
lugged into the house and gave Kelsi a blast. Unfortunately he had his
finger over the nozzle and most of the spray went into his own face, so
he was howling too, and Kelsi's jaw was still locked onto the
firelady's boot. Another fireman took his stricken companion into the
kitchen and asked me for some milk, so I gave him a gallon of 1% which
he poured over the bawling fireman's eyes and face to wash out the
spray. I guess water won't do it because the spray is fat soluble.
Well there was milk all over the floor and very little in the sink, and
Mistofalees magically appears and takes a few licks, and then he starts
to growl and meow and furiously clean his face with his paw. I got out
some more milk and tried to pour it on his face, which of course didn't
work because I couldn't hold him still. The fireman poured some into a
large bowl, and I just dunked Mistofalees's head into the bowl. He
was mad, mad, mad and clawed his way our of my grasp and ran into the
living room shaking and spraying droplets of milk everywhere. What a
mess. Simultaneously Kelsi ran yapping out of the library, over the
top of the cat, through the kitchen, and out the back door. Did I
mention that I had my suit on because I was about to leave to conduct a
funeral when all of this happened? Well it was covered with blood and
milk and maybe a little pepper spray. Luckily I now have two suits,
and I was wearing my old black one. So I quickly changed and went to
the funeral leaving Emily, who had been awakened by the sirens and
rushed down stairs to witness most of this to clean up the blood and
milk as best she could. Poor mom. Instead of coming home to a neatly
painted library ceiling, she will have to deal with putting the
paneling back together above the fireplace.

Love,

Dad

I wonder if they'll have to put Kelsi down for biting the firefighter.