Meet our cat, Caper. He doesn’t always wear the hat — he was posing for a Christmas card a few years ago. The image on the right is him, too. His right hind leg, to be exact. Busted.

Caper loves to race up the stairs, jump onto the railing and jump again *over* the stairs onto the roof of our living room wet bar (the house was built in the early ’70s — didn’t everyone have a wet bar?). Three times now, that we know of, he hasn’t made the second jump. When that happens, gravity does its thing and Caper goes down, a little over 1 full floor, to the downstairs hallway floor.

Normally he’s springy like Tigger in Winnie the Pooh. Today he was less Tigger-ish and broke his leg. We took him to one vet 30 minutes to our west who recommended that we take him to another, 30 minutes to our east. That’s where he is now, awaiting surgery in the morning.

Sure, we had plans for today. I’m sure Caper had plans for today, too. My day might not have gone according to plan but at least it was better than Caper’s. And yes, we’re already making plans for a minor renovation of the stairwell to try and prevent a repeat performance.

UPDATE: After having a steel plate surgically attached to his broken bone, Caper came home yesterday. After less than 45 minutes in a room we had “cat-proofed” to keep him from jumping, he bent the plate and had to go back in for a second surgery. We hear he’ll be coming home again today and I plan on bubble-wrapping him to prevent any more re-injuries. I should also mention that the vet techs are calling him “Houdini” due to his ability to escape splints and bandages. It’s going to be a long recovery period…

Really — I’ll get back to the subject of photography soon. I promise.