Some cats can leap onto a table, somehow sense all the fragile items arrayed on it, and daintily pick their way through without hitting anything despite flying at high speed.

Kiko is the opposite. She jumps onto the table and invariably hits something, almost knocking over a glass of water or cup of coffee, and immediately putting everything on the table at risk. It isn’t that she is trying to send things flying. She just moves too quickly into dangerous terrain at warp speed without leaving any margin for error.

Yesterday I was heating up some leftover soup for lunch. So there were a few things on the counter next to the stove–a covered Pyrex bowl, a cooking spoon, a knife that had been used to chop a few more vegetables for the soup, and a Pyrex pie plate that used to ferry veggies across the kitchen. Along came Kiko, trying to lick the spoon, then staring into the pot that was sitting on a hot burner, apparently considering how to get a taste for herself. I don’t know exactly what triggered the explosion. Perhaps my warning her to back away from the burner. I think she stepped on the spoon and it flipped up, sending her into instant escape mode, and suddenly the two Pyrex pieces were spinning into the air and crashing to the floor, sending shards of heavy glass flying in all directions across the kitchen floor.

Luckily, the knife was balanced near the edge of the counter and hadn’t fallen. Neither had the bowl’s heavy glass lid. But it was a disaster.

Kiko retreated to a chair tucked under the dining table, where she sat somewhat chastened by all the crashing and screaming.

We tried to be philosophical. Nothing broke that can’t be replaced. It took a while to clean up most of the glass, although there were a few invisible pieces that found there way into our feet over the course of the afternoon.

All good now. Replacement pie plate on order. We’ll wait on the bowl since we have a couple of others the same size.

Meantime, it’s hopefully not something that is going to be repeated. Now I just have to get Kiko to agree.

OK. Here are the cats!