The Great Cat Rescue of 2009

If you follow me on twitter, you probably got to see this update in real time, but here's the full story:So on Sunday night around 12:30am, I heard a loud crash outside my bedroom window. We're on the garden floor of a brownstone in Brooklyn, and I immediately woke up Dave and told him to look outside. What he saw was this: Okay, we put the ladder there later as a rescue attempt, but basically the cat was hanging from our cable wires, and its foot--one toe in particular--was caught in the support brackets of an air conditioning unit. It was insane! So then our landlord, who lives upstairs, came down. He's such a softie for animals that he got up on the ladder and held the cat so it could have a rest from its struggle while we called for help. Then a vet across the garden, in a building on the next street over, heard the ruckus. She came over at the same time that the police arrived. They were nervous--they didn't want to touch the cat. But the vet took over the situation and held the cat while the police figured out how to free its toe by prying open the air conditioner bracket with a hammer (Dave's idea, so he gets credit). My photo of that leaves a lot to be desired, I know. It all took about two hours, it was funny to hear the police getting so squeamish. One told a story about his last cat rescue--there was a kitten caught in a fan belt. All these tough New York City cops, and it turns out the vet is the real badass. And after 15 minutes of discussing what to do with the cat and where to take him, he leapt out of the basket we were holding him in and ran to the garden, jumping onto the backyard fence and making his way across the tops of all the fences that are connected on my block's backyard, heading home. Happy ending. Have you guys ever had to rescue an animal? It's intense. PS-If you live in Park Slope and your cat wears a red collar with bells (but no ID), and his back right leg is a little gimpy... this could be him. He's a trooper!