Our First Month: A Report from Oliver

Note: This report has been dictated to The Girl by Chief Executive Kitten, Oliver. She will not be adding in her two cents.

"The trials and tribulations of the cat, they are many."

This past month has been a hard transition for the Thunder staff. With The Girl staying home, our roles in the household have been more challenging than ever. First, my primary duty is to ensure maximum quality couch time for the people. You’d think this would be easier with The Girl doubling the amount of time she spends in the house. However, she is stubbornly refusing to go to the couch for long stretches of time.

I though we were making progress. For several days The Girl spent maximum time on the couch. My quality assurance, in fact, had her convinced to spend the night on the couch as well. Even though she insisted on coughing and sneezing – which I think is kind of disturbing – we were working steadily toward our couch time quota. Then, inexplicably, The Girl went back to insisting on long stretches of sitting in front of the box of light. She is there from breakfast time to lunch time and again from lunch time to dinner time.

I’ve adjusted my work schedule to allow for Girl supervision from the condo and snuggling in front of the box of light. Obi has also taken on additional Girl supervision duties. Plus, he has to come up with extra cute things to do because she is here so much. Luckily, The Girl doesn’t seem to get tired of the old standards: belly rubbing, playing with shadows, becoming a bed monster, etc.

In addition to our household duties, Obi and I have put some thought into The Girl’s business. We’ve tried to convey our ideas to The Girl but she seems to want to do this on her own. This afternoon while I was listing business leads she pretended not to understand me. “What?” she said. “What do you want? Does your tummy hurt?” Please. Just take the advice, or not, and move on.

All in all, it has been a successful month. I fully expect to receive our bonus, at least a can of tuna, any day now.

Reporting from in front of the box of light,
Oliver Pi
CEK

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Where’s The Girl?

Oliver and I spent the first part of the day on the couch. Then I ruined both cats’ lives by going downstairs.

About ten minutes after I left Oliver, he arrived in the basement. I was working out but stopped to hold him in my lap. The Boy came down a few minutes later. “Oh good,” he said to Oliver, “you found her.” Oliver had been calling for me upstairs.

A while later the grey kitten was gone and I heard a brown kitten crying in the laundry room. I called out to him and he trotted into the room. I held him in my lap and gave him kisses on his ears.

A few minutes of snuggle satisfied him and he left.

Five minutes later, a brown kitten cried from the laundry room. “Obi! I am where you left me!” He returned for more ear kisses.

Left.

Returned.

Left.

I have returned to the couch. Kitten Thunder comes through on occasion to make sure I stay put. Evidently, this is where I belong.

Left.

Returned.

Brudders

Obi was laying in the condo this afternoon when Oliver limped into the room. Oli walked over to the condo and prepared to jump in.

“There’s a brother in that condo,” I said. Oli jumped anyway. Obi wrapped himself around Oli’s legs and licked the nearest shoulder. He would never begrudge his brother a spot in the condo just because he was there first. This is a sweet fact about Kitten Thunder.

Legs bound by a brother, Oliver struggled to get loose because what he really wanted was to be on the desk. Once on the desk what he really wanted was to be on my lap. I crossed a leg to support his back and cradled him like a baby so I could play with his feet and rub his belly while I clicked away on Facebook.

Obi scootched around so his head was toward us in the condo. Then he rolled onto his back and stretched, backward, over the edge of the condo. His arms reached for Oliver. Oli was getting his neck scritched so his head eased back and he saw Obi. He reached his arms out so they touched Obi’s.

They stayed like that, stretched out with paws touching, for several minutes.

Nothing beats a brother’s love.

***

It’s Thunder Thursday! Today, we bring you Esme, kitten of Thoughtsy from Thoughts Appear.

http://thoughtsappear.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/do-cats-need-a-passport/

My cats are not spoiled.

In fact, Kitten Thunder endures a life of hardship.

Exhibit A.

What? You think he should lick soup out of a bowl on the floor or something?

Exhibit B.

We ARE working. This is very important for my clients.

And just in case you think only my cats have it rough, I bring you Tubbo. The most neglected of all squirrels.
Exhibit C.

As you can see he is struggling to survive the winter.

The DeReEmasculation

Obi has very coarse hair which really needs to be brushed almost daily. When he doesn’t get brushed, he gets matted. Luckily, Obi loves the brushing. Looooooves getting brushed.

Unfortunately, his preference for brushing is for pleasure and sometimes he objects to attention to certain spots. Like his armpits. And his…legpits.

Recently we’ve noticed matted furballs between said legpits. We think Obi was attempting to regrow his, er, “boy bits.” He was doing a pretty good job, actually.

Sadly for the faux bits, they fell victim to the scissors when The Boy and I trimmed Obi’s mats last night. Poor bits.

Obi, king of mellow, just laid back in my lap and watched it happen. He even stretched a leg out to show us some matted fur we would have missed. When Poco had to be trimmed there was almost always blood shed. Mine.

***

In an ongoing update of the super cruds: I feel almost 100% better but my voice is gone. I have to get two inches from The Boy’s ear to be heard. It creeps the cats out.

Oliver is limping, even on the double drugs. On the good side, he woke me up and begged for breakfast this morning. That hasn’t happened for weeks. So a little good, a little bad.

A full day of purr therapy has gone a long way for both of us.

***

Have a great week, everyone. Thunder on!

Battle of the Super Cruds

That’s right, cruds. I’ve been fighting off a cold for a week and last night my body gave up the fight. So I blog from the couch with two kittens administering purr therapy.

In kitten crud news, it turns out that it isn’t okay for Oliver to have the sniffles while on antibiotics. We have upgraded him to bigger, badder antibiotics and a month of steroids.

We are a pathetic pair.

The upside? Quality time on the evil couch all day long. Well, until I had the audacity to sneeze at 2:45 this afternoon. At that point I lost both kittens to the upstairs for their afternoon nap.

***

It’s Thunder Thursday! Since I am blogging from the couch with a grey kitten on my arm and a brown kitten on my feet, I bring you Chip. Chip is the baby neon tree dragon that I did NOT buy last week.

Have a great weekend!

Obi on the Job

Tadaaa!

Sunday Snapshots and Schneezels

Today was not supposed too be another Pajama Day. But shortly after The Boy coaxed me onto the main floor with the promise of steak and eggs, I was joined on the couch by Kitten Thunder. How can I make my two fuzzies get up just because I am still in my jammies?

***

Speaking of jammies, I got green pajamas with kittehs on them for Christmas. They are very soft. They are a big reason why I’m being held down by Kitten Thunder. They love the soft jammies!

***

Oliver is very sneezey this week. Any disturbance makes him sneeze. Rolling over. Getting up. Walking across the room. Eating. Drinking. The Boy and I are tired of being sneezed on. We are tired of the schneezels.

***

When given the choice between a pepperoni or a pinch of shredded cheese, Obi will always pick the cheese. Brown kitten loves him some cheese.

***

The Christmas tree is naked and waiting for The Boy to put it away. Obi will miss it. He still plays with it every day. I will not miss scooping Christmas tree out of the litter box.

***

We haven’t touched the jigsaw puzzle since The Boy’s mom left. We’ve been busy. If we don’t finish it soon there will be no more pieces. Somebody keeps taking the pieces and hiding them under the rug.

***

That’s all for Snapshot Sunday. Happy birthday to my grandma, Kitten Thunder’s “More Grandperson!”

A Stoney Story

My friend Sarah is celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of me wearing a pink gown. Okay, so she’s celebrating her wedding. But that pink dress was a big part of the day.

Back then I was still living with my parents and we had three cats: Stasha, Poco and Stoney. Stoney and I had a love/hate relationship. He loved my magic scritchy fingernails. I loved to pick on him.

One week before Sarah’s wedding, I was picking. I don’t really remember what I was doing to him but I do remember the moment he had had enough. He sighed. It was the heavy, through the nose sigh that said someone has to be pummeled. Since my picking was supposed to be good natured, I decided to leave him alone.

As I was walking away, something made me turn around.  I turned just in time to see Stoney launch his 20 pound fuzzy self at my head. I was able to get my forearm up to deflect him but I ended up with a huge gash down my arm, a deep black bruise from wrist to elbow, and a black eye because the force of the impact made me punch myself in the eye.

A week later, for the wedding, I accessorized my dusty rose dress with a bruise of plum and olive green topped off with a six inch long scab. It was not subtle. All of Sarah’s wedding pictures were rearranged so that arm could be away from the camera. The black eye, mercifully, had faded.

Please note that I am standing on the wrong side of the bride and my icky arm is behind her, but NOT touching the white dress.

There is still a thick line of scar near my elbow from the incident. There is another scar that crosses it from another incident where I pushed Stoney to the heavy sighing phase. Stoney, it seems, was not satisfied with leaving his mark on my memory.

Happy anniversary, Sarah and Jason!

***

It’s Thunder Thursday! Today I bring you Chris’ June Bug and Miso. First, a little bit of InAndOutTV.

"Let me in!"

And then, a demonstration. On how to be sneaky. And how to be…less than sneaky.

"Some things are good for hiding."

"Some things are not."

Lessons Learned: Week One

As you know, I quit my comfy job at the State to open a social media company. This first week has been very educational. Here are some of the very important things I have learned:

1. No matter how many times I walk into the living room, Obi needs his belly rubbed. As if no one has rubbed his belly for days rather than 15 minutes.

2. If I work in my office for hours at a time, Obi will entertain himself while supervising me. By unmaking the bed. And unpacking the boxes from my State office. And knocking things off of flat surfaces.

3. Oliver believes the best way to get good thoughts into my mind is through head butts. Repeatedly, as I try to see through him to the computer screen.

4. The sun through the window + The Girl’s shadow on the wall = hours of InTV viewing pleasure.

5. The afternoon nap is nonnegotiable. Seriously. I have one to two assistants in my office all day but at 3 p.m. I am suddenly alone. Kitten Thunder goes upstairs to power nap in order to prepare for their evening responsibilities.

I’d show you adorable pictures of Obi unmaking the bed or a video of him watching the hit show Girl Shadows, but my computer won’t cooperate. So those we’ll save for another day.

More lessons, I’m sure, are forthcoming.

***
Many of you have asked after the grey kitten’s health. He is doing much better! In fact, the combination of the steroids he had for the pain with the antibiotics has him feeling super charged. He is spending most of his day on the top tier of the new kitty condo – seven feet up in the air. But, because of last year, I won’t stop worrying until the antibiotics are gone and he is healthy on his own.

***
Some of you have asked about my tooth. I’m happy to say that this is my third day without any pain killers whatsoever. After six months maxed out on Advil (and Percocet, for a while), the freedom to eat and drink without worry is so nice.