A Kitten’s Work is Never Done…

Oliver was laying in the condo in deep nap yesterday afternoon.  He was upside down, exposing his belly to the sunbeam coming in the window. A slight breeze teased the hair on that belly.

Then a squirrel came to the window sill and started eating the corn I’d put out there.

Oliver opened an eye. He rolled and lifted his head. He looked at the squirrel. He looked at the desk. He looked at the bed. He looked out the office door into the living room.

No Obi.

Seeing no alternative, Oliver stood up and slapped the window to scare the squirrel away.

You can’t get good help these days.

***

It’s Thunder Thursday! This week I was kittensitting Goblin for my friend Lori. She’d told me that I mostly had to keep his water bowl filled because he’s spending a lot of time outdoors. And he’s been dragging baby bunnies in. Each day I’ve dreaded the idea of finding something dead inside the house. Or…not dead.

I found nothing.

Yesterday, I was putting canned food in Goblin’s bowl when he showed up. “Hey Gobbles,” I said. “You want to see what I’m giving you for lunch?”

“No,” he said. “You want to see what I caught for lunch?”

He took me outside and showed me the dead house wren in the driveway. I know it was a wren because it wasn’t moving so I had plenty of time to identify it. Goblin rolled on it. He looked meaningfully at me. “Rub my belly!”

I draw the line at rubbing the belly of a cat who is rolling on something dead.

I moved four feet away and waited for him to come over to me before I rubbed his belly. Today we sat on the couch and had a purr-fest. This is one lovey kitten.

“I approve of your scritching technique. Your kittens have taught you well.”

Kerfuffle

Last week The Boy and I paid $800 for some special OutTV programming. I thought a great blog post would come from “Tree Trimmers in the Front Yard.” Well, I’ve really got to stop thinking.

Kitten Thunder didn’t look out the window at all. They napped through the whole thing.

Today, as one might expect with cats, we had great OutTV for free today. It started with our normal squirrel on the window sill. Obi was doing a great job staying calm. He just watched. No leaping or lunging at the window.

Then something started cawing outside the office this afternoon. It would caw. I would grab the binoculars and go outside. Nothing. Caw. Out. Nothing. Caw. Out. Nothing. Then I took one more step than usual and discovered the source of the caw. A blue jay on the window. Looking into my office. Two feet from where I’d been sitting at my desk.

And then…it happened.

Oliver arched his back. Obi let out a low growl. Both cats grew to twice their size as each of their three-inch hairs stood on end. A lady strolling down the alley was cooing and talking softly.

She turned into our driveway.

She walked to our window..

She disappeared.

When she stood back up she was holding a black cat. She turned and carried him back to their yard.

Kerfuffle over. Fur down. Eventually.

As I started this post, The Boy opened the window in the living room. Jeff TV with smell-o-vision. It’s Oliver’s favorite show.

Bed Bugs

The Boy has been out of town for a couple days. This, of course, means that I’ve received extra attention from Kitten Thunder. Especially at night. And, now, from Mr. Bear as well.

Lately Mr. Bear has taken to sleeping tucked under the blankets behind my knees. This isn’t where Oliver sleeps. Oli sleeps in my arms, under the blankets, with his head on the pillow. Now, though, he makes sure Mr. Bear is settled before he comes to bed.

The first night The Boy was gone, Kitten Thunder and I read until late in the night. I turned out the light. Oliver left to go get Mr. Bear.

Then it happened. Something fluttered in my face. I new, of course, that this was a miller moth – they tend to dive bomb faces right after the light goes out. So I sputtered and waved him away and settled back down. But he came back! Again and again! Eventually, I figured out what was happening…

Not wanting to be outdone, Obi was tucking HIS favorite toy into my bed as well.

He brought millers to bed for a while last night, too. But hopefully, with The Boy’s return, this foolishness will stop.

The Boy got a surprising welcome from Kitten Thunder. Obi demanded a belly rub; this is not surprising at all. But then The Boy decided to take a nap – he’d been up since 3:30 a.m. mountain time. I figured he’d have company. Even if Oli didn’t nap WITH him, I figured he’d have two aura snugglers.

But no.

I didn’t realize, when doing my figuring, that The Boy had set up a perfect storm for neglect upstairs. First, the best box in the world has returned. That’s where Obi spent his afternoon. And second, The Boy opened his closet to hang up his suit. That’s where Oliver spent his afternoon.

You can’t blame them, really. Closets and boxes are fleeting. The Boy is forever.

***

It’s Thunder Thursday! I just spent way too much time looking at pictures of LOL cats. And this is the one I picked.

 

Kitten Cute Fest

According to the saying, this is worth at least 10,000 words.

Nap time!

The grandpeople have left after a weekend of successful eating and semi-successful shopping. We saw trains and plants and shoes, oh my!

Oliver did his best hosting, laying on my mom’s lap for an hour. Obi was doing all his best cute stuff.

We were tired. A nap has been on our mind for days.

So, when my parents left I settled under a blanket on the couch. I expected that Kitten Thunder would join me in napping right away.

And they did.

Sort of.

***

I went outside to see the eclipse and the sun is shining….and it is raining. Is this a sign of the apocalypse?

Over there and under cover

While The Boy and I were standing around, discussing the weekend, Kitten Thunder checked out the progress on the layout. Oliver does not approve of the height of the layout. The chair he uses to get up to it had stuff on it. It took him at least two minutes to find a way up.

Then he had to get down.

We didn’t make him jump. The Boy set him on the floor.

Obi just jumped straight up to the top of the layout. He has no issue with that sort of thing. What he does have an issue with is photographs.

***

It’s Thunder Thursday! I thought we’d check in on Oskar and Klause. In case you don’t remember them, Oskar was born without eyes. He’s on the right in this video. It’s amazing that this game is still interesting to him.

Kitten Balls

If you wash a sheet that has been used as a cave for five months, your washer will be filled with little balls of kitten. Like, thirty of them.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

***

When we first moved into this house, we discovered that Obi can climb ladders. By this, I mean the shelf supports that go up the wall in one of my closets. For a whole year I have been careful not to leave that closet unattended so I wouldn’t end up with a kitten in the ceiling.

You’d think a cat would forget. They forget where they are going as they are walking across the living room. They forget what toy they are playing with if it goes past a different toy. They forget where they leave their people if they leave the room.

Obi did not forget.

In the time it took me to make a space for some clothes, walk across the basement to get said clothes, and return to the closet, Oliver had settled himself on my sweaters and Obi was in the ceiling.

Just like that.

This side of the house seems to be as boring as the other. Obi walked the width of the house, trapped between two joists. Then he came back. Then he did it again. Then he came back. He wanted to explore another line, but to get between different joists he had to hop down to the top shelf and he was immediately gotten.

Poor kitten.

***

An aside about clothing: I have too much. My closets are full and the basement and garage still have full Rubbermaids. I need advice on how to weed out my wardrobe. Obviously, things that don’t fit are going to charity. Plus, short skirts because my knees are too old to be seen in public. I know there’s some rule about things you haven’t worn for a certain amount of time, but I have a problem with that. For the last three years I worked in a basement where no one saw me. So I wore the same ten outfits – it was handy because they never got put away. So, any other ideas?

Oh, the catmanity!

Seriously,  someone should call the ASPCA, because we are really cruel to Oli and Obi. This day has been unbelievably hard for the kittehs. They are so glad this day is over.

First, the day started with me finding I have an amazing skill: I can stand up and run across a room before gaining consciousness if one of my kittens is in trouble. Obi was climbing the shelves over The Boy’s dresser and they collapsed. The bang and the cry had me to the pile of books and wood in seconds. Obi was nowhere to be found. A couple minutes later he came back and hid under the bed.

Oliver insisted that Obi would be fine if he had some breakfast. Happily, Obi poked his head out and agreed. The only scars are emotional.

But the trauma continued.

The grandpeople are coming for a visit next weekend. Normally this just means some cleaning and horrible things like Oliver getting wet feet on his way to the kitty crunchies after The Boy mops. This happened today. It also means I have to get my laundry off the spare room bed and hung in the closet.

But today we took things to a new level. A monstrous level. A mean, nasty, senselessly cruel level. We have removed all the cardboard boxes from our house.

I broke down the cave within the cave. I threw away the big box from Christmas. We disposed of the giant flat box that has served as a lean-to in the hall.  The Boy threw away two boxes from the basement.

Plus, no afternoon nap.

And then we had steak. And didn’t share. And we didn’t put shredded cheese on it like Obi begged us to.

And then we turned off smell-o-vision just because it was “cooling off.”

Then I played a video game while Oli was laying on my lap instead of giving him my full and undivided attention.  And NOW, right now, I am ignoring him again as I type.

Seriously, folks, these kittehs are abused. Won’t you help?

***

Happy Mother’s Day to the grandperson’s! In spite of the fact that you’ve raised two cruel people who barely love their cats enough for them to survive, Kitten Thunder still loves you. And let’s not forget More Grandperson and the great grandperson! A kiss and a headbutt hug to you all.

Miller time!

The miller moth has returned to Wyoming! As of this week even Cousin Spade, in the western corner, finally has some to chase. He’s been stalking the door for weeks.

Obi is having a great time hunting this week. He has an interesting new strategy where he catches a moth and runs it to the cave in the living room. I don’t know if this is so we can watch, which would be quite considerate of him, or because he likes to keep everything in his cave.

Once the miller is in the cave, Obi and Oli sit outside and wait. They pounce on it whenever the miller attempts to leave the cave. The result is, unfortunately for me, that there’s a pile of moth carcasses under the sheet when I move it to do sit ups or fix up the cave.

Obi has been removing books from The Boy’s bookcase as he tries to climb it in an attempt to get to high flying moths. Trying to help, I picked him up and lifted him over my head. He was inches from a miller. Of course, he didn’t see it.

Oliver saw me holding Obi and immediately started pulling on my belt loops, insisting on his turn. Poor grey kitten. I could hold Obi straight up over my head for hours. But Oli’s extra four pounds and super long body make it hard to even get him to the ceiling.

Oliver may also remember how Poco and I hunted millers. I could just toss her toward a bug and she would grab it, flying through the air, and have it eaten before she landed on the floor.

My sweet grey boy has no skills. He has no athleticism.

He has no millers.

Private Performances

Every day, Kitten Thunder entertains me with their antics in the office condo. They are sooooo cute. They nap. They snuggle. They practice their synchronized bathing routine,

I decided to show you.

With a video. Knowing the sound of a camera turning on will stop any trace of cuteness, I set up the recorder on the tripod and set to work.

But…

Obi wouldn’t go in the condo all day.

Brat.