At arms length

I went to my home town for a client visit – a whirlwind trip that started yesterday and ended today. I somehow managed to get my suitcase out of the house without either cat seeing it so I don’t think they even knew I was gone.

I haven’t seen The Boy yet, so I don’t know for sure.

Since arriving home, Oli and Obi have been in the same room as me. But on the other side. Clearly there is some confusion about protocol when they aren’t certain if I went on a trip or just had a really long meeting.

***

It is Thunder Thursday! However, I’ve got nothing.  Sorry, I don’t have the will to go turn on the computer to find something.

Have a great Labor Day weekend!

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Combustible Cow Juice

So before we start today’s story, this:

I am sitting at my desk, ready to blog. Oli and Obi, of course, are on hand. On desk. Oliver is standing in the plastic bag that my new power strip (nerds say “yay!”) came in, and scratching his chin on the corner of the cardboard box that my new mouse (geeks say “hollah!”) came in. Scratching his chin makes his foot want to scratch. His foot is held down by a plastic bag.

Scratch. Lose balance. Scratch. Lose balance.

He’s given up. He’s laying down. Send tuna.

***

So, the real story:

This week I bought some massively huge steaks for The Boy to grill for us. Massive. Huge. And also? Delicious. They were so big that neither of us finished our serving last night. But kittens were waiting.

Hoping.

Since I am not one to disappoint my fuzzies, I moved my remaining steak over to  The Boy’s plate so Oli and Obi could lick the steak juice off of mine. And they did. And then…

Oliver exploded.

It wasn’t a literal explosion, of course, but things came forth from his head at alarming pace. On the rug. In the entry way. In the hall. Under my desk. Now, anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time knows that Oli has a sensitive stomach. Anything the wrong color, or temperature, or on the wrong day or served facing the wrong direction makes his stomach revolt. And it isn’t surprising that his stomach didn’t like our steak which – when ordering at a restaurant – we describe as “ask the cow to walk over the flame before she plunks down on our plate” rare.

So no big.

This morning I nearly forgot that I had a whole serving of steak left over from last night. Luckily The Boy came home for lunch. I held Obi so we could watch The Boy prepare a burrito type thing with beans (in a can but NOT tuna) and green chiles (GROSS) and chopped up steak (whatever). What Obi was waiting for was cheese (yes!).  I have never seen a look that communicated “where’s the damn cheese?” any more clearly than the look Obi gave The Boy.

There was cheese.

There was also fat. Now, there’s no way I would ever cut the fantastically delicious fat off of my steak. But The Boy did. So I chopped it up and put it on the breakfast plate for Obi. He looked at it in disgust and walked away once he’d finished his cheese. He is SUCH The Boy’s cat.

Not as interested in preparing food and starving, I did not make a burrito. I nuked my steak in the storage bowl, grabbed a fork, stabbed said steak and gnawed on it in a circular fashion. Still delicious.

The bowl went down on the floor for Obi. As The Boy headed back to work, we both congratulated Obi on his not exploding like his brother did last night. I played my turn in WordFeud. And then…

Obi started walking backward around the house…

No…

Explosion!

Obi walks backwards when he is sick. I don’t know if he’s trying to back out of the situation, if he thinks he can get away from that bad feeling in his throat, or if he just doesn’t want to get anything on his fur. Whatever his reason, the result is a solid trail of explosion that crosses four rooms. And today it was severe.

I was scared. I thought about texting The Boy to warn him but then I decided I’d wait to see if I started to feel like exploding. I didn’t. The Boy didn’t.

The biggest result of this kind of explosion, aside from the joy I derive from using half a roll of paper towels to clean it up, is the snuggle factor. I believe this is true of every creature on earth: your mama will make it better. I spent all last night with a grey kitten pressed into my chest. The situation was repeated this afternoon with a brown kitten.

No more cow juice for the kittens.

***

This week I realized that Kitten Thunder is never going to let me work outside the home ever again. We’ve become spoiled by lunch time naps and belly rubs on demand. I’ve assured Oli and Obi that I have enough clients and, if they could just stop laying on the keyboard, I’ll have no trouble paying the bills.

But, just to make sure – and because it’s a heck of a lot of fun – we opened a store on zazzle.com. Right now we have some ties with photos of landmarks – Devils Tower, Mount Rushmore, Niagra Falls, the Golden Gate Bridge, etc.

And we also have some photos of Cousin Spade. HIS people have already contacted MY people about his cut of this deal. MY people informed HIS people that he signed over his royalty rights during the photo shoot in exchange for a belly rub. Given his penchant for drawing blood during such an occasion, I’m pretty sure he got the better end of the deal.

Check your drawers

I was in the basement working out yesterday. This, of course, requires a great amount of feline supervision. Our basement has a kitchenette in it, where The Boy stores train stuff and Kitten Thunder plays in the cupboards.

After a while, Oliver was lost. At least, Obi didn’t know where he was. He kept poking his head in the cupboard. No Oli. Obi would jump onto the counter. No Oli.

As Obi sat in the paint booth, feeling confused, I decided to help him out.

After forcing him to endure some ear kisses, I very carefully opened the drawer beneath him. Just a little.

A dainty white paw emerged. As Obi leaned down to see, a second white paw shot out and punched him in the nose.

A drawer Thunder ensued. This was great fun for all involved.

And then the grey drawer monster was left in peace to continue his nap. Oliver magically reappeared a couple hours later.

Cuppa Joe

While The Boy was away on a train related trip earlier this month, Kitten Thunder and I were home alone. We were upstairs and I noticed Obi drinking water out of the bathtub faucet. It got me thinking about when I’d last filled their water bowl.

But their water bowl was soooooo far away. Like on another floor.

So I looked around for something to put water in. There, by the sink, was The Boy’s coffee cup. That’ll do, I thought.

Kitten Thunder loves having water in the bedroom. They drink a full coffee cup of water every day. They’ll get up from a super nap if I fill their cup. When The Boy fills the cup for them he mentions that we should get them a water bowl.

I think he wants  his cup back.

I think Kitten Thunder would be sad to give it back.

***

It’s Thunder Thursday! Here’s an absolutely adorable video from Texas, a cat in New York. Texas writes a blog about his adventures with his guardians and sister Milou. Recently the family lost a member,  Grouik, and Kitshka came in to help the family heal. Here we have Kitshka thinking about attacking Milou’s tail. Be sure to watch to the very end.

If you have four minutes more, this is an adorable video of Kitshka…breaking in the family.

The Truth About Fight Club and the Curse of the Mama

Oliver has HUGE gashes over each eye this week. One is actually kind of deep and I’m keeping an eye on it to make sure we don’t have a doctor visit in our future. He also has a cut on his eyelid. That one I saw happen.

Oliver was scratching the bald spot over his eye with his back foot. In case you’re new to this blog, Oliver’s back claws don’t retract. Some times he forgets this. Like…often. So he’s scratching away at that itchy cut over his eye and misses; he kicks himself in the eye.

There was blood. There was tears. There was a grey kitten who didn’t really want me to pry open his eye to look at his cornea.

It was fine.

So…that answers the question about Fight Club. Which, if you’ve seen the movie, you’ve suspected all along.

***

Not only was I cruel to Oliver, forcing him to take my medical care, I also cursed Obi this weekend. As if I’m not mean enough to him already.

The Boy and I were in the kitchen and Obi was laying on the floor showing us how cute he is. The cloth bag we get our co-op veggies from had fallen off its hook and was on the floor. Obi leapt at it and missed the opening so he was hiding behind it. I helped for two seconds by propping the opening of the bag so it was more open.

As I left the kitchen to go take a shower I mentioned that we should probably not encourage him to play with our cloth bag. After all, he could accidentally turn it  into a Super Man cape and strangle himself. The Boy agreed, but they were playing when I left.

I can’t find the blog about the time Obi accidentally made a cape out of a plastic grocery bag and made four laps around the house in a panic before hiding under the bed in my office where I was able to liberate him – from a bag that was, by that time, full of kitten pee. He’s still terrified of plastic bags.

Well, as if I’d cursed him, it took Obi about half a minute after I left the room to get caught up in the fabric bag. This one he wore under his body so he wasn’t able to get up much speed and actually liberated himself before The Boy caught up to him.

Obi still wanted me to hold him and kiss his ears while The Boy told me of his harrowing experience. The brown kitten looked up at me, a little unsure about whether I could be responsible. It is hard to decide what to do when you don’t know if you can trust the mama. After all, I make it all better.

Well, I at least hang up the bag.

***

Happy birthday to my dad! Kitten Thunder performed a super nap in your honor this afternoon.

Heartbreak on a Stick

Today, we picked plums. We’re up to ten grocery bags full and probably have three or four more bags left to pick on branches we can’t reach. Oliver resents their presence in his breakfast nook.

My new favorite thing about August is shrimp and plums kabobs.

But this was the beginnings of heartbreak. Obi was supervising as I prepared the kabobs. It was quite shrimpy smelling in the kitchen and he was going crazy with excitement. He was trying to see what I was cooking and laying claim to his share.

Obi doesn’t like shrimp.

I tried to tell him but he didn’t believe me. Since I had one extra shrimp after I was done kabobbing – and Oliver had shown up to join in the noisemaking – I microwaved a shrimp for them. This brings up two points you should know:

1. It takes about 40 seconds to cook a shrimp.

2. Shrimp will pop and jump all over the microwave. Don’t overcook your shrimp just because it is fun to watch.

I cut the shrimp into bite sized pieces and sat on the kitchen floor to give it to the boys. Oliver was very excited. Obi was disgusted by that pink thing I ‘d put in front of him. Oli ate it for him.

Because his nose said there was something delicious in the kitchen, Obi tried eating directly from my hand. Possibly the floor that he eats off every day was tainting the food? But no. Shrimp is gross and he spit it out. Oli ate it for him.

I could see his heart breaking. Why was I trying to feed him this gross pink thing and denying him that food making the fantastic smell? Why was Oliver accepting it? Why was Oli gnawing on my fingers like that sludge was the best thing since tuna?

When The Boy brought our kabobs in from the grill, Obi’s hope was restored. He sat on the couch and watched us eat. When I was done I pulled the extra shrimp meat from the tails and put it on the floor for him.

Pleh.

Clearly this is a cruel joke I’m playing on him. And Obi? He doesn’t think it is one bit funny.

Oliver’s Orders

I woke up tire this morning. I fell asleep on the couch after I fed the cats but woke up in time to get two cups of coffee down before my meeting, over coffee, downtown.

I was working through the tired when my friend Sarah called and asked if I could  meet her for lunch. I felt like I couldn’t, but I couldn’t remember why. So I went. I was dragging and looking forward to a quick nap after lunch. As I was eating, something got stuck in my teeth and I remembered – I had a 1 p.m. dentist appointment! I flew out of the restaurant just in time to get home and brush my teeth and get to the dentist.

I had my permanent crown put on the evil tooth. It has been exactly one year since this very painful journey began. On top of already being tired, visiting the dentist always makes me need a nap.

So when I got home…I took one. With a grey kitten, of course.

“Oliver,” I said after an hour, “I need to get up.”

“Hush, Girl,” his look said as he rested a white paw on my lips. “Don’t be silly. Just close your eyes.” I did.

But eventually I did have to get up because we had a picnic tonight and I still had to pick plums – some to grill for our contribution to the picnic and then some to give to anyone that would take them because our poor plum tree is weighed down with fruit. A branch snapped in two this morning from the weight.

If you’ve never grilled plums you should do it. They are delicious. Sooooo delicious.

And now I am back from the picnic.  Obi has been cute today, but he has carefully avoided doing anything that could be turned into a blog post. He was being adorable in the office until the second the video camera turned on. Then he sat down and stared at me until the camera turned off.

Oliver came in and issued an order that I think I’ll follow: “phone in the blog post, Girl. Let’s go to bed.”

***

It’s Thunder Thursday! Today we are celebrating the fact that my bloggy friend Holly, from The Aluminium Foiled My Plans, has brought three human pets into the world. Welcome Gaius Oliver, Ayla Evelyn and Zarek Leonard. They were born early and tiny but strong and healthy.

Congratulations, Holly and D!

 

Things that go bump

I started the day as I do often – checking my clients’ Facebook pages “real quick” and getting sucked in for a couple hours. So I didn’t get around to showering until midmorning. The Boy had been gone for hours. Obi decided to head to the basement with me.

When I got out of the shower, though, someone was upstairs. I could hear them walking. Big steps. Bigger than Obi’s. Bigger than The Boy’s.

My heart pounded. I listened. Clump clump clump.

Breaking land speed records, I threw on some clothes and ran a brush through my hair. After all, there was a chance this wasn’t going to be a murderer. Ratted hair allowed to dry, though, would be a true catastrophe.

I listened as I did all this. Clump clump clump.

Heart pounding.

Finally, it was time to cowboy up and leave the basement. I rounded the corner to go down the hall toward the stairs. A grey cat jumped out of the laundry room. A big, fluffy grey cat.

Not Oliver.

He came at me.

It was Obi. Apparently he fell behind the washing machine. He had a six inch radius of lint attached to every inch of his body. It took ten minutes of serious brushing to make him small and brown again. Oh, and a ten pound kitten trapped behind a washing machine?

Goes clump clump clump.

Performance enhancing drugs

Oliver has been kind of off for the last couple of days. He has been sleeping even more than usual, not coming to work, and whining when his brother wants to play. He’s also pretty goopy so I thought maybe pills for his allergies would help.

Prednisone, a steroid, is what he takes for allergies.

Soon after taking those drugs, Oliver started a thunder. Today we have had some marathon snuggles. Clearly he is doing cat activities at a heightened level.

I’m not planning on turning him in to the authorities.

Wrists and elbows

Oliver loves to bathe. He spends hours every day licking himself into a soggy ball of fluff. At least one of those baths, each day, is in my arms. So I didn’t think anything of it this morning when our post-breakfast snuggle turned into a bath.

Confined by my arms, Olive only had a few options for his bath. He spent thirty full minutes washing his armpit. Well…his armpit and my wrist. Each lick got a little bit of flesh.

My wrist is very clean.

Three layers of skin lighter kind of clean.

I have a red patch the size of a quarter where the skin and hair has been sanded off by a kitten tongue. Oliver’s armpit, in case you were concerned, is fine.

***

It’s Thunder Thursday! Courtesy of my friend Nikki, pictures of other kittehs participating in the Oli-mpics.