It is never too late for Miller Time

We don’t know why Obi suddenly started playing with our veggie bag, but he did. And, obviously, it was cute.

***

On Saturday night I missed the season finale of Dr. Who. After checking the schedule for repeats I realized that staying up to watch it at 1 a.m. was my best option. So that is what Kitten Thunder and I did.

I heard a thunk in another room, followed by a brown kitten skulking in to the rug. It only took a moment to realize he’d found a miller. He and Oliver played with it for a long time. They’d pick it up and spit it out onto the plastic intestines. I think they liked the ticky ticky ticky sound it made as it fluttered against the plastic.

After a while, that got boring. So they moved it to under the coffee table where it tried to hide amongst the shoes. Oli sat on one side of the table and Obi sat on the other, jabbing at the miller whenever they saw him.

Then, as suddenly as it started, the game was over. I suspect I’ll find a dead miller in my shoe tomorrow.

***

It was rainy all week. That seemed like a good reason to grab the laptop and work on the couch with a blanket. Oliver agreed. And he was very helpful.

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The Big Box and Plastic Intestines

I needed a bigger bag to put my computer in. Of course I didn’t want a plain black boring one, so I was off to amazon.com to do some searching. I am a big lover of the amazon.com and all the random stuff you can find there. This is the bag I found.

It arrived yesterday. It arrived in a box big enough for four of these bags. I pulled out my new toy immediately so the kittens could play with THEIR toy.

Oliver has been inside. Obi has been inside. They’ve both been outside. They have NOT both been inside, oddly. The plastic packing intestines that filled the rest of the box are strewn across the rug. The box has been all over the living room, solely under kitten power.

This morning, the box had moved to the edge of the rug and was wedged against the recliner and the laptop box. The intestines were piled in front, and inside. Obi discovered a cave under those intestines and between the box and recliner. It. Was. Perfect.

He sat waiting. Waiting for the unsuspecting.

When The Boy brought me my coffee, I suggested he should go be unsuspecting. He went and looked in the box (not following instructions) but there was no brown kitten. He looked behind the recliner, but there was no brown kitten. He looked under the flap of the box, but there was no brown kitten. I finally told him where the brown kitten was.

Obi wins the hide and seek portion of this game. He waited again for someone to be unsuspecting.

Obviously The Boy messed this part up.

Oliver, who watched the whole thing, decided to do his duty. He got up from our blanket. He stretched. And then he walked slowly, unsuspecting, across the rug.

And the thunder? ON!

***

For Thunder Thursday, I bring you way too much cuteness for one Facebook page at And My Cat. If you go there you’ll see things like this:

And this:

And this:

You want the cute? YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE CUTE!

 

Winning

I was across the state for a very quick trip and got home early this evening. The kittehs greeted me before they remembered that they had to be mad at me.

Then they remembered.

I settled on the couch and pulled a blanket over me. The kittehs were thundering. Then, Oli saw me. I was forgiven. He contemplated me. And the blanket. Then he looked to his brother who was waiting to continue the thunder.

Me.

Thunder.

Blanket.

Thunder.

Snuggle.

Thunder.

The grey kitten thought hard. I won. Obi decided it was the right decision and joined us.

Snuggle thunder.

Catchy tunes and Dr. Mew

Doo doo dooooooooo do dah doo. Doo doo doooooooo doo dah doo. Dah dah dah dah dah dah dum de dummmmmmm. Doo doo dooooooo do dah dooooooo.

This is what I sang in Oliver’s ear during every commercial break of Dr. Who last night. He was laying in my arms on the couch. When I’d sing, he would look back on me with purr face. He’s a big fan, too.

Knowing there’s got to be an intersection of two of my favorite things, cats and Dr. Who, on the interwebs. I did a search. Strap yourself in for some sci fi cuteness!

First, the full set of Dr. Mew in all his incarnations.

Second, kitty condo TARDISi. They’re bigger on the inside.

Third, Dalek can have cheezburger:

And last, because this still hasn’t gotten old and I’ve watched it hundreds of times…don’t blink.

Where are you going?

We had a long, productive day today. About an hour ago, Oliver was laying on my chest for a snuggle. Then he got up and started walking away. I rolled over to my side.

“Where are you going?”

He stopped. Turned. Came back.

Good question.

***

Obi has had forty belly rubs today. Since they mostly came from me, they quickly degenerated into biting and licking and kicking. And then the kitten gets wrapped in the cave and gitchy gitchied.

Eventually I would get up and walk away. A brown kitten lunged out and grabbed my feet.

“Where are you going?”

***

It is Thunder Thursday! This week I kitteh sitted for Mona’s fuzzies. They immediately set out to prove everything she’s told me about them wrong. Gus ate all of her food in one sitting, then licked the other two plates clean. She did not want to go to the office to eat. And she didn’t need to because Gabe didn’t even try to eat her food.

And this? This is a kitteh who doesn’t like people…purring and getting a belly rub.

 

Black and Blue Snapshots

“Supervising The Girl is a full time job. It is exhausting.”

The ironing board used to be in the basement, but it moved upstairs when we had company come in July. It stayed up there because The Boy irons every day and sometimes, if I don’t have meetings, I am just wearing jeans and a t-shirt. It made sense to leave it where he gets ready in the morning.

The other day, I had to iron. I was upstairs and properly supervised the entire time. When I was done, I told Obi it was time to get to work. He ran down to the main floor to claim his chair before I got there. I turned toward the stairs and rammed right into one of the big wooden support poles in the reading nook. I hit my left arm. Hard. I stumbled toward the stairs and then stopped to bend over, holding my numb/throbbing arm and cussing.

Obi came back upstairs. I can’t be left unsupervised for even a minute.

Yesterday, Oliver and I got into a fight at lunch time. He thought he should be allowed to sit on my keyboard and swipe at food as it went toward my mouth. I disagreed. We’d made up by dinner time but he made a show of not coveting the chicken noodle soup that we’d crock potted all day long.

He was by my TV tray, marking the legs of it with chin rubs. Obi was upset. It’s HIS TV tray. Whenever Oliver leaves a room, Obi walks around re-claiming things. The walls, the coffee table, The Boy…

Anyway, Oliver was sitting on the floor, looking at me, when Obi walked by and accidentally stepped on the grey kitten’s tail. Oliver cried. I was chiding him for being so dramatic because it probably didn’t hurt at all when Obi looked over his shoulder, stepped back, and stomped on Oliver’s tail.

I laughed.

I called Obi a brat.

I picked up my poor put down upon grey kitten and kissed him on the ears.

I gave them both chicken.

“How can I be coveting your chicken when I have no legs?”

Grey weight

Yesterday we went up in the mountains for a wedding. We were gone for hours and I knew the grey kitten would need some extra love today.  He’s getting some right now.

He’s also laying on my arm so I’m typing this blog with one hand and my phone. And that is all I have to say about that.

How to Build a Fort, Part 3

We’ve built forts before. See this post and this post. But fall is in the air, the cave has been played out, and it was time for a new one. I thought.

Step 1: Sigh as you look at all the stuff on the coffee table.

Step 2: Clear off table. Check to make sure kitten still fits underneath.

Step 3: Choose fort position and building material.

Step 4: Add weight to keep the fort from coming undone on quick exits.

Step 5: Add second room to the fort by tucking a corner into the recliner.

Step 6: Closely inspect entrances and exits. Make the rules clear – no girls allowed.

Step 7: After all the work is done The Boy, who is allowed, will come home and point out that the cardboard box room is on the belly rubbing rug.

Step 8: Examine the perimeter while you consider the problem.

Step 9: Carefully consider the cardboard box room.

Step 10: Destroy the fort.

Step 11: Destroy the fort!

Step 13: Blame The Girl for this mess. Remind her that girls aren’t allowed. Not even in a half fort.

Step 14: Appreciate the wreckage of the destroyed fort. Have The Girl put the cardboard box back in the corner where it belongs and pull the recliner cave all the way down before the books on the coffee table end up on the floor.

***

It’s Thunder Thursday! Here are three funnies that people sent me on the Book of Face lately. It’s like they think I’m caught up with my cats or something. It is true that my coworkers completely lend themselves to this sort of thing.

Squish

“Are we playing?”

It is a question that The Boy and I ask Kitten Thunder when it seems like, maybe, only one of the kittehs is having fun. Usually it is because Oli is crying and Obi is biting too hard. This was one of those nights where the question was asked numerous times.

After a bunch of butt biting, Oliver took shelter in the cave behind our recliner. Obi was following him and would have had a real advantage…but the laptop box is in front of that cave. Box…no, focus, cave…box…

The box won. Obi crawled in. A few minutes later, Oliver came out of the cave and sat on the box. The box did not hold his 14 pounds of fluffy. Scraping noises came from the box and suddenly it occurred to Oli that someone was inside. He listened to the scraping with interest.

A brown foot oozed out of the box. Then it pulled back in. Scratching. A brown face oozed from the box. And one front paw. And…Obi was stuck.

Oli reached down and patted his squished brother on the nose. Then he licked his flattened brother’s ear. Then Oliver jumped off the box. Obi’s eyes bulged a little.

A while later, after Obi left, Oliver crawled into the box. He’s a little bit tall and “internally fluffy” get into this particular box gracefully. But get in he did.

Seconds later, Obi arrived to exact his revenge. Onto the box! Sadly, the box does hold the brown kitten’s weight.

We gave him some cheese to fatten him up.

Someday, Obi. Some day.

Birdapallooza!

The other day we had a little black cat visit us. He was sitting on the front porch eating out of the new bird feeder. I posted a picture of it on my Facebook page, saying he might as well eat the food because the bird weren’t.

This weekend, the birds finally figured it out. Since the feeder isn’t hanging they stand on the brick and stick their head under the perches to get to the food. Once they figured it out, they told their friends. And today? Birdapallooza.

We had wrens and sparrows on the porch. The blackbirds came over to check out the commotion. And! Flickers! I though the flickers were gone, but there they were. They were standing on the ground digging holes in the dirt. They had sparrow groupies hanging around them, hoping they’d turn up something good.

The brown kitten is in heaven. He has given up on supervising me completely. Every window has some sort of OutTV programming. Must see TV.

Luckily, the weather has cooled down and the blankets are back out. And my grey kitten is back to snuggle mode. He snuggles at night. He snuggles in the morning. He snuggles in the afternoon.

We’re snuggling right now.

Between all the OutTV watching and the snuggling, the kittehs are exhausted. We’ll all sleep well tonight.