Attack of the Brown Snuggler

Obi has taken to snuggling in the night. With The Boy.

The other night I was having trouble sleeping. Every half hour or so I would wake up to find Oliver laying on my feet and The Boy laying on my arm. I would move over a couple inches and feel the blood rush back into my arm. Oliver would lift his head at my feet shifting under him, but then he’d go back to sleep.

Then I’d doze off.

A half hour later I would wake up to find Oliver laying on my feet and The Boy laying on my arm. Shift. Blood flow. Repeat. Doze. Shift. Blood flow. Repeat.

All night. Except…there’s a finite number of a couple inches for me to shift. Luckily, by the time I fell out of bed I also had to get up to go to the bathroom. When I got up, I discovered that Obi – the smallest member of our family – had taken over more than half the bed.

Me getting up disturbed everybody enough that, magically, my side of the bed was empty when I returned.

I decided to sleep on my side.

***

Purr therapy from Kitten Thunder goes out to my brother’s family this week. They had to say goodbye to their kitty, Kasey. While she had a habit of punching me in the eye whenever the opportunity presented, she was really sweet to her family. We’ll miss her.

***

It’s Thunder Thursday! You may not have heard, but Friskies held a video contest for internet cats. The winner was someone I’ve introduced you to before: Oskar the Blind Cat. Now Oskar, I find, has a Facebook page. This isn’t the winning video, but it is one I hadn’t seen before.

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Cave monster, trapped

My apologies if this has come to you three times. Even worse if you just got the blank post. I had some video issues.

Today I was wrapping a birthday present for my niece. As you might expect, I had some help. After we were finished, Obi got into his cave. Part of it was under my feet and Obi was soon stuck.

As you can see, Oliver and I rushed to help.

Turkey Nap

Thanksgiving was on Thursday. I know you probably knew that, but I didn’t realize that it was a blog night until sometime in the middle of the night. So you got a long weekend off. Hope it was happy.

Also on Thanksgiving, The Boy and I forgot to have turkey. We went to the buffet at Little America. It is a huge affair with carving stations and shrimp and a made to order omelet station. And a dessert table with 16 desserts and a chocolate fountain. With all that going on, we just forgot to have turkey.

So we fixed that tonight.

I didn’t cook a whole turkey. I bought some breasts and we baked them. Obi was, as usual, irritated by my using the white box in the kitchen. In spite of his trepidation, though, I did not set off the smoke detector. I did dry out the turkey a bit, but it was okay.

While we were eating, Oli and Obi were doing their best not to covet our meals. To reward them I gave them each a piece of gizzard. They were not impressed. Evidently I am the only gizzard eater in the house.

To make up the gizzard episode to them, I let them lick the turkey juice out of the pan. They went to town on that pan.

After dinner, the kittehs joined me on the couch and we succumbed to the chemical wonders of turkey.

Mix Up Fix Up

With the lizard tank out of the living room, there was a huge space of…space. The Boy and I decided to rearrange the furniture to see if that would help.

The recliner, which no one every sits in, has been over by the window. We are seeing if that is why no one sits there – because it is a weird angle from which to watch TV. Kitten Thunder did use the chair as a cave, a napping spot, and a starting point for thunders. Now it is in the middle of the room where the loveseat used to be.

Obi was not pleased. For one thing, the chair rocks because it isn’t against the wall. And we moved his perfect napping spot that was on the back of the loveseat.

Turns out, the chair works okay.

Obi can nap on the back of the chair even when The Boy is sitting in it. Even if The Boy reclines. Except…there are better places to be when the chair is reclined.

And…

There is a little hammock formed by the back of the chair when it is reclined. This picture is right after Oliver shoved Obi in. Obi spent quite a while laying in there.

Then he got out and I told The Boy it was safe to unrecline – just as Oli stuck his head in. We stopped the chair just before grey pudding head was squished.

So the verdict? Kitten Thunder is okay with the new layout. The people, though, are going to have to adapt to making eye contact with all cats before exiting the chair.

B is for Boy. And Birthday.

The Boy’s birthday was on Saturday and came none too soon. For one thing, I found out during our trip to California that he hates the toaster oven I got him last year for his birthday. So I needed his birthday to hurry and get here so I’d remember to get him a different toaster oven for his birthday this year.

Romance, we has it.

I found the perfect toaster oven and hatched a plan to have it waiting for him to make something toasty on Saturday morning. This meant opening the box, unwrapping everything and setting it up…then putting it back inside the box until Friday night when The Boy went to bed.

Let me help you guess where I’m going with this: I opened a box. I closed the box. I covered the box, in my office for ease of access, with Obi’s blanket.

Obi was going absolutely nuts over this. He spent all day Friday digging at the box. On the box on top of the blanket. By the box. On the box. Under the blanket on the box – and that time I swear he actually got IN the box.

Then, Friday night, I changed my mind about how to give it to him. So I didn’t put it out.

Saturday morning I decided that would have been a fine idea. Luckily, The Boy doesn’t toast things for breakfast so much as he toasts things for lunch, so I set up the toaster oven before he came back from the Saturday train meeting. I couldn’t find any bows so I put a classy yellow post-it on the front that said “a toast for your birthday.”

Then I gave Obi the box.

Oliver came to check it out for a while as well.

 

Then The Boy came home and made Obi into a box monster.

Box monsters do not like the flash. They attack the box in retribution.

 

The Boy likes his new toaster oven – complete with a higher ceiling and a timer. Also, it matches the microwave in both style and size so it has moved out to the breakfast nook. This frees up valuable counter space and we’re both excited about that.

Happy Boy’s birthday to the whole Thunder household, I guess.

 

 

Nothing to See Here

Oliver and Obi were thundering.

Then things became suspiciously quiet.

I went upstairs, mostly to brush my teeth and put in my contacts. Oliver met me at the top of the stairs with a “there’s nothing to see here” look on his face. He danced around my feet in a guilty fashion. I scooped him up.

“Where is your brother?”

Oliver gave me a big hug. We sat on the love seat in the reading nook so I could rub his belly and scritch his ears. Even though I was doing nothing but snuggling him, the grey kitten continued to act a little guilty.

Then I figured out why.

A bumping came from the cabinet under the cat shelf. I looked over in time to see a black paw sneaking out from the closed door. Now usually, Obi could open that door without an issue. This time, however, someone had pushed the cat shelf blanket down so it was holding the door shut.

Oliver jumped from my lap and, over casually, walked to the stairs. As he said…nothing to see here.

I freed his brother.

Thunder on.

***

It is Thunder Thursday! Only one LOL picture today for numerous reasons:

a) Oliver is laying in my lap complaining because I said we were going to bed.

b) Obi is pulling the blanket off the giant pile o’ Christmas that is in the office. The Boy’s birthday present is conspicuous on top of the pile.

c) Someone has filled I Can Has Cheezburger with a whole bunch of stuff that doesn’t belong there and it was hard to find anything that made me El Oh El. So…

Sleep With One Eye Open

I was gone AGAIN this weekend. But now the traveling is over for a while. To add insult to injury, when I arrived home early this afternoon I left almost immediately for a meeting and then had a call on Skype. So Oliver and I didn’t settle down for a nap on the love seat until after dinner. He was full of the purr.

Obi doesn’t trust that I’m really back. He settled down for a nap at the same time on the couch. Every time I looked over he was napping…with one eye open and watching The Girl. I’m not going anywhere without him knowing.

***

I was expecting to have a super cute video of Kitten Thunder and their first Skype. I mean, a man’s voice coming from my computer? His face on the screen? Me trying to be semi-professional? All of these things told me I would have two kittens crawling on my lap, over my shoulders, onto the keyboard…

Nope. Not a kitten in sight. 

How…catlike.

***

At my parents’ house this weekend, Cousin Spade helped me get ready for bed in the basement. After I turned out the light he jumped up on the bed, walked up my leg, over my shoulder, and stepped on my head as he moved on to the nightstand.

Then I heard it. The sound of a contact case scooting.

“Spade. Stop.”

Scoot. Scoot.

“Spade-O. Don’t knock my stuff off the table.”

Scoot. Scoot scoot.

“Hey. Spade. Un-uh.”

Scoot. Scoot scoot scoot.

*Sigh*

When I woke up in the morning I found my contact case balanced precariously on the ledge of the table. Exactly half on and half off. Also, the black kitten had scooted my contact solution bottle onto the edge. He wasn’t there to see the look on my face.

I told him later that I was impressed.

Framed

Oliver went to the vet yesterday for his annual shots and exam. He cried all the way there and complained to the doctor about my driving when she came into the exam room. After checking him out closely she has verified that he is exactly 14 pounds, healthy, and incredibly handsome.

***

This morning, we started the day with a fight. It was one of those thunders that starts to look like it isn’t fun for both kittens. Oliver was crying. Obi was biting hard. The Girl intervened.

A little while later, Obi was being a burrito kitten – wrapped up in the sheet that makes his cave. Oliver came along and instigated a thunder. Seconds later he was crying like Obi was playing too rough. Unfortunately for the grey kitten, The Girl saw the whole thing and HE was the one who was scolded.

Always look around before you try to frame your brother.

***

While I was out of the house today, somebody urinated on a blanket that was on the floor. I didn’t think much about it. I figured Oliver was expressing his dissatisfaction with the state of the litter box. The blanket went in the wash (note to self: the washing machine stopped over an hour ago, go put the laundry in the dryer once the blog is done.)

A while later, though, I noticed Obi acting a little strangely. He was washing his, um, boy bits, and seemed to be taking some extra time. He’d stop – leg still in the air – and look around. Then wash. Then stop. Then wash. Then stop.

An alarm bell went off in my head. Does Obi have a urinary tract infection? With the blanket, plus the fact that I will be traveling this weekend so drugs would be left to The Boy, made illness seem likely.

And so the brown kitten was subjected to a GIRL scan. I pushed on his stomach and looked for pain reactions. I looked under his tail. I sniffed for excessive urine smell.

I earned myself a horrified look from both Obi and Oliver.

He’s fine. Oliver did a better job framing his brother this time.

***

It’s Thunder Thursday! Kelly’s crew provided me with a picture tonight. She was thinking they were being kind of quiet while she was cooking dinner. Then she turned to see this.

 

Kelly thinks they’re up to something. I think that’s unfair. And my opinion isn’t changed even slightly by that box of cat food by the cupboard.

Conservative with the kisses, Liberal with the belly rubs

I apologize to anyone who looks forward to my usual three posts per week. Not only did I not do a great job blogging last week, but then on Sunday I forgot it was Sunday and didn’t post at all. And yesterday I thought it was Tuesday all day; I don’t know what that makes today.

Anywho, today – in case you hadn’t noticed – was election day. No matter what party you align with, the best place to follow the election is Twitter. The twitterverse is full of very funny people. Oliver was trying to lay with me on the couch tonight. I’ve been gone all day and he really needed a snuggle. But he finally gave up on me because I was laughing so much and it was disturbing his nap.

He went upstairs.

A while later he came downstairs to give me another chance. The laughter continued. He gave me five minutes before walking off in a huff.

Obi has stuck with me the whole time…on the far end of the couch. He cast his own ballot – for continued belly rubs, cheese treats and ear kisses (in moderation). He also favors his two household representatives who hold him so he can be tall.

That’s a platform he can stand on.

You’re Not Getting a Raise

Kitten Specialist Obi Wan Kittenobi is angling for a promotion. He has taken on some extra responsibilities around the Thunder household that are worthy of consideration.

First, last night when my brain was all whirly and it was just getting busier and busier after two hours of laying there in the dark, the cats got up with me. Oliver realized I wasn’t going to feed them and he went back to bed. Obi sat on the couch with me while I watched a little TV and wrote down everything in my head. He even snuggled with me for a while.

Second, Obi now participates in the morning “wake up The Girl” routine. This morning I heard the sound of something being pushed across the toothbrush counter. “Oliver,” I whispered. “Knock it off.” I opened my eyes. Oli was sitting on the bed.

“I’m working on it,” Obi squeaked. And the empty contact solution box bounced to the floor.

Third, I discovered that Zensai was dead during Oliver’s afternoon nap so Obi and I were alone. I saw my deceased dragon and started sobbing. Obi was freaked out. He looked around desperately for the grey kitten – this was definitely Chief Executive Kitten territory. But the brown kitten faced the challenge.

He put a paw on my shoulder. He jumped in my lap. He squeaked. He licked my eyelids. He tried everything he could think of to comfort The Girl.

And he did.

So congratulations, Obi, on your promotion to Kitten Senior Specialist. In light of the fact that you get all the food you can eat, daily treats, several pinches of cheese, and all the snuggles you’ll tolerate…

You’re not getting a raise.