Blue Be Gone

Obi has been bored all week. I think this is the feline version of cabin fever. He walks around the house crying, “bored, BOred, BORED.” The only things that quiets the cries is digging under the couch for a toy – his pink fuzzy or the flat mousie will work. Only those.

The teddy bear mousie, a usual favorite, isn’t doing the trick this week.

This morning, the pink fuzzy was in the middle of the floor. The flat mousie was on the loveseat. So I dug for something else. And I found! The! Blue and Pink! FUZZY! I was so excited. I set it in front of Obi.

He looked at it.

He looked at me.

He looked at the fuzzy.

He looked at me.

WHAP. The fuzzy went under the couch. Way, way under the couch. And with a flick of his tail, the brown kitten went over to his pink fuzzy and snuggled down next to it.

Blue? He doesn’t think so.

***

It’s Thunder Thursday! This will boring for those of you who aren’t on Twitter. But if you are, may I suggest you follow these cats?

Achilles and Savanah
Schrodinger’s Cat
Rocky and Rosie
Cat Food Breath
Wil Wheaton’s Cat (yes, really)

And then I found Anakin. He has two legs because he was born without back legs or a pelvis. Here’s a video. He’s AMAZING.

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The couch, we lives there

In preparation for the floor guys, I folded all the blankets we have in the living room. The quilt folded and draped on the back of the couch gave Obi a new opportunity. 

Quilt pod monster.

Today, Obi laid across the tops of both of my arms while I worked on the laptop on the couch. He stretched. He purred. He napped. 

For hours.

He’s getting good at this snuggling thing.

But Oliver is still the master.

 

Obi’s Tool Review

The morning started as all Sunday mornings do: with Obi bored and trying to get someone ANYONE to do something with him. Eventually it worked and I got up to rub his belly and find his flat leopard skin mousie.

Then I inspected The Boy’s efforts of moving stuff back into the breakfast nook. The kid did good. Obi appreciates that his table is back for optimal bird watching.

Then I went downstairs to work on some necklaces that I’m hoping to get done and into the local gallery for Valentine’s Day shoppers. Obi came down to supervise. Then he realized that there was something else we needed to do.

With him sitting in my lap, we tried out some of my tools to see how they work as chin scratchers. In case you are considering and investment of metal working tools for feline chin scratching, here are the results:

Saw – Of course The Girl wouldn’t let the brown kitten scratch his chin on the actual saw blade. But the frame has potential. The top part, where the blade is held, was pretty good. And the little twisty knob for tightening the frame was also pretty good.

Needle nosed files – The flat one was good! We filed Obi’s chin for about five minutes of full purr pleasure. He could not convince The Girl to use the round one. Once again, The Girl refused to actually let the brown kitten cut his face open in pursuit of the perfect chin scratch.

Ball peen hammer – Meh.

Rawhide mallet – Fun to chew for the ten seconds The Girl allowed it. Not great for chin scratching.

Pliers – The little ones are good, but The Girl wouldn’t hold onto them tight enough for the brown kitten to get some really good leverage.

Bench block – It turns out the best chin scratcher on the entire workbench is the bench itself. Sitting on The Girl’s lap puts the kitten at the perfect height to scratch his chin on the block.

And then the experiment was over because the rotten Girl wanted to actually do work. That wasn’t exciting so Obi left to seek out The Boy. Later on, when I was laying on the couch, the brown kitten discovered – or rediscovered – the best chin scratching tool of all…Girl fingernails.

Floored

Our house has…had…an ugly kitchen floor. Originally we thought it would be great because it would hide the dirt. Then we discovered that it was not great because even when it is freshly cleaned it looks dirty. So today…it went away.

To prepare for floor guys, we had to empty the kitchen and breakfast nook into my office and the dining room. So that was weird. Then yesterday I moved one litter box from my office up to the reading nook, along with the kitty crunchies. More weird.

Also weird for me last night when someone used that litter box and I couldn’t place the sound.

When the nice floor guy showed up, I showed him to the kitchen. I should tell you that this AWESOME floor guy knocked very gently instead of ringing the doorbell – cat owners love that. Obi came with us to see what was going on. Floor guy talked to him. Cat owners love that, too. I told him that I was hoping the cats would go upstairs with me but if they decided to “help” him, to let me know and I’d lock them up somewhere. I wasn’t looking forward to that – there’s no place in our house with doors that I would want to spend a day so I’d have to leave them alone.

Luckily, they did not get in the way.

At first, Kitten Thunder and The Girl were doing fine upstairs. There was a lot of banging and stuff on the main floor so the kittehs were happy to stick close. But the Obi, my brave brown kitten, had to see what was going on. He would creep to the top of the stairs. Then he’d disappear downstairs for a while. After a while, a kitten streak would zip up the stairs and onto the loveseat with me, wide-eyed and breathless.

Oliver wanted to be brave but it just isn’t in his nature. He did get as far as the top of the stairs.

After four hours of work, Oliver was glassy-eyed. That is an awful lot of sleep deprivation for a grey kitten. He was swaying on his feet. He was eating kitty crunchies in a desperate attempt to keep awake. Finally, he went to the cat shelf and settled in on the blanket. But he could not sleep with the noise and the scary downstairs so he stared into space. And stared. and stared.

Then, things got worse for the grey kitten. He needed to use the litter box. But not the one I brought upstairs. Such a conundrum: to pee in the poo box, or to venture downstairs. As I had hoped, he overcame his boundaries and used the box upstairs.

Well ahead of schedule, the floor was done. Obi and I went downstairs to talk to the floor guy and look at the new floor.

And then? Oliver, Obi and I took a nap on the couch. Having floor installed is exhausting.

***

It’s Thunder Thursday! Today, I am shamelessly plugging the Kitten Thunder Zazzle store’s newest products, perfect for Valentine’s Day OR Singles Awareness Day. We built two cards – one for the lovers of fuzzies and one for lovers of short haired kittehs.

You’re Purrfect Valentines Card by KittenThunder

Black Cat Purrrfect Valentines Card by KittenThunder

Turnabout

“Oli, come lay with me.”

The grey kitten, sitting on the floor by the couch, looked at me with a steady gaze. I patted my lap. He did that stretch that starts at his front toes, travels up his arms into his shoulders then travels through his eyebrows and out through his ears.

“Come here, Mr. Pi.”

The grey kitten swivelled his head to considered The Boy sitting on the recliner.

“Hey. Bunny.”

The grey kitten licked his tail.

“Ooooooooooliveeeeeeer! Laaaaaaay wiiiiiiiith meeeeeee,” I whined. I patted my lap, now covered by quilt, again.

Oli walked away. Unable to remember where he left me once he arrived in the hallway, he called out.

“Oliver, come here,” I responded.

The grey kitten walked back into the room and sat on the floor by the couch.

“Seriously dude. Get thee into my lap.”

The grey kitten scratched his ear. He looked at me.

I leaned down close.

“Get. Up. Here. And. Lay. With. Your. Girl.”

Finally, Oliver jumped onto my lap and we had a snuggle. If I didn’t know better I’d think he was showing me how it feels to be ignored when he’s trying to get me up for breakfast.

And then he got so carried away with licking my finger than he chomped down on it.

Hard.

Pudding head.

Smell-o-vision Rivalry

Last week, Cheyenne had some cold weather. Cold, even, by our standards. We spent about three days with temperatures that never rose above zero. Cold, I say.

So on Friday, I was a little bit surprised to find I was breaking a sweat in the car as I drove across town. A quick glance at the temperature gauge revealed that it was FIFTY degrees. A-mazing!

I finished my errands and rushed home. As soon as the requisite belly rubbing was done, I opened a window.

Mmmm, smell-o-vision. A cat can forget how wonderful Out smells.

I went upstairs to find Oliver and open a window for him. Laying on the loveseat in the reading nook, he was not interested in moving to the cat shelf. I picked him up and moved him anyway.

Aaaaah, glorious smell-o-vision. Thank you, Girl, for forcing me to move.

Oliver didn’t have much time to enjoy his smell-o-vision before the brown kitten arrived upstairs. And smell-o-vision became…

Butt-o-vision.

Awaiting the Life-Giving Bolt of Lightning

I am usually in the reading nook during the day. Because of that, I usually don’t turn on a light. But today I needed to iron in the evening, thus a light was turned on. And that? Illuminated this.

Kitten Thunder has clearly been growing this minion in the corner of the reading nook for months if not years. Concealed from natural light, it has grown unchecked. It is now the size of a large kitten and is one life-giving lightning bolt away from joining the effort to get me out of bed before the breakfast bell goes off.

The people are going to have to do something about this before thunderstorm season.

And by the people, I mean The Boy. Floors are his job.

***

It is Thunder Thursday!

Today, we introduce you to Seffie. The new sister of Thunder over on Unlikely Explanations. This picture was taken in a rare moment of stillness.

Lost Mom

Have I mentioned that Oliver is a pudding head? It seems to be a phenomena common to grey kittens. Their heads are filled with nothing but puddin’. That, we believe, is why they like the claw more than other cats – because their brains need to be tamped down every once in a while.

This is why Oliver can lose his Girl mere seconds after leaving her. And using common sense to figure out where she might be when he hasn’t seen her in a while? Not going to happen.

Last night I was in bed reading. The Boy was in the reading nook, also reading. Oliver had been sleeping in the living room and I didn’t wake him up when I left. Now, you would think that it would be obvious – being nighttime – where I’d gone. But no. You would think – since the upstairs lights are visible from the living room – that he could figure it out. But no.

WHERE IS MY GIRL came the cry from downstairs.

“Oliver, I’m upstairs,” I called.

Little white feet pit patted to the top of the stairs. WHERE IS MY GIRL?

“Hello, Oli,” said The Boy. “I’m in here, Bunny,” I said.

Pit pat pit pat to the loveseat in the reading nook. WHERE IS MY GIRL?

“Do you want to come read with me?” asked The Boy.

WHERE IS MY GIRL? THE GIRL? GIRL?

“Oliver! I am in here.” This would be a good point to remind you that the our bedroom is open to the reading nook, except for the chimney. Had he looked slightly to the side while walking to the loveseat he would have seen me. Plus, my light was on.

WHERE IS MY GIRL?

“OLI!”

Pitpatpitpatpitpatpitpatpitpat. The Girl!

I was stomped upon by a grey kitten like I had been missing for hours. Obviously these five minutes since he woke up from his evening nap were very harrowing. I lifted the covers for him and Oliver plunked down, his head on the pillow with me. I tucked him in and continued reading.

And a little snore came from the pudding head.

Bored

Obi was bored today.

First, the people slept in SO late. The Girl fed Kitten Thunder at 6 a.m., but then she went back to sleep. The Boy didn’t get up until 7:30 a.m. After the morning belly rub, Obi and The Boy sat together at the desk. But The Boy wan’t doing anything fun so, once he was full of snuggle, Obi left to see what The Girl was doing.

Sleeping. The Girl was still sleeping. And she kept sleeping even when Obi bump bump bumped the bathroom cabinets. Bored. And when he played with chirping bird in the reading nook. Bored. And when he got on the headboard and dangled the strings from the miniblinds over her face.

Oliver was also back in bed sleeping and told Obi to go away.

The Boy had gone downstairs to work on train stuff. Being an independent human, The Boy didn’t think he needed Obi’s help. Not with painting or drilling or gluing. Obi was bored. Obi tried to talk The Boy into a belly rub. The Boy was willing, but thought that Obi could get his belly rubbed in the basement.

Not acceptable.

At 9 a.m., The Girl’s alarm went off. Obi was excited. But The Girl did not get up. She stayed in bed with her book. And stayed. And stayed. And stayed. Obi sat in the reading nook and loudly suggested the many other things they could be doing. Bored. He stood on the half wall over the staircase and called to get her attention. “Baby, please get down,” she said. But she did not get up.

Finally, she did get up. And the belly was rubbed. Some toys were tossed about. The brown kitten got brushed. But then The Girl went to get a cup of coffee and Obi was bored again.

He checked on The Boy who had gone upstairs to shower now that The Girl was up. Obi hates wet air, though, so he sat outside the bathroom. And he was bored.

He went back to the living room where The Girl was STILL reading. He was bored. He sat behind her head and jabbed her in the back of the ears. He leaned over her shoulder and offered to turn the pages. He did cute things on the belly rubbing rug. Bored.

Exhausted from the boredom, Obi took a nap.

When he woke up, Obi was bored. He found The Girl and talked her into brushing him. Then she wrapped him in the cave and gitchied his belly. Then she piled all his toys on him. When he sighed, she said she felt so sorry for him because he had nothing of interest in the whole house. Even though the words seemed right, Obi sensed a mocking tone that suggested she did not feel bad for him at all. 

He left to see what The Boy was doing. Now he was reading as well. Obi was bored.

Luckily, it was time for the afternoon nap.

When his nap was over, Obi awoke to find that The Girl was missing. Shortly after, though, she returned with food. Since she had been gone, a belly rub was called for. She also brushed him again. Then, since they were cooking, she held him so he could be tall. This was not boring.

But then the pizza was done. Obi doesn’t like pizza. He was bored.

Oliver doesn’t like pizza either, so they had a Thunder. That wasn’t boring. Until it was. Oliver and Obi plunked down in front of The Boy and The Girl and watched them eating. Maybe their combined boredom would inspire the people to open some tuna. It didn’t. Bored.

Now, after dinner, Oliver and Obi are watching me blog. They are bored. Luckily, it is time for their evening nap that should get them through until bedtime. Hopefully tomorrow will be more exciting.

It is rough, being a brown kitten.

Sad News

Oliver has something sad to tell you.

The farmers has found out what has been attacking the cattle. There is nothing he can do to stop it.

***

It is Thunder Thursday! Tonight, and update on Puck and Bo.

They’re brothers!