American Kitten Warrior

Hello, I am The Girl and I am an American Ninja Warrior addict.

Kitten Thunder, though, is not impressed. They face these challenges every day…

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Good evening and welcome to the latest episode of American Kitten Warrior. I’m Girl Thunder and I’m here with my cohost, Boy Thunder. Tonight we’ll see Stage Thursday of the competition with our two competitors, Oliver Pi and Obi Wan Kittenobi.

First up, Obi takes on the Spider Wall. Look at his form as he chases the spider up this near vertical surface. Clearly his training is paying off tonight – it doesn’t look like he’s struggling at all with this obstacle.

Meanwhile, Oliver is on the cat shelf taking on the Sleeper Challenge. Honestly this is one of the hardest obstacles on the course but seems like it should be really easy. But sleeping through an entire afternoon is harder than it looks.

Back to Obi Wan who has moved on to the Half Wall. He jumps up easily but WHOA! He almost lost his balance there and that is a long way down. I’m sure he’s breathing a sigh of relief. He looks to the crowd to see if anyone noticed his bauble – sorry pal, we were all watching.

Now over to Oliver who is attempting the Full Body Stretcher. Each contestant gets three tries at this obstacle. Form is very important here. A lot of contestants underestimate how important it is the stretch from one group of muscles to the next adjacent group of muscles. If you go in with haphazard stretching, there is NO WAY to continue the stretch through your eyebrows and up into your ears. Oliver is a pro at this one, though, and he handles a stretch that goes all the way from his back toes, through his body and utilizes every muscle in his face. Well done.

Yes, impressive work, there.

Obi has moved on to the Supervision Stage. There are two different approaches to take with this challenge – some competitors go with a direct, in-your-face approach that resembles a full snuggle while others choose a more subtle I’m-just-over-here-napping approach. We’ll see what Obi does here…wow! In a surprise move, Obi Wan has climbed into my lap and is supervising well within my reach. This is not the method I would have expected to see from him tonight.

Both Oliver and Obi have reached the final obstacle, the Kitty Cruncher, at the same time. Will they be able to get through the challenge working in tandem? This. Is. Impressive. Both kittens are eating crunchies at the same time, alternating mouthfuls and chewing in a perfectly synchronized manner. Honestly, it looks like they’ve been doing this their whole lives.

AND THEY ARE THROUGH! Both competitors have made it through tonight’s obstacles and are on to the next round. Tune it tomorrow as we enter Stage Friday of AMERICAN KITTEN WARRIOR!

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And now, some science. Kitteh style.

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This is my 400th blog post! Thank you for coming along.

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Flying Solo and Miracles

Monday morning – 4:30 a.m.

Oliver was laying in my arms, purring. The bathroom door was open. Then it slammed shut. It bounced open. It slammed shut. It bounced open. It slammed shut. It bounced open.

Oliver and I both raised our heads. “Obi,” I whispered. “Stop.”

Nothing.

The door slammed shut. It bounced open. It slammed shut. It bounced open.

I got up to shut the door. Two kittens ran downstairs, expecting breakfast. I went to bed. A few minutes later, Oliver returned and crawled back into my arms.

Monday morning – 5:15 a.m.

Scoot. Scoot scoot. Obi sat on the toothbrush stand, scooting something. Scoot scoot. I tried to remember what was up there but toothbrushes were the only thing that came to mind.

Scoot scoot. BAM!

Oliver and I both raised our heads. Oliver sighed and moved down to my feet. Seeing two lights, meaning both toothbrushes were still on the table, I put my head back down.

Monday – 5:25 a.m.

Obi sat on the headboard. He poked me in the forehead. Girl? Are you awake to appreciate this? Then he started fishing for Girl, tossing the string to the blinds onto my face and pulling it back. Toss. Pull. Toss. Pull.

Oliver sighed and moved to the other side of my feet.

Monday – 5:59 a.m.

The Breakfast Bell rang. Two kittens ran down for breakfast. This time they were not disappointed.

Monday – 9:13 p.m.

Oliver and I sat down with Obi to discuss the morning antics. We talked to him about annoying everyone in the family, including his brother, and how that is bad. I suggested that, just once, I would like to sleep all the way through to The Breakfast Bell.

Tuesday – 4:30 a.m.

I rolled over.

Tuesday – 5:15 a.m.

Oliver nosed under my arm for a snuggle. I kissed his head before we fell asleep.

Tuesday – 5:30 a.m.

I was asleep.

Tuesday – 5:59 a.m.

The Breakfast Bell went off. Two kittens ran downstairs for breakfast. They were not disappointed.

Tuesday – 11:04 p.m.

I hit send on the blog and go to bed. I do not hold much hope for a repeat of this morning.

The Bat Whisperer

I was kitteh sitting Goblin this week while Lori was away. I only saw him once – on a day when it was raining so the intrepid hunter kitty was inside, taking a nap in the bed. He let me rub his belly and told me to put food in his bowl, but he didn’t get out of bed for a snuggle with me on the couch.

I waited an hour.

I didn’t see Goblin again all week. Lucky for me, Lori’s house had another visitor that made my week exciting. As I was sitting there one night, watching some TV and waiting to see if the kitty would show up, I heard a thunk by the door. Then I saw something out of the corner of my eye.

A bat!

It is a weird fact of Cheyenne that the wildlife varies from block to block. My old house is less than a mile away from our current house, but the birds are completely different. Our house is three blocks away from Lori’s and we see bats flying but they don’t live on our block. For that matter, there are turkey vultures two blocks the other direction and I’m not aware of anywhere else in town that has them.

So anyway…I love bats and would love to have one as a pet some day, but I will admit that they are super creepy when they are flying and swooping in a panic in the living room. I immediately went outside to prop the door open so I could turn off the lights in the house and attract him to the porch light.

Immediately after that I realized there were two problems with my plan. First, Lori’s door doesn’t prop open. And second, bats are not miller moths – they are not attracted to light.

Plan B involved low walking across the living room to search for something with which to grab a bat. I found Goblin’s blanket. Returning to the living room, I waited for the bat to land on something. A moment later he smacked into the wall and fell to the floor behind Lori’s curtains. I ran over as he started to climb them.

He had things to say.

As I bunched up the blanket around him – vowing that if I so much as brushed him I was going to the ER for a rabies shot – he ticktickticktickticked at me. I managed to get him wrapped up, and covered his head to calm him down. Then I got him to let go of the curtains and off we went to the porch. He crawled out of the blanket and flew away.

Full of adrenaline, I closed up the house and went home. And then I heard it. Our entire tree was filled with bats ticktickticktickticking. I hoped they were there to thank me for rescuing their friend. I hoped they didn’t blame him and gather to plot their revenge.

Two days later, Lori was home. And she called me about a bat in her house. We’ve thought about this and I think they’ve been hanging out by her porch light, which attracts tiny moths that make a good meal for bats. When they start to fly, they drop a little bit in a free fall before they spread their wings to fly. And I think they were dropping through the not-closed-tight screen door.

Anyway, I walked up to her house and found Goblin’s blanket. This time the bat swooped low and almost hit my head as he tried to fly through the doorway. He caught a little bit of the door, spun into the wall and fell to the floor. I tossed the blanket over him, then managed to throw more blanket over him just as his cute little face poked out of a hole in the blanket. I bundled him up and took him out in the front yard.

Have I mentioned how cute they are? I want one. But, like, a domestically raised, rabies free one.

***
It’s August and we have plums again. This means that Kitten Thunder has to deal with us making our favorite August meal: plum and shrimp skewers. And that means we have to deal with their dirty looks as we prepare something that smells delicious…that they don’t like. There’s no amount of talking that will convince them that they don’t like shrimp. And no amount of talking convinces them that the disgusting thing we put in front of them is the thing that smells so good.

Someone, please, call the ASPCA for them.

The Broken Sneak

The grey kitten walked into the living room. He paused to lick his back foot.

The brown kitten sprang to his feet and leaped down to the floor. When he landed, he hunkered down low and walked slowly up to his brother. He reached out and poked him in the paw.

The grey kitten looked at him.

The brown kitten looked back. Something went wrong with his surprise attack. As he walked away he repeated to himself…sneak first, attack second. Sneak first. Attack second.

Sneak first.

Attack second.

Sweet Dreams are Made of These

Today is my friend Harvey Deselms’ birthday. He and his dog, Dot, have a big birthday party every year at their art gallery so all of us artists can mooch food and hopefully sell stuff to the people with money.

This year there was a balloon artist. When I arrived, Dot – who is much cuter as a four-year-old than she was as a bitey jumpy puppy – was harassing the balloon guy. She wanted his marker, his scissors, his HEY IS THAT A BALLOON CAN I HAVE THE BALLOON!?!

Later, I got this.

Kitten Thunder was not impressed.

The weird thing is that, on Saturday at the 17th Street Arts Festival, a little boy gave me a balloon flower. So we went from no local balloonists to two. The lady at the arts festival made this.

That’s Salvador Dali, in case you were thinking Groucho Marx.

And what does any of this have to do with the cats?

Nothing. Here’s this week’s story:

Oliver, as you know, loves breakfast. He loves the word breakfast. Just whispering “breakfast” in his ear while we’re snuggling will make him purr. So it should come as no surprise that he dreams about breakfast.

Yesterday, Oli was napping on the loveseat. His toes curled up. Then his lips started smacking. Smack smack. Then, from all the way across the room, I heard the purr.

The breakfast of his dreams.

Obi was not so lucky. Today, the brown kitten was snuggling with me (don’t tell him I told you that) and he’d settled down on the couch with his head resting on my stomach.

He was settled, but my stomach was not.

My tummy gurgled and growled for an hour. Eventually the sound worked its way into Obi’s dream. At first he was merely snarling whenever my stomach gurbled. Then his ears twitched as his lip curled up. Finally, he’d had enough of whatever dream creature that was full of big talk in his dream.

He growled back.

I laughed.

Dream over.

Cat Napping

We have had a long week.

We have had a long MONTH.

Two Sundays ago, I was in Rock Springs. Then last week I was camping. And for the last six evenings I have been out of the house. Last night, Outlook a.k.a the company that purchased Hotmail and immediately set out to make it unusable even when it isn’t crashing, wouldn’t let me send attachments. At 3:30 a.m. I gave up and sent it from a different email service.

Oliver and Obi, at 3:30 a.m., promised that they wouldn’t wake me up asking for breakfast at 6 a.m. if I fed them before I went to bed.

Surprisingly, this promise was kept.

The Boy tells me that Oliver attempted to get breakfast when they got up but several factors tipped him off. First, they hadn’t been pestering me and bothering him in the process. Second, Obi wanted his belly rubbed. Third, Oliver was only going through the motions and was actually perfectly happy not to be fed.

With this actually still-full belly, Oli returned to bed and worked his way into my arms. These are the things that Sunday should be made of.

Until at least noon.

 

Ceiling Cat

Clump. Clump clump. Scrape. Shuffle shuffle.

I was sitting on the exercise bike in the basement, putting some lotion on my hands and letting my hair dry a little bit after my shower when I heard it. The unmistakable sound of a kitten getting in trouble.

Then I remembered.

Before my shower I’d been in the hallway closet to find a shirt to wear. In went a grey kitten. In went a brown kitten. I shoved a whole bunch of clothes up against the sweater shelves, hoping this would be enough to keep Obi from climbing the “ladder” up into the ceiling.

Nope.

Except when I went to get Obi, he wasn’t in the section at the top of the ladder. He was standing on my clothes on the other side – evidently he’d crossed the closet and found a wide open space that ran the entire width of the basement. He’d also found a lot of dust bunnies.

I dragged him down, complete with his halo of dust and fuzz, and kissed his ears before setting him free.

Aw, Girl, not in front of the minions.

***

Obi went with me to have our portraits done for the animal shelter’s board photo this evening. It was outside and we were surrounded by dogs so there was no way I was going to attempt such a thing with Oliver.

Oliver says he is very handsome – I happen to agree – and that any photo would be better with him in it. To fluff his ego, here is his most striking close up. Or at least what he looks like when he’s laying on my chest while I’m blogging on my phone.

Welcome Home

So we got home from our camping trip on Monday. Our original plan was to come home on Sunday night, but we were really tired the week before when we got home at midnight…we thought a good night’s sleep and a drive home Monday was a better plan. We slept. We had breakfast. We rubbed Cousin Jigger’s belly.

And then, four hours later, we were home.

Oliver was starving to death. It had been A YEAR since Lori, bestest kitteh sitter in the world, had fed them. Or 18 hours. One of those. Regardless, food was his top priority.

After their meal, Kitten Thunder set to punishing us for being gone. Oliver settled on the dining room table where he could fix me with a hard glare. Obi, though, does not have such restraint. He needed his belly rubbed. And he really needed a good brushing. He danced around The Boy, trying to get his face brushed while The Boy tried to brush the back and belly.

Then Obi decided to do a little camping of his own in a pillow tent.

About an hour later, I was still being punished. Obi came to forgive me. Oliver saw this and ran across the house to shove the brown kitten out of the way – if I was to be forgiven, the grey kitten needed a snuggle.

Today I worked mostly from home. Mostly with a cat draped over my forearms. As I type this, there is a grey kitten on my arms and I can’t see the keyboard. Obi has taken his turns as well.

And if I have to get up to use the facilities (and oh, how I appreciate facilities after three days of unimproved wilderness)? Obi has that covered as well.

Does The Girl Pee in the Woods?

She sure does. And she has the bark in her britches to prove it.

After being gone for three days last weekend, The Boy and I tortured Kitten Thunder by leaving again this weekend. This time we went camping and fishing with some of my family in the Wind Rivers.

It was rustic and remote and fabulous.

We’re not quite home yet but it will once again be too late for blogging. So, I don’t have a story about how Kitten Thunder will react to our homecoming. Stay tuned for the story on Tuesday.

 

Cartoon Friday

Oh heeeeeey. Yesterday was Thursday and I forgot to blog. But here’s what I was wanting to share: the latest Simon’s Cat. After last week’s travel, it hit close to home.