Shenanigans

There were little people in the neighborhood, coming to our door and ringing the bell. Obi does not approve of these shenanigans. He’s never seen trick-or-treaters before because I was painting my kitchen at the old house the first year we lived here – and The Boy hid in the basement. Last year, Halloween was on a Wednesday. We drink beer on Wednesdays. Priorities.

Toward the end of the evening, Obi decided to put a stop to it.

We were running out of candy because I didn’t buy much, thinking our neighborhood was kind of slow. And the wind had picked up. So we turned out the light and headed to The Boy’s office to see if we could figure out the issue with our internet. Obi, who had developed hiccups from the stress, nestled down in a box.

He wanted the hiccuping shenanigans to end as well.

Once we got the internet “fixed” (because OF COURSE it works while you’re on the phone with the IT guy), Obi and I went down to the basement to work out. Well, I worked out. 

Obi was on the look out for more of those little people

 

 

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Promise

On the weekend, The Boy gets up much earlier than me. I am, by nature, more of a night owl. This means that The Boy falls asleep on the couch on Saturday night. Then he’ll decide that if he’s sleeping he might as well be in bed. I follow a couple hours later.

And, before we head to bed at 1 or 2 a.m., Kitten Thunder hits me up for breakfast. Last night, Oliver was insistent about breakfast. He was starving TO DEATH and could not wait until morning.

“If I feed you,” I said, “do you promise that you won’t wake me up at the crack of dawn?”

Yes, yes of course, he promised. So Obi and Oli got some breakfast.

This morning, Oliver wanted breakfast. He stomped. He cried. He headbutted me. I rolled over and gave him a look. “You promised me that you wouldn’t beg for breakfast this morning.”

The grey kitten looked at me. He looked out the window. He looked back at me. It was, in fact, well past dawn. Promise kept.

The Boy got up shortly after. I heard him open a can of breakfast for the kittehs. Soon after that, a full and happy grey kitten came back to bed. Night owls sleep in.

Please hold…

The Kitten Thunder blog is moving to KittenThunder.com. We love WordPress and will continue to use it, but I’m going to private hosting.

While we wait, think about Christmas. Think about wrapping your presents in Cousin Spade. He’s very festive.

Meowy Christmas and a Happy Mew Year wrapping pape Gift Wrapping Paper by KittenThunder
Browse additional wrapping paper at Zazzle

Nothing!

While The Boy was cooking me pancakes tonight, I heard the kittehs crying at him. Possibly because he was looking for a recipe and they knew what he needed: tuna, milk, cheese. Possibly because I’d asked them to go bite him and they were tattling on me. You see, I’ve been asking for pancakes for over a week and he hasn’t felt like making them.

Much like Congress, he had no better plan for dinner. But he didn’t like my idea. We had a kitchen shut down. But eventually we settled on spaghetti. And the next night we had salmon. And then chicken. And, and, and. But no pancakes. See how that’s done, Congress? Neither of us got the perfect meal, but we didn’t stop eating. 

So this afternoon I marinated some chicken for tikka masala. I knew there was a chance it would wait until Thursday because sometimes we fend for ourselves on Tuesdays. And we have beer for dinner on Wednesday. So, when we decided to fend for ourselves tonight, I decided to be a big girl and make my own dang pancakes. And The Boy thought that pancakes sounded good.

“Obi, go bite The Boy for me.”

I was kidding, of course. I’m seriously not going to complain about anything The Boy cooks for me – considering I used to eat at Wendy’s four times a week to break up my meals at Taco Johns. 

ANYWHO, the kittehs were talking at The Boy in the kitchen. Until I walked into the kitchen. Then there were two streaks of furry leaving the kitchen. I found them in the dining room, casually sitting under the table as if they’d been there all night. What were they up to?

Nothing.

I decided to clean litter boxes while dinner was cooking. Kitten Thunder followed me downstairs. On my way back up, they were sitting casually in the train room as if they’d been there all night. Obi was washing a paw. What were they up to?

Nothing.

A few minutes later, I was standing in the kitchen with The Boy. Two streaks of fur came up the stairs from the basement. The streaks diverged in front of us; one streak went left, into the dining room. One went right, into the hallway. 

Dinner was ready. 

We took our pancakes into the living room and found two kittehs laying under the coffee table. Casual. Like they’d been waiting there all along. Oliver scratched his ear. Not up to anything.

Nothing.

More Man’s Work

I was sitting on the couch yesterday when Oliver came down to lay on my lap. The Boy was knocking a hole in the side of the house, upstairs, and it had disturbed his nap. The grey kitten did not approve.

Obi was all over it.

While The Boy was on a run to Home Depot, the brown kitten showed me his project.

Then The Boy returned.

Oliver came up to see what we were doing. He looked at me with “let’s go take a nap” eyes. I did return to the couch because I had some work to do on my laptop. But The Boy’s work bothered the grey kitten even there – a ladder right next to him on OutTV was not a restful thing.

While The Boy was outside on the ladder, Obi was still upstairs…hanging head and shoulders out of the hole in the wall where a window had been. The Boy did not approve.

This would be a good place to say that The Boy primed a new window sill and put it in. And it was too big, so the window didn’t fit. BUT! When he trimmed it down it was perfectly level so the window went in with no shimming needed. TA DAAA!

This is also a good place to say that I did not sit on the couch, napping and eating bon-bons, while my husband worked. I did my regularly scheduled work on the computer. Then I cleared leaves from around the foundation so it could dry out – today I was supposed to be recaulking in the driveway and pulling out the section of wall that is water damaged. But, because of this plan, it is raining and snowing.

Nothing is drying out.

This morning, The Boy came up and started trimming away excess spray foam from the window. Oliver and I were still in bed. I lifted my head to see what was happening. “Stay,” said the grey kitten, putting a paw on my shoulder.

Obi was supervising the work from the counter. When he noticed the Oli and I were awake, he started to walk toward us. But he walked over the decal that had been on the new window and his feet stuck to it. It was disturbing. It inspired a bath.

Hours later, the window is close to being done. The Boy had to go to a train meeting, but when he comes back he will put up the last bit of trim and seal things like crazy. It looks great. And it will be so nice to have light in the room – the old wood-framed window was covered by an icky piece of plastic so we kept the shower curtain closed to hide it.

During a run to Home Depot, Obi took a nap on my lap. He told me to be sure to let you know that he never would have been able to do this project without The Boy.

The Boy is an excellent helper.

I’m in.

Right?

Pecking Order

I had one of those days where a lot of people were lucky I wasn’t packing my spork. Because so many foreheads needed sporking. Spork spork spork (this is awesome if read with Psycho sound effects).

So when I got home tonight, it was fairly easy for Obi to convince me to put off my more work to do in favor of a kitten snuggle. The brown kitten kneaded and purred and offered a head for scritching. When The Boy got home, I lost my snuggle buddy.

Soon to be replaced by a grey kitten. Oliver, too, had a hard day. My eight hour absence was the least of his problems. But that’s another post. What is important, now, is that we had each other. And it was snuggle time.

After an hour or so, The Boy decided to cook spaghetti for dinner. He cooked it all by himself because a) it doesn’t take two people to make spaghetti and b) hello, snuggling. So all was fine. But then dinner was ready.

The Boy came out to inform us that it was time to eat. Oliver fixed him with as steady gaze. Serve me, Boy, by serving The Girl.

The Boy set up TV trays and told Oliver I needed to get up. Serve me, Boy, by serving The Girl.

The Boy scooped his own spaghetti and sat down to eat. He got a hard glare from the grey kitten. Then a sigh. Oliver got up, stretched, and jumped to the floor. I went to get my dinner.

Oliver. Obi. Girl. Boy. Is this pecking order really that hard to understand?

Man’s Work

This morning, The Boy decided today was the day for our new windows to be installed. I told him to call me if he needed me and settled in on the couch with some coffee. I expected a kitteh or two to join me for a snuggle.

I was disappointed.

Kitten Thunder had man’s work to do. They were hard at work, supervising The Boy.

After a lot of noise over the first hour, The Boy came up to prepare for his first trip to Home Depot of the day. I went downstairs with Kitten Thunder so they could show me what they’d been doing.

Then I brought them upstairs and, when The Boy returned, we closed the door to the basement. Obi did NOT approve.

He so didn’t approve that he refused to watch The Boy on OutTV. He would not even give the very special episode of Boy Didn’t Know We Had Steel Window Frames a chance. And he would not let The Boy rub his belly when he came inside to prepare for his next trip to Home Depot.

Obi also wouldn’t snuggle with me. He stayed on the floor and stared at the wall, rather than coming up to lay on the couch. And when I got up to leave for the grocery store – and a trip to pick up a couple things at Home Depot – Obi did not say goodbye.

Finally, after one more trip to Home Depot, The boy called it a day. He got one window done. The next one will be easier. And the one after that will be a piece of cake. 

And Obi won’t be allowed to help with any of them.

Battle: Ear Wax

As I have mentioned before, Oliver has allergies. Allergies that do gross things to my handsome grey kitten like give him goopy eyes, chin zits and icky ears. If the symptoms don’t bother him I usually don’t put him through a veterinary visit. But after cleaning his ears on Monday? His ears were bothering him. I called in my favorite people at Cottonwood Veterinary Clinic.

Obi and I met Tiffany and Laura at the door, because that’s what we do. They came in and set up while we small talked. What they didn’t notice, while unpacking and rubbing Obi’s belly, was Oliver coming in, checking them out, then going upstairs with hopes that they were there to see Obi. So I had to go upstairs to fetch the grey kitten.

Still holding Oli, I presented his ears to the doctor. She was appropriately concerned by the caverns of black crusty mess. And a little bit suspicious that it might be ear mites. I agreed with her that it certainly LOOKED like ear mites. But Oliver is an indoor cat. And he and Obi lay ear to ear all the time but Obi’s ears are clear. And, until Monday, there was no itching or head shaking. I hadn’t ruled it out, but ear mites seemed so unlikely.

And then the ear cleaning began.

There was hissing and screaming and growling. There was not enough cotton ready. It. Was. Gross.

During the whole process, I held Obi. Obi cried. He was very concerned about what they were doing to his brother. When I wasn’t holding him, he would run up and try to help free the brother. 

Finally, it was over. 

Oliver stomped off. Then he came back, ears pressed down to show they were broken, and fixed Tiffany with a mighty glare. He left again with a flick of his tail. “I think he just flipped me off!” she said. Then she played with Obi for a minute. The brown kitten forgave everyone as soon as the growling and hissing stopped.

After a quick trip to look at gunk under a microscope, the ears are officially full of bacteria, NOT bugs. After nine hours I was forgiven, even though Oli’s ears were still bright red inside. Poor kitten. And after I poured medicine in his ears this morning, Oliver was perfectly okay with me leaving town for a while.

***

I am in Rock Springs right now for business. Cousin Spade is standing in for my usual IT team.

Here he is, looking for some more accessories for my laptop. Or the notebook that I need but left on the coffee table in Cheyenne.

***

So! As you may know, Kitten Thunder has a Zazzle store. Our top seller is our Meowy Christmas ornament. Personally, I would buy the 2-sided ornament that says Meowy Christmas and a Happy Mew Year, but whatever. My point is this: if one option is good, many options is better! Instead of just Cousin Spade, who is super handsome, I would like to offer many faces on this ornament. A Meowy Christmas ornament with a calico. One with a grey tabby. An orange tabby. Long hair, short hair, no hair! If you have a gorgeous feline that would like to be featured on an ornament, please send me a photo of your furry friend at angelharp64@hotmail.com.

 

The Obi Presence

Watching sit ups from under the train layout.

Letting me get so close to him for a picture that you can see his nose hairs. The ones ON his nose, not IN his nose. This makes an awesome wallpaper on my phone.

Glaring at me for taking his picture when he’s snuggling.

Holding down my workbook so I can’t leave the house.

Our balloon monkey from August died and fell from her tree. Obi said his goodbyes before I buried her…in the trash can.

Oliver’s ears are broken because I cleaned them out this morning. So Dr. Tiffany is coming to fix them tomorrow. Somehow I think the grey kitten prefers the ear treatment of Dr. Obi.