The Least They Could Do

A note from Oliver:

My Girl has been very busy lately. I don’t like that. Her job is to be here with me. She’s supposed to snuggle me and pet me and feed me. And she can do the same things for Obi too, if she really wants to.

But that’s all the sharing I should have to do.

Sometimes she comes home and she smells like dog. Dogs are gross. But, honestly, I prefer that she pet dogs more than other cats. She’s my Girl. Poco did all her training and gave My Girl to me when I was a kitten.

Other cats should get their own girl. Or a boy. The Boy is pretty decent if you can’t have My Girl. Obi actually seems to prefer The Boy.

The Girl says every cat should have their own people and that’s why she leaves the house sometimes. She says she’s helping the place where they keep brothers – the place where she got Obi so he could be my brother.

She says that we are bored. Or something. I don’t know what that means, but I like the present the sent me to thank me for lending them My Girl. It’s great when it is warm from the dryer.

It’s even better when she wears it.

Take This

I have been kitteh sitting for two people this week. Oliver doesn’t approve. And he really doesn’t approve of the 7 a.m. Saturday morning getting up and staying up followed by me leaving for several hours. And he really really really doesn’t approve of the dog drool all over my leg on Friday.

So, aside from some subsistence snuggles, I am being punished.

The Boy said “it’s a good thing the recliner is big enough for two.”

I don’t think Obi agrees that it is big enough. Not at all.

Overkill

Oliver is a poor put down upon soul. Aside from the before the breakfast bell snuggle, the after breakfast snuggle, the midmorning desk snuggle, the lunchtime snuggle, the works over snuggle and the all evening snuggle, he hardly gets any attention.

And sometimes I decide to work out instead of snuggling. Oliver objects to this on two fronts. First, not snuggling. Second, he prefers me fluffy under the skin because I make a better napping platform that way.

Anyway, you can see how a kitten would have to beg for attention around here.

And he does.

Oliver generally enters a room with a soulful cry to let us all know he is terribly sad and neglected. Sure, I call out to him. But it’s like I expect him to find me and instigate the attention getting.

Poor. Put down upon.

Today he walked into the office and gave me a big cry. Instantly, I dropped everything and turned my chair to face him. “Hello, Bunnyman!” I said cheerily and patted my lap.

Oliver looked at me suspiciously. He took one step forward and mewed a little.

I patted my lap again. “I think we should absolutely have a middle of the afternoon desk snuggle.”

Oli set his front paws on my lap and looked into my eyes. Of course I picked him up – why should he have to do everything? While I kissed him on the paws and scritched his back, Oliver looked thoughtful.

Then he gave me a hard headbutt to the chin and hopped of my lap. He stopped once on his way to the kitchen to fix me with one last look. And afternoon snuggle seems like overkill, doesn’t it?

Snuggle Selfie

We were gone for eight days. Kitten Thunder was traumatized. Any time I leave the house I have to snuggle with the kittehs to calm them down.

Oliver loves me so hard. So. Hard.

Hair There Everywhere

So we’ve been on vacation since last Saturday. We took a little road trip up to Canada.

I was snapping this photo from the car as we drive down the highway when my camera’s focus pulled in on something on the window.

It was an Obi hair.

Obi’s hair has this amazing ability to cling to anything, allowing it to travel with us wherever we go. There is an Obi hair somewhere – I won’t tell you where – in the Vatican. We also carried hair with us to Croatia.

So if you find a distinctively striped cat hair maybe, just maybe, Obi’s people might have been there.

Interested

The Boy has a dresser that had moved around with him since he was a child. It was, possibly, his dad’s before that. As a child he chose to have it painted bright red.

I didn’t want it to be red anymore.

I’ve been painting the dresser a little at a time for a couple weeks. Out in the garage. As you know, Kitten Thunder did not approve.

I’m not quite done painting but the snow storm inspired me to close up painting operations in the garage so my car could sleep inside. With a 7 a.m. meeting, I was not interested in risking an inch of ice on the windshield.

So the bench that I bought lady week came in. Oliver stood in the way and I had to yell at him to move.

He was interested.

Then I brought in the dresser and tried to put the drawers in. Oliver wanted to supervise from inside.

He was interested.

Then I wanted to take a picture with him with the finished dresser and bench. I set him on the bench. Nope. The dresser? Nope.

He wasn’t interested.

***
I did manage to get photos of Oliver on the bench by Obi’s favorite OutTV Channel.

Obi sharing the channel with his brother? Not interested.

***
In case you’re interested, the handles of the dresser are faucet handles. There are two more for the top drawer. And I think we’ll get the more so we can put one in the middle – they look a little awkward to me with only two. We just need to find a store with a different design.

No Mo Snow

Ah, Wyoming. Where it snows at least once every September. Always. In spite of this being a fact and required by the laws of nature, it always catches us by surprise when the severe weather announcements start.

And we try to deny that is happening.

Which is why it was 40 degrees and raining a fat drizzle on Thursday afternoon when I started the desperate process of bringing plants in from the cold. My pepper plant and eggplant have just started making fruit (remember the hail storm in late June?) so I’m glad they are in pots.

Obi is glad, too.

He’s been asked not to sit in the parsley this year. Nobody said anything about the oregano.

Not a Big Deal

As you know, me leaving the house is generally unacceptable in Kitten Thunder’s opinion. So I was very casual about getting up at way too early this morning and getting dressed while the kittehs ate breakfast.

No big deal.

Nothing to worry about.

The kittehs were not fooled. They pulled out the big guns.

Obi casually made himself at home in my lap while I was drinking coffee. No big deal. Not a big thing for my unsnuggly brown kitten to show up instead of the super snuggle grey kitten.

And he wouldn’t leave. I petted. I kissed. I took his picture. Nothing would move Obi from his post. No torture was great enough to convince him that he’d rather have me leave.

He was holding me down at all costs.

Alas, it was all for nothing. Here I sit at a conference.

We both wish he’d won.

Cliffhanger

The Boy has made exciting progress in the basement. Now we have an actual door-shaped hole in the wall of the laundry room. For months, I have had to continue walking around the basement to use the old door or duck through the small hole in the wall. Of course I was always wearing dark jeans whenever I lost my balance and touched the chalky edges of the hole. So I very much like the bigger hole. Kitten Thunder thinks it is less fun this way.

The other day, I went to walk through the new hole in the wall and found Obi hanging by two fingers from a wire from the ceiling. Then he fell to the floor, thumping against the washing machine on his way down. I followed him out to the hallway and subjected him to an inspection. No cuts. No sore spots. Just a mad kitten.

I attempted to scold him for his behavior. He flicked his tail at me as he strolled up the stairs.

As if world champion rock climbers don’t fall down if their mother walks into the room and screams about it.

Sheesh.

***

On Friday, the brown kitten was feeling compelled to get into the ceiling again. I thought I had him talked out of it and left him in the window while I finished getting dressed. Then I heard the big noise. It was a weird noise.

I paused. I listened.

Obi cried.

I rushed over to the hole in the wall and immediately noticed the piece of wood across the doorway. Obi was sitting on the washing machine looking angry.

He’d decided to jump for the ceiling where The Boy had run the new lights for the spare room. Neither the trim along the ceiling, nor the vertical stud on which it had been sitting, were attached to the wall all that well. Certainly not well enough to support a ten pound kitten with velocity. The Boy said – when he got home and I showed him what the kitten had done – that he hadn’t thought that would be a problem for one day. He was wrong. Obviously.

Obi does not approve of shoddy workmanship.

Especially if it makes it look like the brown kitten didn’t make his jump.

Bad Boy.

Chicken Sticks

Poor Obi has no toys.

I mean, yes, he has a cave. And a pink fuzzy. And the funky chicken. And flat mousie. And an egg – plus the chicken that goes with the egg. But other than that, he has no toys.

So The Boy got out the magic toy making sick and waved it under the love seat. He found the rubber mouse ball. Obi tried to play with it, but it was boring. Until it rolled under the love seat again. Then he wanted it back! The Boy rescued it. But it was boring.

Poor Obi has no toys.

So The Girl opened the coat closet and found the other flat mousie. Obi took it and ran over to the quilt. He plunked down with flat mousie, and other flat mousie, and pink fuzzy, and the funky chicken.

But poor Obi has no toys.

For a little while Obi had a moth. He chased it and hopped and ran around the living room. He chased the moth as it few against the window.

Then he ate the moth.

Poor Obi has no toys.

We had chicken kabobs for dinner. The Boy’s sticks were very fun. Both kittens ran their noses along the length of the sticks.

It was a lot of fun. But then The Boy threw the sticks away.

Poor Obi has no toys.