Kissing Friday

At 4 a.m., Obi was bored. He started his usual bored routine, pulling the cupboard open in the bathroom and – because we installed baby locks the day after he locked Oliver in the cupboard – letting it bumpbumpbump closed again.

“Obi, stop.”

At 4:20 a.m., Obi was bored. BumpBumpBump.

“Obi. Stop.” BumpBumpBump.

He could not be convinced, verbally, to stop playing with the cupboard. I got up, removed him from the bathroom, and shut the door. Now everyone with cats is thinking that THIS didn’t work. You just can’t have closed doors in a house with cats. But, surprisingly, no one cared.

At 4:45 a.m., Obi was bored. He went to his secondary bored action of playing with the blinds over our headboard. After the strings hit me in the head the tenth time I reached up, grabbed the brown kitten, kissed his head and sent him on his way.

At 5 a.m., Oliver was hungry.

At 5:05 a.m., Oliver was hungry.

At 5:10 a.m., Oliver was hungry.

At 5:15 a.m., Oliver was hungry.

At 5:18 a.m., Oliver was hungry.

At 5:30 a.m., Oliver was hungry. He jumped onto my should to see why I wasn’t paying attention to him. “It isn’t time yet,” I said. As he turned to leave, his foot slipped and jammed into my eye. His grey body went thump against the wall and then thump on the floor when instinct made my arm flail and send him flying.

At 5:32 a.m., I had a sore, watering eye. And a lot of guilt.

At 5:35 a.m., Oliver was hungry. This actually made me feel better because it meant I didn’t hurt him.

At 5:42 a.m., I decided I might as well get up because I needed to be downtown at 6:30 a.m., anyway.

At 5:45 a.m., moving slowly and picking up both kittehs to deliver passive-aggressive kisses, I arrived in the kitchen to feed them.

At 6:15 a.m., I was out the door.

There were meetings all day. And there was work to do.

At 4:45 p.m., Oliver and I finally met on the couch for the post-breakfast snuggle. Then there was more work to do.

At 10:13 p.m., I will publish this post.

At 10:17 p.m., I will be in bed. Asleep. And hoping for a better start to tomorrow.

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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.

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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.

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.

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.