It isn’t Tuesday

I totally forgot to write a post yesterday.

Possibly because something OTHER than my meowy Christmas ornament sold in our Zazzle store. Somebody bought my Doppler Cat t-shirt.

This made me happy. Then it made me jealous, because I really want this shirt for myself.

Then it occurred to me that the t-shirt is on my I’m Full of Want board. So maybe I’m getting this shirt for my birthday.

This idea made me happy.

Speaking of Pinterest…the kittehs board has some new posts of adorableness. Check it out.

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Drawing the Line

A couple months ago, I bought some organizers for our kitchen cabinet to help with the leaning towers of pots. The organizers went, promptly, into my office. There they sat until last week…when I put the bag in front of the cabinet to inspire action. The Boy was inspired to sweep the kitchen and moved the bag into the breakfast nook. Where it stayed.

But, for some reason, I am inspired to get more done on a Sunday afternoon than the rest of the week combined. I work out. I go to the grocery store. I do dishes. And today I put the organizers in the cupboard. Honestly, I don’t think it helped at all.

But I did learn some things:

1. The Boy will keep anything that is well made, even if we never use it or we’re missing a piece. Turns out, we have a pressure cooker. That doesn’t work.

2. I don’t care enough to throw things away just because I think it is silly that The Boy keeps them*. We still have a nonfunctional pressure cooker.

3. I also noticed that we have the toaster oven, for which I have bought two replacements, stored in a cabinet. It is true that I replaced it mostly because it was ugly. But that one, and the little red one that proved to be more style than function, could really go. Unless someone wants to come over for a toast party. TOAST FOR 15!

3. We also have a strainer that nests into the big pot we make spaghetti with so that all you have to do is lift it out and voila! Strained pasta.

4. Obi will help organize a cupboard.

5. Obi is not particularly helpful when he helps organize a cupboard.

6. The fastest way to get Obi out of the cupboard he is helping to organize is to ask The Boy to hand you your camera.

Kitten gone. Cabinet organized…ish.

Nothing toasted, pressurized or strained in the process.

 

* It is worth noting that I also don’t throw things away. I am working on paring my wardrobe down to one closet (plus the sweater closet, of course). Much of my wardrobe doesn’t fit or is no longer appropriate for my age. Those items conceal items that DO fit and that I SHOULD be wearing. Such as, for example, the jeans I am wearing right now. I found them on Thursday and a) am amazed by how perfectly they fit and b) have no recollection of buying them or owning them in the past.

Biting the Hand That Feeds You

First, a word about the weather: hot.

Cat-melting hot. As hot as it is, though, we have not moved to the basement to escape it because it is still cooling off at night. The fan is doing its job as long as two cats don’t pile up at the bottom of the bed and block all the air.

***

A couple weeks ago I made a skirt out of a favorite pair of jeans that had a hole in them. Here is where I should point out that if I like something and it is a good deal I buy multiples. My black winter boots are the same style as my brown ones. When my brown flats wore out I went to the store and bought a black pair without looking around. This is a great system…until things start wearing out at the same time.

So this week I was making a skirt out of the second pair of favorite jeans that had a hole in them.

Obi helped. Again.

While I was on the floor with scissors and a brown kitten, I decided to work on the mats developing on Obi’s back. He was not impressed.

He started biting at me. At me. I’ve realized that neither of the kittehs has ever really bitten me. When we play they chew on my hands as I get their bellies but they don’t ever clamp down. And I’ve read that a cat will “love bite,” where they only bite down with one side of their mouth. Obi does that.

When I was working on the mats, Obi bared his teeth and bumped them into my hands. It hurt even less than play biting. He looked at me desperately: please, Girl, stop because this is as mean as I get.

I took pity. The mats remain.

For now.

Kitten Balls

If you wash a sheet that has been used as a cave for five months, your washer will be filled with little balls of kitten. Like, thirty of them.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

***

When we first moved into this house, we discovered that Obi can climb ladders. By this, I mean the shelf supports that go up the wall in one of my closets. For a whole year I have been careful not to leave that closet unattended so I wouldn’t end up with a kitten in the ceiling.

You’d think a cat would forget. They forget where they are going as they are walking across the living room. They forget what toy they are playing with if it goes past a different toy. They forget where they leave their people if they leave the room.

Obi did not forget.

In the time it took me to make a space for some clothes, walk across the basement to get said clothes, and return to the closet, Oliver had settled himself on my sweaters and Obi was in the ceiling.

Just like that.

This side of the house seems to be as boring as the other. Obi walked the width of the house, trapped between two joists. Then he came back. Then he did it again. Then he came back. He wanted to explore another line, but to get between different joists he had to hop down to the top shelf and he was immediately gotten.

Poor kitten.

***

An aside about clothing: I have too much. My closets are full and the basement and garage still have full Rubbermaids. I need advice on how to weed out my wardrobe. Obviously, things that don’t fit are going to charity. Plus, short skirts because my knees are too old to be seen in public. I know there’s some rule about things you haven’t worn for a certain amount of time, but I have a problem with that. For the last three years I worked in a basement where no one saw me. So I wore the same ten outfits – it was handy because they never got put away. So, any other ideas?

Obi, the Amazing Circus Cat!

"I feel like I'm walking a fine line..."

Our very first week in the new house was educational. In the guest room’s closet there are shelves on one side and one day, while I was holding him, Oliver wanted to get on those shelves. I didn’t think too much about it. I just set him on the top shelf and went back to unpacking.

And then…he was gone.

It didn’t take me too long to figure out that Oliver had climbed up into the ceiling. Luckily, he climbed up between two beams and there wasn’t anything but a long path to the foundation with a couple nails sticking up. I didn’t have to worry too much about his safety. I got up on a chair and talked to him until he was ready for me to help him down.

Since then, Kitten Thunder has been obsessed with the ceiling in the basement.

New rule: that side of the closet must remain closed at all times lest a kitten decide to get acrobatic.

A few days later The Boy  came up with a brilliant idea to make the shelves in another closet more shallow  so I would a) have more room to hang clothes and b) have a shelf that was the exact width of a sweater. I have an EXTENSIVE sweater collection. Have I mentioned that I live in Wyoming? And that winter is my favorite season?

Anyway, the shelves were made of two pieces of wood each so all we had to do was take the front piece off of the supports. The bottom shelf is still two pieces wide so there’s a nice platform. Obi was sitting on the platform as The Boy and I sat, huffing and puffing (I made the process sound much easier than it was), on the floor in the hall.

And then he did it. Obi had been looking at the open ceiling but I wasn’t worried about it – he’s not much of a jumper and it was a good six feet up. What I didn’t anticipate, though, was Obi’s amazing circus cat abilities. He used those shelf supports like the rungs of a ladder and zipped right up the wall.

This is where I discovered that I, too, have a special ability. When faced with the possibility of a cat going into the space between two floors of my house, I can move at the speed of light and snatch him back from the abyss at the nick of time! Ta da!

So…new rule. No kittens in the hallway closet, either.

A couple weeks ago, the clothes bar in the guest room closet broke. I maintain this is because of the cheap plastic fixtures and not because I have a ridiculous wardrobe. Stop! Don’t think back to the last paragraphs about me using the hallway closet! Don’t add that to the guest room closet! Cheap…plastic…fixture…no…such…thing…as…too…many…skirts…

While I was waiting for The Boy to fix my closet – the bar needed to be shortened and while I AM a metalsmith, I don’t do hacksaws – I moved those clothes to a spare clothing rack. Did I mention that when we moved to this house I gave away three closets of clothing to charity?

All of this part of the story is leading up to this: the other day, Obi was walking on the rack like a tightrope to get closer to a miller on the ceiling.

New rule: Don’t put the clothes rack near any open parts of the ceiling.

"Whatever you do, don't look down."