That’s a Wrap

Why we still have a “roll” of wrapping paper on the floor in the basement hallway, which we walk on every time we go into the workshop:

If you scroll through this really quickly, it’s almost animated!

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Four Alarm Furor

Oliver is like a fun house mirror; he reflects what he sees only bigger or distorted. If I love him, he loves me more. If I cry, he MOURNS. If I yell at him for being bad, he hates me for ruining his life. If I take a nap, he becomes comatose. And if you yell at his Girl, he will END you.

Thus, day three of Operation: Calm the %$&# Down.

Soon after I wrote my early morning post on Sunday, Oliver and Obi fought again. They got a time out. They fought again. They got a time out. They fought again. They got a time out.

It was confusing because they cried at the door for each other the moment they were separated. When they were reunited, they’d bathe each other. They even thundered once. Then, in an instant, the anger and hatred returned.

Watching closely, I figured out the pattern. Obi flinched and hissed if Oliver approached him head on. One hiss is all it takes for Oliver to go full on fighty.

And so began a 48 hour brother detox program. Why? The particular movement that makes Obi hiss is a stress trigger. I read that most stress triggers can be forgotten, or recovered from, in 48 hours. Easy enough.

But the one big problem with Operation: Calm the $%&# Down is… We had to close a door.

Kitten Thunder can not handle a closed door.

I’ve got a pheromone ball plugged in and gave them calming treats, but the trauma of a closed door is real. By Monday at noon is gotten prescription happy pills (we’re not to Prozac, yet). They still sit at the door and yowl for an hour at a time, but they are stopping for a nap. The first day, they probably only got four hours of sleep in ten minute stretches. Not healthy for cats. By the time Oliver and I went to bed, in the basement, on Sunday night, he barely staggered into my arms before passing out. He still got up several times in the night to lament the closed door and lost brother.

They cry about the door. They cry for each other.

So today, the 48 very long hours was up and I was hopeful.

They met. They licked. They ate treats together. They wrestled. They ate more treats when The Girl thought they might be getting a little too rough. But there was no fighting. Once in a while Obi would cower, but he kept his hiss to himself.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

Then Oliver walked up to Obi in just a way. The brown kitten hit the floor and hissed. Oliver turned his ears back. I shook the treat bag in his face and happily chirped “who wants more snackums?”

Nope. I caught up to the brawl in The Boy’s office, where he was eating lunch. He grabbed a grey kitten and went to the living room. I held a nasty tempered brown kitten in my lap (his reflection is more measured, but he’ll give what he gets as well). The Boy let Oliver go and the grey kitten came right back in for another round.

Operation: Calm the $%&# Down continues with another day of separation. Maybe some short visits. I saw progress today.

In the meantime, our spare room bed is REALLY comfortable.

WAR!

Once again, I am perplexed by the kittens. I guess Obi needed to charge something yesterday. But, by the time he got to the hallway, he must have realized that whatever he was charging wasn’t an Apple product.

***

On Tuesday, the weather changed in Cheyenne. We are now enjoying temperatures near freezing rather than below zero. The change, as always, was ushered in by big wind. BIG wind. Like 62 mph here in town wind.

So, when The Boy was leaving for work and noticed our trash and recycling bins trying to escape down the alley, he put them in the driveway. The recycling bin ended up under my office window.

No problem.

At first.

Then, as I was typing away on the couch yesterday afternoon, Oliver started screaming. It was a weird, “I need help” type scream. I was up and into my office in moments. And I found…

Oliver looking out the window.

And Obi looking out the window.

At first they looked totally normal and I was irritated by the scream for help. Then I went up to the window and touched Oliver on the back. He leaped into the air and screamed. He bumped Obi who leaped into the air and screamed. The both puffed up and hissed at me. At each other. At the window.

And out in the driveway I noticed the black cat that kept fighting other cats out there this summer. I’m thinking he had jumped up on the recycling bin and looked in the window at my sleeping kitties.

So I moved the recycling bin. Problem solved.

EXCEPT, just now as I was writing this, it happened again. Oliver screamed. I ran into the office to find Oli and Obi in a full on battle on the floor. I risked life and limb to separate them. The black cat was in the driveway. My guess is that Oliver woke up, saw the black kitten, and started puffing up and screaming. And Obi woke up fighting, thinking he was being attacked. So Oliver fought back.

Now that things have calmed down, Oliver is trying to apologize to his brother. Obi is TICKED OFF.  As I held Obi, Oliver came up to us and licked Obi’s ears. Obi smacked him and stormed off into the living room.

He’ll wash himself, thankyouverymuch.

 

 

Tower of Terrors

In the winter, I spend a lot of time sitting on the couch. I work much of my week under a blanket and a cat or two – Facebooking for a living is hard work (okay, it is actually hard work, it’s just really comfortable work, too). Then, after work, I have to sit on the couch and actually snuggle with Oliver. You didn’t think that all that time that aI wasn;t givining him my FULL attention counted, did you?

**Aside: how do you like that last sentence with Obi helping me type? So glad he psychically felt me trying to get some writing done without a cat and came to rectify the situation**

So anywho, since I spend most of my day in the living room it would be obvious that Kitten Thunder also spends most of their day in the living room. Somehow, though, I did not link that to the practically unused kitty tower in the dining room.

Until yesterday. Yesterday, kitty condos and towers were on an AMAZING sale via WOOT. My friend Juliette, who has a sweet kitty named Rosie, messaged me to get my opinion on kitty towers.  I mentioned to her that ours would get more use in the living room.

And the light went on. Why wasn’t it in the living room.

Five minutes later, it was.

Six minutes later, Kitten Thunder was losing their minds.

**Aside: Kitten Thunder is very difficult to work into grammatically correct sentences.**

 

**Aside: I took a whole bunch of pictures before I realized it was my lens, not my eyes, that was blurry. Plus, playing cats.**

Oliver and Obi have been wrestling on the top platforms all day. It is driving me crazy. At one point, Obi was stretched to full length, with only the fact that Oliver was standing on him keeping him from tumbling to the floor.

Then Oliver was on the corner platform and Obi was on the lower one. Obi kept reaching up and biting at Oli’s backside, pulling back with a mouthful of hair. Hair pulling is the big thing this week, I guess. Oli would respond by punching his brother in the face.

When the grey kitten was tired of fighting, he moved down the the platform on which the brown kitten was sitting. And he sat. These platforms are tiny. I’m constantly shocked to see a cat sleeping comfortably on them. So two cats? Nope. Obi lost his grip on the edge and was forced down to the house.

Not content with just forcing a truce, Oliver followed Obi into the house. And he laid down. The house is not big enough for two kittens. The brown kitten squeezed over his brother and out the door.

A ruffled kitten left the tower.

For a while. But the tower of two terrors can not stay calm for long.

 

The Amazing Ninja Tail Spin

Oliver is feeling better. For a while his newly found allergies were slowing him down and he wasn’t as active as he usually is. Poor Obi. But, while still a little goopy around the eyes and nose, Oliver is now better.

He is instigating Thunders.

When Obi wants to thunder, he’ll do the things a normal cat will do. He’ll sneak. He’ll pounce. He’ll tease and run. Oliver…well…did I mention that I was the one who taught Oli how to be a cat? Chalk this up to another failure on my part.

When Oli wants to thunder, he’ll walk up to Obi and poke him in the face with his paw. There’s a possibility he’s trying to give Obi The Claw. The Claw is slightly less effective when you have tiny paws nowhere near big enough to encompass a cat’s head.

But then! Then we have Oliver’s signature move: The Amazing Ninja Tail Spin!

Once Obi is standing, Oliver spins around so he is facing away from Obi. He looks back over his shoulder to make sure his brother is impressed by his awesome move. And Obi is…confused. We think that Oliver means to smack Obi with his tail, but Oli holds his tail straight up at all times. So no tail smacking. Or twacking. Just…butt.

In all fairness, this move does have a pretty good consequence depending on the goal. Once he has spun around, Obi usually bites him. The Girl or The Boy generally responds with “Obi! Don’t bite your brother’s butt.” So…Obi is in trouble. Oli wins.

Hmmm…sneaky little ninja.

Battle Box

"You know what's really good in omelettes? Tuna."

The Boy and I were standing in the kitchen when we heard a thunk from Kitty Playland. Obi is the main user of the playland but we thought he was in the condo so we stepped into the breakfast nook to see what was going on.

Kitty Playland, you may recall, has been downsized to one box that has a flap on it. Earlier in the morning, The Boy had pushed the flap over to close Obi in the box. The lid was still closed but this time there was a grey tail hanging out. As we watched, the tail slowly pulled into the box and there was a thunk. The tell-tale thunk of an Oli plunking.

I lifted the lid to see the grey kitten – “hello!” I said and closed the lid. I did this a couple times. Then Obi walked in.

Obi approached the side of the box. He put his nose to the opening. A white paw darted out and punched him. There were a couple seconds of brown paws against white paw.

Then Obi got on top of the box. The lid clamped tight on the box. Then it slid down  a little into the box. Then a little more. A little more. A…little…bit…THWUMP! Oliver was trapped under the triangle of space left by the flap being pushed in. Obi sat next to him on the outside triangle. He looked confused.

Then he was bored. And feeling a little peckish. So he gave up the game for kitty crunchies.

I liberated the grey fuzzy.

As soon as Oliver left, Obi went back to the box. And pushed the lid back down while trying to get in. Trying to be helpful, I lifted him up – and gave him kisses until he squeaked in protest – while The Boy lifted the lid back out. We inserted him into the box and closed the lid.

We went back to cooking breakfast.

THWUMP. Obi was on top of the lid again.

Sometimes we humans just don’t understand the rules of the game.