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.

 

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Chairy-y Pick

When we moved in to this house, The Boy’s table ended up in the dining room but it only had two chairs. The table in our breakfast nook, which is pine colored, has four chairs. Those chairs keep ending up in the dining room, screaming LOOK AT US NOT MATCHING IN THE ELEGANT DINING ROOM. And the yell that because they are also country.

So we’ve been thinking about chairs.

For almost three years.

This afternoon I was downtown for a meeting and had to walk by Carnival Antiques. She had chairs. On the sidewalk. That were the perfect price if not the perfect color. I have plenty of stain left from the shelves if I decide that they aren’t close enough to the right color.

I brought the chairs home and got the first one exactly four feet inside the door. Before this happened:

Eventually I made Oliver get off the chair so I could move it. Now it is afternoon nap time. Kitten Thunder usually goes upstairs to sleep on the cat shelf.

Not today.

The Girl done good.

Helping Paws

Fact: You can put a slip cover on a loveseat without help.
Fact: It is almost impossible to put a slip cover on a loveseat with two tiny helpers.

We have a loveseat in the reading nook that is worn out but it has good bones so we plan to have it reupholstered. That has been the plan since before we moved into this house. Before we exhausted good friend points having it hauled up to the second floor.

And we don’t have a plan beyond that.

So today, when I came across a slip cover for practically nothing? I bought it.

First, I had to disturb a brown kitten.

Then we stretched the slip cover over the seat. A grey kitten appeared from nowhere to help with the stretching. He’s inside the cover in this photo.

He purred the whole time.

After the stretching, there was tucking. Both Oli and Obi actually worked pretty hard on the tucking.

And then we were ready to put the new cover to a nap test.

Just as they plunked down, I realized something kind of silly. The cover is dark brown. Unlike either of my cats. The cover is microfiber. Cat hair loves microfiber.

Sigh.

***

It’s Thunder Thursday! Have you seen the new Simon’s Cat?

Mix Up Fix Up

With the lizard tank out of the living room, there was a huge space of…space. The Boy and I decided to rearrange the furniture to see if that would help.

The recliner, which no one every sits in, has been over by the window. We are seeing if that is why no one sits there – because it is a weird angle from which to watch TV. Kitten Thunder did use the chair as a cave, a napping spot, and a starting point for thunders. Now it is in the middle of the room where the loveseat used to be.

Obi was not pleased. For one thing, the chair rocks because it isn’t against the wall. And we moved his perfect napping spot that was on the back of the loveseat.

Turns out, the chair works okay.

Obi can nap on the back of the chair even when The Boy is sitting in it. Even if The Boy reclines. Except…there are better places to be when the chair is reclined.

And…

There is a little hammock formed by the back of the chair when it is reclined. This picture is right after Oliver shoved Obi in. Obi spent quite a while laying in there.

Then he got out and I told The Boy it was safe to unrecline – just as Oli stuck his head in. We stopped the chair just before grey pudding head was squished.

So the verdict? Kitten Thunder is okay with the new layout. The people, though, are going to have to adapt to making eye contact with all cats before exiting the chair.

Sunshine in my eyes…

Day two of the new desk.  It has been pretty good so far. Some highlights:

We haven’t put the shelf for my monitor on the desk yet. I’ve spent a lot of time explaining to Obi that “out of the way” includes his butt. He is not even slightly transparent.

***

Even though I put bread on the window sill to attract them, the squirrel that appeared there scared the crud out of me. On that side of the house they jump down from the garage. Sudden like.

Oliver was in the condo with his head three inches from that squirrel but he didn’t notice because he was staring at me.  Obi was on the bed. I tried pointing. I tried pretending like I was throwing something at the window. I tried pointing again.

Two oblivious kittens.

Finally I stood up and used two fingers to turn Oliver’s head. As it swiveled toward the window his eyes became big and round. A squirrel!

Seconds after I took this picture, Obi slammed into the glass. He launched himself from the bed.

The squirrel? Didn’t care.

***

For some reason Kitten Thunder decided that my new desk makes sleeping downstairs for the afternoon power nap possible. I don’t know why. Oliver slept in the condo. Obi was on the bed. Both – in super cute fashion – were holding a back foot in their arms and against their cheeks like a blankey.

***

Obi found a shelf in the desk. It is a secret shelf and Oliver can’t figure out where it is. Every time he sits on the desk top and tries to look below he gets punched in the nose by a brown kitten paw.

***

The desk is perfect for sunbathing.

How many supervisors does it take…

…to help an engineer build a desk from IKEA? We had one girl and two cats. We hoped it would be enough.

My birthday is coming up at the end of the month. Since I’m tired of sitting at my tiny desk, staring at the corner, I asked my parents for a new desk so I could look at the room or out the window. Since either The Boy or I will be busy every weekend for the rest of the month, today was the day to drive down to Denver to the IKEA store.

I had picked out my desk online so I didn’t realize that this is one of those build your own dealies. I mean, I knew we (The Boy) would have to assemble it, but this desk wasn’t sold as a desk. It was two desk tops (many finish options), a cupboard (options), a shelf (options), legs (options!) And a monitor shelf that was nowhere near the rest of the pieces. Oy. I’d show you a picture, but I left my phone in the car.

Here’s my desk, waiting to be loaded in the car.

Here’s my desk, through the miracle of IKEA and Subaru design, in my compact car.

We had a delicious lunch and headed home. The boxes were unloaded as far as the hallway so we could rest, do some chores, and unwind a little bit. Kitten Thunder inspected our purchase.

Then, the building began.

The desk is huge! We bought the smallest desk tops available and I still have enough room for both computers, the printer, my work and two cats. Of course that doesn’t mean I expect the cats to lay anywhere but on my work…

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for the groovy new desk! And thanks, Boy, for driving me back and forth from Denver and assembling my desk for me!

Stay tuned as we go to work tomorrow.