Working Hard for a Living

On the second day back to work, Oliver continues to love the cozy. My fleece pajamas and fuzzy robe are his favorite. And if he can find a cozy spot on my lap? All the better.

He just wishes I’d stop clicking right by his ear.

***
I did have to get up and get dressed because I’m kitteh sitting for a friend this week.

I came home and sat down briefly to send an email.

Obi was there in second to make sure I didn’t move again. We’ll have none of that leaving stuff when there’s snuggling to do.

***

I was allowed off the couch, briefly, when The Boy came home. I used the opportunity to restart our Roku to see if the TV quality would improve. The opening sequence is the letters r-o-k-u falling onto the screen.

Obi’s eyes got wide. Do it again.

It reminded me that there is a channel for cats on Roku. We looked and found a free channel that looks really lame. The one we wanted is a dollar a month. That’s too much.

Obi knew there was a limit to my love.

***

Then we watched a show he heard me call Downton Tabby. He watched the whole time and never saw a cat. In fact, those people have a dog!

Obi’s life is full of disappointment.

***

I talked about blocking my squares of yarn the other day. The instructions told me to use a block of foam covered in batting but I just used some pieces of foam core that The Boy saved from recycling at work. A friend asked me if it seemed to be working and I mentioned the batting might have been important because the blocks weren’t drying as quickly as I expected.

You know what helps yarn dry more quickly?

Your grey kitten not peeing on them, that’s what.

So now I need directions for washing my squares.

***

WordPress says this is my forth bloggiversary. Thanks to those of you who have been here all along and welcome to our new friends!

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OutTV Expansion

You know how your cable provider is always adding new channels of quality programming without increasing the cost? Yeah, me neither. But The Boy is better than the cable company. Last week, Obi was eager to show me what he and The Boy had done in the laundry room.

He started low, to build suspense. He really likes the climbing wall that The Boy exposed.

But look! A NEW channel of OutTV! We’re not exactly sure why they covered this window with a wall. Obi very much enjoys sitting on that piece of wood, where he can rest while watching the new channel.

He was certain The Boy would leave it there.

Because why would you mess with such an awesome climbing wall?

While Obi was showing me this, The Boy brought down some insulation. And Oliver watched from a safe distance.

 

Right after this, The Boy got the thumbs up from me and took out the climbing wall. Obi is mad. But he’ll be happy in the long run – a new window and a very deep sill are in the works.

Edge of Your Seat

This morning, Obi completely missed the jump from the mantle to the couch. It looked like a fine jump until he just dropped out of sight. He landed on the cave so he was fine. I mentioned it to The Boy when he came in for the morning belly rub (Obi’s, not mine). He said Obi was having a dorky day; The Boy said the brown kitten had also missed the jump to the window sill in his office.

I didn’t think about it any more until just now when I figured out the truth: Obi didn’t miss the jump to the window sill, he fell out because the new OutTV programming is just that good.

Ladies and gentlemen, you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen Finches on the Sill.

He really was getting so excited that he’d just fall off the window sill. The finches sat there, casual, as the kitten lunged at them and made all sorts of noise. When I laughed they turned to consider me, then turned back to each other to continue their conversation.

They were so close, Obi could smell them. He’s NEVER been that close to a bird.

Oliver just wants to know what the heck we’re looking at.

A Very Special OutTV Crossover Episode

As you know, I put our leftover bread on the window sills to attract OutTV programming for Kitten Thunder. The one bad thing about bread during the spring, though, is that squirrels tend to take their meals and run. I’ve always assumed they were taking it home to their kittens.

This week, at least, I was wrong.

Obi and I were in the breakfast nook, watching a squirrel hang upside down from a branch to eat seeds out of the bird feeder. The birds were landing, looking ticked off, then noticing the copious amount of seed on the ground then would shrug and chow down. Since I had bread to give…I gave.

“Would you like some bread?” I asked the squirrel. He was hanging upside down still, looking worried that he was going to have to get away. But I tore up some bread and left it on the porch for him.

Inside, Obi and I watched. The squirrel approached the bread. He grabbed two pieces, jammed them into his mouth, and climbed up the side of the house onto the roof out of sight. Obi and I made eye contact. We did not approve.

A while later, I was straightening the cat shelf blankets up in the reading nook and talking to Oliver. I heard the pitter patter of feet on the roof. They pittered up one side and pattered down the other. Outside, the squirrel came into view with a mouth full of bread. He ran to the end of the garage and hopped into a tree. And there…he ate the bread.

Then he went back to the porch.

Then he came back to the tree.

And I heard the pitter patter of bigger feet. Obi was on to this special OutTV program. He came running up the stairs and flew up to the cat shelf. When the squirrel returned to the porch, the brown kitten tore down to the dining room to watch.

Oliver and I approved.

***

In actual television news this week, The Boy and I decided to get rid of cable and start streaming our screen entertainment. I hear there are special channels for cats.

The screen saver seems to work for now.

The First Smell-O-Vision of Spring

I’m sitting in front of the space heater in my office because it’s the coldest room in the house. Colder than the basement, somehow.

But it is 61 degrees outside so Kitten Thunder is enjoying some smell-o-vision upstairs on the cat shelf.

 

The expected high temperature tomorrow is 33 degrees.  Ah, springtime in the Rockies.

Inroads

It was state hockey weekend again and that meant lots of visitors for Kitten Thunder. My parents, along with Cousin Jigger, stayed at our house. And, since my nephew’s games were at way-too-early a.m., my niece also stayed with us.

The biggest issue Oliver and Obi has is that Lexi didn’t bring Barbi with her. What good is a little girl without a doll? So she bought one on Saturday – both cats helped get her out of the packaging and tried out her hands for chin scritching.

Meanwhile, on the dog front, things went a little more smoothly. No one got punched in the nose. Kitten Thunder spent most of their time in the living room with us…watching. It started out a little tense. But as the weekend went by, everyone calmed down.

Then, everyone discovered they have an interest in common.

Who doesn’t like squirrel watching?

***

An hour after everyone left yesterday, the squirrel came to the window sill and looked in at me on the couch. He wanted to know where his audience was.

***

This morning, I was glad that the audience was gone: spring has arrived an OutTV is a tiny bit pornographic. I’m thinking about piping mood music out to the front porch.

Not that they seem to need music.

 

Sneak TV

I used to be physically addicted to the television show Scarecrow & Mrs. King. Seriously addicted – it was on three times a day and I would watch it all three times even though it was the same episode two of those times and the third time was only one episode ahead. I know it was an addiction because I would go through withdrawal and actually get itchy for it on the weekend when it didn’t air.

One day, my mom called down to the basement and asked me to turn on the oven at a certain time. No problem. Except I forgot. My mom was so mad, she grounded me from television for a week.

I had a problem with this for two reasons:
1. I forgot because I was painting Christmas ornaments, NOT because the television happened to be on.
2. HELLO! I was going to miss 15 episodes of Scarecrow!!!

But I did not.

Partly because my mom almost immediately started coming up with reasons for me to watch TV; I could watch TV in the morning because that’s not when I was watching when I got in trouble. So that’s one episode per day that I could watch.

Again, I should point out that the SAME episode was airing three times in one 24-hour period.

Not enough.

At 5 and 9 p.m., I sneaked across the hallway from my room and into my parents room where I would watch Scarecrow, on mute, from two inches away.

And what, you ask, does this have to do with Kitten Thunder?

Well…

Obi is a kitten after my own heart.

There’s Nothing on TV

Right this moment in Cheyenne it is eight degrees below zero. Even by Wyoming standards, that’s a wee bit chilly. In fact, a bunch of people have looked it up and we’re colder than many places in Alaska this week.

Aside from the five hours I had to walk around the downtown area in a blizzard (on Tuesday) and in below zero temperatures (Wednesday), I’ve been blissfully enjoying a career that involves my house, the couch, a blanket and a cat. And a computer, of course.

This morning, though, I realized that the furnace had been running for a while. Like, since I got up. And before that. And, more importantly, I was still shivering under my blanket.

Looking around at my bright, sunny house I realized that drastic measures had to be taken in light of the frigid temperatures. Everyone was going to have to make some sacrifices for the good of the house. Unfortunately…

We were going to have to turn off OutTV.

I went from room to room, dropping our blinds all the way to the bottom sill of each window. At first Obi was interested in what i was doing. Then he realized my intentions and was horrified.

He raced me from one window to the next. “I’m watching this channel!” But I turned it off. To the next window. “This is my favorite program!” Off.

All the programming isn’t off. I didn’t have the heart to turn the OutTV all the way off by the kitty condo. I pulled the drapes nearly closed and dropped the blinds down except for about four inches at the bottom. On, but turned way down. Also, the blinds are broken in the front window so I couldn’t turn OutTV off.

Though without dogs walking, runners running, squirrels scampering or birds hopping…there’s nothing good on OutTV anyway.

Clash of the Titan Animals

The other day I was waiting for The Boy to finish ironing. I was standing by the model train layout. I was also standing by the box of toy farm my grandparents sent home with me this Christmas. It is the farm set I played with as a kid EVERY time I went to their house.

When The Boy came into the room I asked him a very important question: “did the people that mapped out this rail route take the giant rabid bunny population into account?”

The Boy said that no, they had not. Shortly after he left for work a jaguar started stalking the giant rabid bunny from behind the farmhouse. I went to take a shower.

Dressed and ready for work, I walked through the layout room and discovered the rabbit and tiny plastic jaguar were gone. The rail people may regret hiring a really giant brown kitten to take care of their only slightly giant rabbit population.

***

Mr. Bear is feeling kind of flat and beaten down by life.

***

I found I was all alone this afternoon. I found Kitten Thunder on the cat shelf upstairs, enjoying smell-o-vision and a nap.

This two square feet sums up why we picked this house. Though I think I need a Girl shelf.

***

Did you watch Longmire on A&E tonight? What did you think? If you didn’t, you should give it a try. Or, better yet, read Craig Johnson’s amazing books!

Kerfuffle

Last week The Boy and I paid $800 for some special OutTV programming. I thought a great blog post would come from “Tree Trimmers in the Front Yard.” Well, I’ve really got to stop thinking.

Kitten Thunder didn’t look out the window at all. They napped through the whole thing.

Today, as one might expect with cats, we had great OutTV for free today. It started with our normal squirrel on the window sill. Obi was doing a great job staying calm. He just watched. No leaping or lunging at the window.

Then something started cawing outside the office this afternoon. It would caw. I would grab the binoculars and go outside. Nothing. Caw. Out. Nothing. Caw. Out. Nothing. Then I took one more step than usual and discovered the source of the caw. A blue jay on the window. Looking into my office. Two feet from where I’d been sitting at my desk.

And then…it happened.

Oliver arched his back. Obi let out a low growl. Both cats grew to twice their size as each of their three-inch hairs stood on end. A lady strolling down the alley was cooing and talking softly.

She turned into our driveway.

She walked to our window..

She disappeared.

When she stood back up she was holding a black cat. She turned and carried him back to their yard.

Kerfuffle over. Fur down. Eventually.

As I started this post, The Boy opened the window in the living room. Jeff TV with smell-o-vision. It’s Oliver’s favorite show.