Nobody Cares If You’re Naked

This weekend, I went to my hometown to attend a winter festival and take pictures of the ice sculpture contest. In addition to that contest, there was also an ice cube hunt – like an Easter egg hunt but with prizes frozen into blocks of ice and thrown out into the field of snow. It was a really cute event. It would have been even cuter if there had been SNOW in the field but the winter festival was subject to an unseasonable 50 degree day. Oh well. It was cute on grass, too.

The festival also had the best thing ever: a s’mores making station. While some may question the wisdom of small children walking across the parking lot with molten marshmallow on a stick so adults at the station could assemble the s’mores…well, you should question it. But no one lost an eye this year. And if they had? Immediate, sticky, cauterization. It’s a tasty win win, folks.

But photographing the s’mores station left me feeling smokey and smelling like I’d been camping for a week. When I got back to my parents’ house I went upstairs almost immediately, intent on taking a shower. Cousin Spade wanted to help.

I didn’t let him help.

The black kitten met me a the bathroom door afterward and followed me to my room. I shut the door so I could get dressed. Then I realized I was exhausted and plunked down on the bed. Spade stomped around for a second and let me scritch his back. Then he was done.

He wanted out.

He wanted out NOW.

I pulled myself up and started putting on clothes. OUT. NOW. OUTOUTOUT, Spade cried. “Hold on a sec,” I said, “I’m putting on clothes.”

LET ME OUT! NOBODY CARES THAT YOU’RE NAKED! Spade said, pawing the door.

Clothed, I opened the door. “Nobody cares that YOU’re naked,” I said. And I replunked onto the bed.

Free, Spade came back and sat down next to me for more pets.

***

Side note: As I left to drive back across Wyoming this afternoon, the wind picked up and rain started to fall. By the halfway point, there was a lot of snow. I drove the last two hours with ten feet of visibility and brought a blizzard into Cheyenne with me. Irony, I haz it.

 

Advertisement

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.

Seriously

You have got to go check out my Pinterest board. I have the best kitteh pictures from the past couple weeks.

***

Oliver is laying next to me and every once in a while he licks my side where my sweater has ridden up. I have to say that little kitteh tongue is the most best tickle in the world.

***

It was cold and snowy today. I had to wear my winter coat for the second time this fall – which is wrong, as it is nearly December. I’m a little afraid of the upcoming winter when it finally gets here.

But cold days mean that I had help with my design work and Facebooking today. Oliver likes to lay next to me, with his elbow on my stomach. He insists on putting his front paws on my laptop. Often, one of those paws hits the trackpad and suddenly my screen zooms WAY in or WAAAAAY out. When that happens I slide my hands under his paw.

He feels like he’s in control. I get some work done.

Does this qualify as micromanagement?

Man’s Work

It is still raining. You’ve probably seen on the news about Colorado, this is one of those times that I’m happy that “the other square state” isn’t getting national attention. We’re getting all the rain and much less flooding. So we’re free to send our focus, our support and our troops and firemen to our friends to the south.

But we’re sick of the rain.

While we are expecting warmer weather to return, nine days without sun has gotten us thinking about winter. A second blanket has come out so we can keep the window open at night. Kitten Thunder is back to sleeping with us all night – Obi sleeps elsewhere all summer.

And The Boy decided to take some measures to see if my office can be slightly warmer than the North Pole this winter. Kitten Thunder had been catching up on television shows we missed this week, but then they heard noises in the basement.

Man stuff.

Both kittens went down to supervise The Boy. He came up briefly for something or another and verified that is where they were. He told me he was taking the humidifier off our furnace. This could be leaking a lot of warm air that should be going upstairs.

There was clunking and banging and the sound of sawing.

Man noises.

Then I heard The Boy’s voice from directly below the couch – traveling through the ductwork. “Obi!”

I grabbed the camera in case there was something that needed to be blogged going on. Oliver met me at the bottom of the stairs to tattle. He had a big story to tell. As I turned the corner from the stairs, The Boy turned the corner from the train room.

“Obi,” he said. “Is in the furnace ducts.” The Boy was gesturing at the ceiling. “I don’t know if he can’t get out or if he just doesn’t want to.”

I strolled into the utility room. Camera forgotten. There was my brown kitten, staring at me from the furnace. “How did you get up there?” I asked Obi, he was well above eye level.

Climbed. Obviously.

I reached for him and couldn’t find anything to grab before he backed away. He came back to the opening and I reached again. He backed away. I stuck my head in, looking straight down into the dark cavern of furnace. He came back to the opening to look with me.

Maybe he did need help. He let me grab him.

The Boy needed things from Home Depot and headed off on his second trip to the store. He closed the utility door behind us as I carried the brown kitten upstairs.

Obi decided to help me with my afternoon project – knitting a scarf with pockets at the end, just in case the temperatures are still polar in my office.

Mom stuff.

The couch, we lives there

In preparation for the floor guys, I folded all the blankets we have in the living room. The quilt folded and draped on the back of the couch gave Obi a new opportunity. 

Quilt pod monster.

Today, Obi laid across the tops of both of my arms while I worked on the laptop on the couch. He stretched. He purred. He napped. 

For hours.

He’s getting good at this snuggling thing.

But Oliver is still the master.

 

Winter Sweaters

The weather has turned colder which means the furnace is on. I am enjoying my large sweater collection. The blankets are out. And Kitten Thunder is wearing their warm clothing…namely, each other.

The Return of Smell-o-Vision

Ah, springtime in the Rockies. Today we enjoyed sixty degree temperatures, sun and no wind. Tonight the cold weather will return with snow through the end of Wednesday.

I decided to take advantage of today and opened up some windows. New air poured into the house. It was glorious.

"Whose tail is that?"

Obi didn’t notice the open windows at first. He was walking across the room when he heard the birds. Were they in the house? No. I grabbed the brown kitten and set him on the dining room bookcase. The sun warmed his face; his eyes closed. A breeze wafted in; his nose lifted to catch it. The twitter of birds sounded; his ears swiveled.

Glorious.

Oliver was already laying in a sunbeam in the office condo. When I opened the window he only had to turn around to take in the smells and sound.

Glorious.

The previous owners of our house had a big husky. When the air gets stale the second floor still smells like dog. I’m looking forward to sleeping in a non-doggy room tonight. It will be…

Glorious.

"There is no better pillow than a sun-warmed brother."

Note: It probably looks like Oliver is getting the good part of this snuggle. But if you look closely you’ll see that Obi’s arms are wrapped around Oliver as well. It’s this type of sweetness that forces me to get out the camera and take their picture again.

There was a brown kitten…

There was a brown kitten who found him a fly.
I dunno why he could find that fly,
It’s not July.

There was a brown kitten at the top of the bed,
He wiggled and jiggled and pounced up beside us.
He’d run to the bed to catch the fly.
I dunno why he could find that fly,
It’s not July.

There was a brown kitten who batted lamp shades;
What a delight, to fight with the light!
He batted the shade after jumping on the bed;
He wiggled and jiggled and pounced up beside us.
He’d run to the bed to catch the fly.
I dunno why he could find that fly,
It’s not July.

There was a brown kitten who slapped The Boy;
He slapped, I guess, at the fly but he missed!
He slapped The Boy after batting the shade;
He batted the shade after jumping on the bed;
He wiggled and jiggled and pounced up beside us.
He’d run to the bed to catch the fly.
I dunno why he could find that fly,
It’s not July.

There was a brown kitten…
He caught a fly…
No kisses for him…
‘Til some time goes by.

***

It’s Thunder THUNder ThunDER Thursday! Today? Some LOL cats that made me giggle. Yes, I KNOW one of them isn’t a cat.

Weekend snapshots: Baby, it’s cold outside

It was a great weekend to stay in the house, and so I did until this afternoon when I had to go out for food and some Christmas shopping. I was greeted upon my return as if I’d been gone for days rather than under two hours.

Or maybe it was the fried chicken that came home with me.

***

After dinner The Boy and I were laying on the couch together. Oliver arrived to lay on my chest. Seconds later we were joined by Obi. With Zensai in his tank a couple feet away, the entire family was snuggled together in four square feet of house.

***

I also bought a draft stopper at the store tonight. While The Boy warmed up some mashed potatoes for dinner I installed it on our drafty back door. I was trimming the foam rolls down to size and the first one popped off and smacked Obi in the face. It bounced of his face and tumbled down the stairs with Obi flying after. I gave the other one to Oli. New toys!

***

Obi has succeeded in knocking two ornaments off the tree so far. They aren’t nearly as much fun on the floor as they are on the tree. Not for him and certainly not for me.

Obi is super cute with the tree. It is a tall, slender tree that fits really well with our living room. The added benefit is that Obi can’t climb into the tree because the branches aren’t long enough. What he can do, though, is reach through the tree to play with ornaments on the other side of the tree.

He also can’t reach the tree from the mantle. Gee, that’s a shame.

***

The Boy stepped on the big catnip ball this weekend and crushed it to powder. We were impressed – it must have had a side which was licked flat to break like that. Now the catnip ball is a bowl of catnip in my office.

A bowl of nip is far less likely to roll away when a kitten gets a little buzzy.

***

The squirrel I thought was going to have kittens, it turns out, is just fat. And no wonder. My pumpkin is now just a top and a bottom. I was going to throw it in the yard waste container, but now I want to wait and see if he’ll eat it all.

On the Jeff channel of OutTV we’ve been watching the same squirrel eat his pumpkin from the top down. Now he sits in the middle and just turns as he eats. It is fascinating.

Tubbo the squirrel also sat on the window sill and ate two whole slices of bread I’d put out in one sitting. Obi about lost his mind.

***

There was a rip roaring Thunder going on in the basement while I was working out yesterday. They were racing around the house and through the paper at break neck speeds. Paper was flying into the air with every pass. At one point both Oliver and Obi were under their own tents of paper. They were inches apart with no idea how close they were. They fell asleep that way.

***

And now, as the weekend and this post draw to an end, Kitten Thunder is snuggled up on the evil couch taking a nap before bedtime.

Tough work, being a cat.

Stuck In the Middle with You…

Oliver decided to sleep in The Boy’s arms last night. I mentioned to Oli that not everyone likes to breathe through a fur filter. He turned up the volume of his purr and pretended not to hear me.

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

On my way home from work every day I see a house that reminds me there’s one thing that was on my must have list for a house. One glaring absence in an otherwise perfect home.

When I first move to Cheyenne the house I rented had a sun porch. Oh, how Poco and I loved that porch. In the winter it was “out.” This would be a great time to mention that we moved to Cheyenne in March so we’re lucky that March and April are still winter here. In the summer it was a cool place to read in the outside breeze but it was inside so I had a comfy chair.

Also? I planted tomatoes in a pot in April. By the time I bought my house in August they were more than six feet tall and we had to bungee cord them to the ceiling of the moving truck. I haven’t had garden success like that since I raised (possibly homicidal) pumpkins with attachment disorder during my senior year botany class.

Anywho, I’ve missed having a sun porch at my house and now we don’t have one here. Only five kabillion windows and an awesome porch that we’ll enjoy. Someday. If it ever stops snowing.

What makes me think about it, though, is people who are ALMOST as good at cat servitude as me. Their sun porch furnishing consist of two kitchen chairs. One always has a cat in it. Usually she’s laying down. Sometimes she’s sitting. There was one time that she wasn’t there and I almost crashed my car. The other chair, I assume, is in case a person needs an audience with the cat. Perhaps they could discuss why that chair doesn’t have a cushion!?! Seriously, people, a cat on a hard wooden chair? The cat-manity.

Today is my birthday and Kitten Thunder has enjoyed my presents very much. Their favorite present? The cardboard string that came off the FedEx box.

It. Is. Awesome.

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