We've just gotten home from Christmas...

I've been negligent in posting because I've been out-of-town for the holidays--without internet access. And without pet access.

La Doof Kitton, El Gato the Splendiferious and Dawg stayed at home with a pet sitter while we traipsed about with family on the other side of the country (we had fun but it was an exhausting few weeks and we're glad to be home). I think we've all been forgiven for leaving them...El Gato may hold a grudge for a few more days.
(Dawg let us know how happy she was to have us home by throwing up at 3 am so we could have the joy of cleaning up after her)

The pet sitter claims (and I've no reason to doubt the claims) that La Doof Kitton has developed the ability to climb the Christmas tree. This would explain why, in spite of everyone replacing ornaments, the bottom 1/3 of the tree has gone from 'sparsely decorated w/ unbreakable ornaments' to 'naked'.

But we did learn that he made it onto Sandy Paws' list of "naughty kittehs" by trying, once again, to steal Dawg's biscuits.
We left an unopened bag of treats and made sure to tell the pet sitter that once they were opened, they had to be left out of kitteh reach--but we assumed (I know, I know. I always assume incorrectly) they'd be fine until the bag was opened.
When we got home, this is what I found locked outside of kitteh reach in the laundry room:

If you hide your toys TO well, you don't get them for a year...

Last year, for Christmas, the kittehs got home-made catnip toys (a felt mouse I sewed and filled with catnip and cotton).

Being kittehs, they took their toys and put them in inaccessible places...El Gato usually puts hers underneath a rug and lays on top of the rug pretending she doesn't know how to get to it. La Doof Kitton prefers to put his in boxes or bags and lay outside them, reaching one arm all the way in to tease the toy.

Apparently, last Christmas, La Doof Kitton put his toy in one of the gift bags I had out to transport gifts from here to there...because when I went to fill it this year, I found his catnip mouse, a pom pom and part of a ribbon. They've been packed up for the last year--maybe he won't hide them quite as well THIS year.
(he's off playing with them right now)

The bugger can (kinda) open drawers.

Since I've had some health issues in the last year, I keep some handy-dandy personal items in the nightstand drawer--info that I input onto my various spreadsheets to track my health (I might not be healthy but I'm a nerdy sort of not healthy), hair clips , a book, etc.

For each of the last 3 nights, I have gone into the bedroom to look up my info, closed the drawer *most* of the way, and come in to the office to enter my data.

For each of the last 3 nights, I have been interrupted in my data entry by odd noises; upon investigation the noises turn out to be hair clips in the jaws of La Doof Kitton.

For each of the last 3 nights, I chase him around the house, retrieve my items, and return to the bedroom to find the drawer standing open.

Apparently, a wee paw can fit in there and push it open farther so he can get to the buried treasure of small plastic choking hazards (which have the added benefit of blending into the carpet and causing great amounts of pain and swearing and hopping on one foot when the humans of the house find them, barefoot, at 2 am)

Since he's smart, the first time he tried to play with the clip in the bedroom--close enough I heard it immediately. The second time, he took it farther away, into the hallway--farther away and harder to hear. This time, he took it into the living room and I probably wouldn't have heard it if Dawg hadn't been busily trying to steal this new choking hazard toy from La Doof Kitton (Dawg lacks an understanding of subtlty; I think her quietest form of communication is "loud stage whisper)--La Doof Kitton would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for that meddling mutt!

To busy to post mcuh, but holiday decorating pics

Yes, he is covered w/ bits of Styrofoam from the boxes and his own static-attraction. (And yes, the plant behind him has tinfoil over the soil so he'd quit digging it up)
He was fairly tolerant of the jingle-Christmas collar..he figured out how to move quietly in spite of all 5 bells; although the first 20 minutes he spent trying to pinpoint where the noise came from was hilarious.



"Hmm? NO, didn't steal this from the tree--musta been the dog. And I have nothing to do with the 4 feet of garland that were removed from the tree and spread across the kitchen floor this morning."
(Our ornaments are migrating upward. We no longer have any on the bottom 3 feet of the tree. Same with the garland. Before we take the tree down I'll post before and after pictures :-)

Reason # 51 to use reusable shopping bags...

This is what happens when I forget and have to use a grocery bag (which I threw away):








There is a knocked over trash can, escaping trash, and a suffocation risk.

This is what happens when I use a re-usable bag:





I get to make puns about letting the cat out of the bag (what can I say, I'm my father's daughter) and I get to carry around a cat in the bag until he decides that it interferes with his stalking.

I mentioned how much El Gato loves being under the Christmas tree, right?

Just to illustrate her great love for being under the tree, I present...The 'taking down the Christmas tree' yearly tradition. With last year's tree-take-down phots

1) Remove ornaments and lights

2) Remove tree bits, starting from the top

3) Get 95% done and take pity on El Gato's clinging to her last vestige of tree-loving-ness and leave the stump up for a few hours for her to enjoy:


4) Take down tree and deal with El Gato's ire.

5) Vacuum the fur/dust bison off the tree skirt in order to further create kitteh ire.

6)repeat next year.

And more like Christmas...now the tree is decorated

I *was* able to recover some of the file; this was what was to be posted at 8 AM today and I'm finally finishing now...

Being as it's Saturday morning, the only reason I'm out of bed right now is that I have a work meeting to leave for in 15 minutes. Actually, that's a fib, I'd still be in bed groaning about having to get up on a weekend (after working more than 40 hours this week) if the pets weren't being collectively obnoxious.

Dawg, as I've said, is trapped with us at night by a baby gate. If she, for some reason, wants to go out, she "knocks" loudly on the baby-gate. This fine early Saturday, as I was snoozing the alarm clock, this knocking pulled me out of bed to investigate. (I do usually ignore this but she was *very* insistent in a way that usually means she needs to go outside.)

I take down the baby gate and rub the sleep from my eyes and...then move to grab Dawg as she heads past a pile of cat-puke-stained plastic fake pine needles (these are a gift from La Doof Kitton; I know this because El Gato only throws up on a designated puke rug. Yes, there are reasons she's the "good kid"--she makes cleanup easy. Of course she also has bad personal hygiene, it's a trade of).

Dawg moves past the pile of ickyness without stopping to eat it.
I start to stretch and conclude my wake up routine again...and I dive for Dawg as she heads past a slew of Christmas tree ornaments that are littering the floor (these are also a gift from La Doof Kitton; Dawg didn't have access to the tree and El Gato doesn't have enough ambition to remove ornaments. Our decorations are, very gradually, being moved higher and higher up the tree; I'm guessing that, eventually it's going to not be decorated at all).

Dawg moves past the ornaments without signs of eating them and hurries to the side of the refrigerator.
There, on the floor, is a pile of Dawg biscuits--next to my blender, some more ornaments, and a slightly chewed bag.
Apparently La Doof Kitton was only very temporarily foiled by moving the biscuits to the top of the fridge and making sure th bag was sealed. I can only guess how this process happened...La Doof Kitton would have had to move from the kitchen chairs to the kitchen table, from the kitchen table to the top of the microwave (which is covered w/ mixers, blender, a toaster, etc--in part to make it a bad landing place for kittehs)--in the process knocking the blender to the floor (which I apparently slept through), and from the top of the microwave to the top of the fridge.

From there, it was easy--shove bag over the edge, chew hole in bag, remove biscuits, tease Dawg all night.

I shoved biscuits into the bag as quickly as I could; Dawg shoved biscuits into her mouth as quickly as SHE could. I won (she got 4 or 5 biscuits--quite enough for 8 am, TYVM) and I'm now looking for a cat-proof Dawg biscuit container--right now they're in tupperware.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

which is why the adventures of the pets revolve around Christmas trees and dog biscuits (I have no idea why the dog biscuits have recently become fascinating. I have stories that occurred several days apart but La Doof Kitton turned off the computer (really) and lost them so I'm finally getting around to re-typing them.

To start with, the weekend after Thanksgiving, we put up the Christmas tree but did NOT decorate it. Last year, the tree (artificial) was up before we brought La Doof Kitton home and, since he lived for the first week in a separate room (PSA: slow introductions are key in cats co-existing), he had limited access to the tree (although he did have some access...see the included picture in which one can barely see La Doof Kitton)
La Doof Kitton had especially limited access since under the Christmas Tree is El Gato's favorite place to be...

We wanted to see if a tree would remain standing before we tested it farther to see if a tree covered with brekable shiny bits that operated as a giant toy dispenser would remain standing.) El Gato and La Doof Kitton fought over who got to lay on the tree skirt before we even finished putting the tree together and it nearly tumbled over, but it was up and we all survived. (Although Dawg needed to be reminded that she can't still fit under the tree...she could when she was 4 months old and sometimes fails to realize that 50 lb doesn't fit in the same space.)

The next morning, I looked and was thrilled the tree was still standing. I let Dawg out past the baby gate (Dawg, as you may know, is trapped with us at night by a baby gate. This is because if she can see out the back door-wall at night, she barks at imaginary creatures of the darkness that are invading her yard--they have glowing eyes and dripping fangs and are all around bad. A baby gate gives her the run of the bedroom and hallways and office, a view of the living room and no view of the kitchen/door-wall--and if she cant' see the creatures of darkness, she doesn't feel the need to shoot a magic missle into the darknes. *ahem* I mean bark at them). Dawg had been asking to be allowed out past the gate for quite some time--I usually ignore these requests because they are usually for frivolous reasons like "I can see a stuffed squirrel that I need to eat" or "La Doof Kitton gets to go there, why don't I?" or "Because it's a barrier, therefore, I need to be on the other side of it."

That morning, Dawg had, for the first time in ages, a good reason to beg to get out...I moved the gate and she made a bee-line for the tree. Upon reaching the tree, (please listen to the music in your head, it should be playing the "Mission Impossible" theme song by now) she shoved her head under as far as it would go and whimpered. I assumed for a moment that she was trying to tease La Doof Kitton or El Gato until I saw that the kittehs were sitting on cushions (yes, they have their own cushions) waiting for their morning treats. I looked under the tree and saw a dog biscuit shoved under the *exact* center of the tree stand. Where Dawg's nose/tongue couldn't quite reach it and a paw wouldn't fit.

I got it out, gave it to Dawg and assumed that, when giving bedtime treats, we had thrown one poorly and it had gone there and Dawg had been pining for her treat all night.
I, of course, ASSumed wrong. Over the next several hours, no fewer than FIVE times that I witnessed, Dawg went to the tree, stuck her head underneath, and made the distinctive crunching sound of a Dawg who has found a biscuit/kibble--always preceded by a La Doof Kitton going under the tree.
I know those weren't treats misplaced by the humans of the house and I was forced to concede that, once again, La Doof Kitton was smarter than me--and using his powers for evil as he teased Dawg with nearly-inaccessible biscuits. Somewhere, in the house, he has access to treats/kibble. I thought it was possibly a super secret stash until, several days later, I witnessed him manage to get into the 'not quite sealed' bag of treats on top of the microwave, get out a biscuit, and take it out of Dawggie reach to play with it.

Poor Dawg. I have no idea how long this has been going on (and, yes, I gave her the biscuit/toy that La Doof Kitton had). We've made a concerted effort to ensure the treat container is sealed and we've moved it to the top of the fridge...time will tell; as soon as we make something La Doof Kitton proof, someone makes a better La Doof Kitton brain synapse.

La Doof Kitton the mouser

(I don't yet have formulated Christmas tree stories, rest assured I'm sure the hellion will create some.)

But I was just playing on the computer and pondering whether or not La Doof Kitton had done anything blog-worthy in the recent days...I was mousing through the interwebz and thinking "he has been pretty good recently" when suddenly my mouse jerked out of my hand. I grabbed my mouse back and a wee white paw with all the claws out pinned my hand down. No fingers are safe when La Doof Kitton is on the prowl.

I'm not quite sure how he manages to fit up there without me noticing...but he was in for a surprise when he tried to climb down; El Gato had set up an ambush.

He extorts my silence...or at least my lack of pictures

Last night, I was taking a shower and watched as Dawg came into the bathroom and curled up on the bathmat to guard me from evil hallway gremlins.

La Doof Kitton promptly came in and started washing Dawg's face and curled up next to her. I made a cooing noise and told La Doof Kitton that I should get a picture as proof that they did love each other. La Doof Kitton sat up and shot me a look that said, quit clearly, "how dare you threaten to jeopardize my position with the cat guild? I am merely using the canine mortal for my own ends--to assist at stealing cookies"

And here is where I made a mistake, I asked "what are you gonna do about it?"
He jumped up onto the bathroom counter, sat erect with his tail curled around his feet, looked straight at me, and shoved my hairbrush and glasses off the edge. He eyed the ceramic soap container and drinking glass until I promised no doggie-cuddle-pictures (although I may have had my fingers crossed).

P.S.
I'm quite aware that it sounds like La Doof Kitton could take over the world....but he can't.

He can't because although he is "the Brain" he is also his very own "Pinky". Moments after extorting the promise from me, he had both of his front paws in the kleenex box because it was super interesting and there might be a mouse made of kleenex in there!. And a few moments after that he watched, utterly entranced, as this gray snakey thing named "Scooter" wiggled in the sink...he paused and pounced and remembered, once again, that it was useless to attack because, being his tail, it was still firmly attached to his butt.

If there is ever a Napolecat, we can bring about his Waterloo with a defending army of vacuum cleaners armed with sparkle-laden pompoms.

La Doof Kitton deserves treats for not helping.

Remember reading the story of "The Little Red Hen"?
In the story, the hen asked "who wants to help me plant seed/grind grain/bake bread?" and the gray cat said "not I". Then the hen asked "who wants to eat some delicious bread?" and the gray cat said "oooh, me!", to which the hen replies "Suck it Trebek!"(Ok, not really. The hen says "Ha, I'm going to eat this tasty bread in front of you and not share, nah nah nah nah nah PBBBBBBbbbbbbbbbth")

Well, yesterday, I was baking. And I gave La Doof Kitton treats and locked him in the library. Because I did not take the hen's lesson to heart; I will glady share the bounty in order to NOT have La Doof Kitton help me.

Because he "helped" me make cookies for 3 hours on Saturday. (Just an FYI, hershey kisses while they're being unwrapped to put on top of 100 Peanut Butter cookies? They are a triumvirate of kitty attraction--they are forbidden chocolate, they make lovely krinkly noises when you take off the wrapper, and they are sparkley (and the wee paper flag on them that can be used as a handle to grab them by helps)

The whole debacle looked something like this--except I couldn't quite manage to get a picture when his paw reached up over the edge of the counter to grab the chocolatey goodness.

Apparently there are two ways to herd cats...

or another way to send them into hiding in order to keep them out of your hair :)

La Doof Kitton doesn't like having his toenails trimmed. Apparently he spends quite a bit of time making his feet into razor sharp implements of furry destruction and he is hostile to having his daggers of doom taken away from him; he squirms and bites and claws and wriggles and mews pitifully and claims that we are blugoning him to death with pickles and that will shall burn in the hot fires of kitty hell when he rules the world and that we, with our puny non-retractable claws must be jealous of his stately sharpened sabers.

Earlier today, Mr. G and I trimmed his toenails here in the office (and I've yet to take care of the clippers). Just now, he made efforts (again) to steal cookies, chew through the phone charger, and all around make a pest of himself. So I grabbed a paw that I hadn't trimmed especially well and moved toward it with the clippers; he promptly squirmed away.

I now haven't seen La Doof Kitton for nearly 20 minutes, apparently I bought myself an hour of peace and quiet

You can herd cats.

Really, they can be herded.
Kinda.

As discovered by Mr. G, if, one goes into the laundry room (for, you know, laundry) and La Doof Kitton happens to sneak in (no kittehs in the laundry room. It's for everyone's sanity and happiness--because happiness is, not having to say "does my sweater smell like cat butt?" [and yes, the person I asked this of, assured me that, my sweater did INDEED smell like cat butt. It has since been re-washed]), it is nigh impossible to get him back out again. He will climb the drying rack, crawl under the sweater rack, clamber into piles of clothes, clatter up hampers and all around make himself into one of those "Water Wigglie" toys (minus the water, plus claws and teeth)

Well, if one wishes to leave the laundry room, 'tis best not to leave La Doof Kitton in the room. (and if we manage to defeat all odds and grab him by the collar, that's when I'm reminded that it's very unfortunate that I care for kitteh safety and the collars are breakaway--great for holding on the dog's tags, useless for everything else.) Which means he must be herded out of the room. Cats, not prone to being herd animals, are resistant to traditional herding practices. But if one, in a moment of desperation (because one slept through the alarm because the kitten knocked over the clock radio and moved the volume knob from "Eleven" to 1), grabs a can of Lysol (designed to remove cat butt from sweaters) and sprays it, not at the kitten, but in the kitten's general area, they move amazingly fast.

He was halfway up the stairs before we realized it worked. And dashed out, slamming the laundry room door closed. And re-opening it and repeating the practice when, in the excitement, I realized I forgot my sweater in the laundry room.

If I have to get at 2 am to deal w/ a sick Dawg, I'll know why

Mr. G and I went grocery shopping today. As we were carrying in groceries, he asked, "Why is there a small pile of dog biscuits on the stairs?" This is a good question...why WERE there dog biscuits on the stairs? Especially when Dawg doesn't go near the stairs (During puppyhood, we told her there was a monster in the basement that ate puppies. She still believes it kinda. Regardless, she doesn't do stairs.). La Doof Kitton was playing with the biscuits though.

Well...La Doof Kitton really really really wants more treats on a daily basis. Apparently he isn't getting enough partially-digested sprayed-on meat byproduct meal in his life.
He watched very VERY carefully today as he got his morning treats then the treat jar was sealed and placed on top of the fridge. I'm quite certain he tucked this away for later. And then made Pinky and the Brain-esque blueprint plans for how to re-access the jar.

Apparently he acted out such plans while we were grocery shopping.
Here, he was thwarted. he had clearly been on top of the cabinet where the treats are kept--we know this because 2 *sealed* containers of cat treats, 1 container of Dawg's pills, 1 squirt bottle of pet medicine and one container of dog biscuts lay in the middle of the floor when we got home.

The problem was that the bag of dog bisciuts wasn't sealed.
No one ate what was in the bag but...I'm pretty sure the bag was MUCH more full when I left the house than when I came back. So apparently, Dawg and La Doof Kitton took care of the biscuits that landed on the floor--with Dawg eating hers and La Doof Kitton (in a fit of mean-ness, after beint thwarted in getting *his* treats) putting his in a pile at the top of the stairs--where Dawg could see them but couldn't/wouldn't be able to steal them back.

I will say, I'm not sure how many biscuits a Dawg must eat before she gets ill...here's hoping it's less than what she ate!
(and I did steal the rest of the biscuits back from La Doof Kitton and put them back in the bag. Which is now sealed. And out of reach. Maybe.)

Mmmm, evaporated milk.

I was just making a pumpkin pie-type thingy. This calls for evaporated milk. My recipe was messing w/ my head re: can size, so I ducked into the office for a quick second to double check my metric conversions.
I came back out to find the 2 tsp. of margarine laying on the counter (and La Doof Kitton trying to look innocent from the sink--where he's not allowed)--this is impressive because when I left the kitchen, the margarine was in a bowl with flour and sugar...

La Doof Kitton watched closely as I opened the can of pumpkin and walked over to the bowl to add it. He watched closely as I opened the can of evaporated milk and walked over to the bowl to add it--and waited until I was looking at the bowl, not at him to dash between my legs.
And it worked a little. I didn't drop the can but a big splash of evaporated milk landed on the floor for him to eat.

At least this time there weren't paw prints in the flour. yet.

Crazy Circle

Once upon a time, someone gave the cats a "crazy circle toy". Unlike the blue, plastic versions of this you find in pet stores nowadays, the one we inherited doubles as a pet bed--same general idea (plastic track filled with balls) but containing a cushion and covered with a fabric that was likely stolen from the 'davenport' (not couch, couches are much more sedate) in great-grandma Gertrude's 'Florida room'.
Exhibit A (Please ignore the cat fur in the chair. What can I say, we obviously have cats):


Generally, since the cats shun this 'bed' in favor of more comfortable/better places to lay (like our bed, on top of the German WWII vintage hat, in shoe boxes, on piles of lumpy, sharp rocks, on the exercise bike, etc--you know, the places that are clearly better than a cushioned cat bed), we use the crazy circle (which lives on a chair in the library) as a kitty toy box.

Exhibit B (please note, the kitties have WAAAAay more toys than this...it's just that recently they fed several to Dawg. And that someone keeps hiding them in strange places like the basement/under the fridge/etc. And that I got lazy and left the other 1/2 the pile in the middle of the floor when tidying up.) :


So...how is it that *someone* developed opposable thumbs and not only moved the toy but took it apart? WITHOUT spilling the toys?

(and just for good measure, he followed this up by managing to pull the balls out of it...which made a lovely racket, rolling across hardwood at 2 am. And made a lovely mess when La Doof Kitton tried to feed them to Dawg. [I intervened--choking hazard]

(and I did get it all back together, see:

)

If I have to get at 2 am to deal w/ a sick kitten, I'll know why

Tonight was sloppy joe night.

Since we slept until...well, never mind, just trust that it was relatively late (although we have excuses. Mr. G worked until nearly 3 am and I have had 2 weeks worth of insomnia, culminating with my current bout of plague [Ny Quil, the "where am I and how did I get here, why is the room spinning like this, that's why it comes with a SHOT GLASS" medicine...WHEEEEeee. ugh]), we didn't get out the ground turkey until noon.

Getting out the turkey at noon means that kitchen safety rules be damned, the stuff was thawing on the counter instead of in the fridge (Yes, I know. Even in my drug-addled state I'm aware most of the people reading this are smarter than I am and know where this is going). We aren't COMPLETELY stupid...we make sure anything left on the counter is in it's factory sealed state. But we are kinda stupid because, well, we forgot that La Doof Kitton has figured out that if it smells like a pound of ground turkey but tastes like a chunk of plastic, keep chewing.

So he kept chewing until he got to the chewy center. And then he went to work eating that.

I'm not sure how long he'd been at it when I busted him--couldn't have been that long. But I must say, there is nothing like walking into the kitchen to realize that there is now 3/4 of a pound of ground turkey in the 1 pound package and that packe is sitting in the middle of a 2 foot pool of blood. In the middle of the kitchen floor.
(Thank all that is holy that Dawg was outside during the entire debacle)

(And, yes, like most pet owners, I believe I am immune to my pet's germs. So, yes, we cooked up the remainder.)

(And, NO, he didn't get his mischief out of his system. He tried to steal the LAST Reese's cup from my hand and I had to chase him to get it back [what kind of kitty steals Halloween candy from a sick woman?]. And then he took the wrapper out of the trash and ran about with that. And when I took that from him and stuck it in the empty candy bag in the trash, he got the entire thing out of the trash and tried to suffocate himself with a plastic bag.
They're now in the trash can in the cupboard.

Although, at the moment, he's looking awfully innocent. Rather like this, that I just took...
)

by popular request...the 'lazy play video'

I just had to get my voice (in, of course, the 'talking to the pets baby talk voice') off of it.
So...no sound.
And I'm not smart enough to make the file not huge. sorry.

but here ya go (please note the smug "I won" look on La Doof Kitton's face at the end):

The magical scary box of water

Our house has a magical scary box of water. Yours probably does too.

La Doof Kitton is concerned about this scary box of water and why mom subjects herself to it...so he involves himself in it's filling. (And then, since he has made it a habit to consider falling in, he gets kicked out of the bathroom while mom takes her soak. (because as we all know, a cat falling into an occupied bathtub leaves one with legs that look like they lost an epic battle with a blender.)

There is a slow progression...from side-of tub sitter...
to "stalking the razor" kitteh



to "balancing precariously kitteh". He is quite talented at balancing (there are zero feet on the sides of the tub in this one):



And it tends to end with "ooh, lookit, I just dumped in more bubble bath for ya ma!"
(and this would be the point at which he is escourted out of the bathroom and the door is closed.)

Things La Doof Kitton has messed with/destroyed in the last week:

(this list only includes things I"m reasonably sure were his fault and that he can't frame the other pets for)

-1 jewelry box (that he pushed off a dresser and broke)
-the jewelry in said jewelry box (that he stole)
-1 vase of flowers that he knocked over from the kitchen table (he ate 2 flowers and doused the chair cushions with water)
-1 vase of flowers that he knocked off the fridge and shredded 2 flowers
-my hair (it is not for climbing)
-my hair ties
-1 stack of important papers that he shoved off my desk 3 separate times
-1 bag of chips that he tried to eat through
-1 bunch box he stole things out of
-1 printer that he decided to kill the pages coming out of as it printed (he killed about 3 before I kicked him out)
-2 trash cans containing paper
-1 partial roll of toilet paper
-1 picture/sign that he knocked over, clawed the plastic off of, and knocked over again
-1 shoelace (I know have a very very SHORT shoelace in that shoe)
-1 house plant (which is now missing many leaves and has a pile of dirt ground into the carpet next to it)
-1 pile of dishes that he knocked over
-1 clock radio
-1 laundry hamper (that he climbed, knocked over, and then sat upon)
-1 bed that he managed to squeeze behind, play w/ all of the cords that plug in, and generally make a PITA out of himself over

I can't prove he did anything else. Or else I haven't found the mess/problem yet.

'tis the season for...Candy Corn.

I think the pictures (with captions) speak for themselves...

Huh, what, who, me? Stealing?











So, uh, now what do I do with it?











What do you mean you EAT this stuff?

At which point, El Gato got frustrated with his stupidity...

And took matters into her own hands. Er, paws. Er, mouth.

Which caused us to have a great deal of pity for the starving La Doof Kitton...so we gave him another piece. He guarded this one much more carefully.

Lazy Fighting

<---THIS is rather normal at our house.

Both the dog and the kitten were exhausted from playing--we'd just finished a game of fetch with Dawg and La Doof Kitton had been busy attempting to destroy the hamper for about an hour. (he failed at destroying the hamper but did actually succeed in moving it a few feet...impressive when it weighs so much more then him. And moving it created a small cave wehre he could lie in wait and pounce people/other pets/imaginary squirrels/specks of dust/lint demons, etc.)

When they're both exhausted, Dawg flops herself down to take a nap. And La Doof Kitton comes over and strats grooming her ... until which point he gets bored (about 45 seconds). When La Doof Kitton gets bored, he quits grooming and just hauls off and bites her ears. Which results in a vulnerable Dawg (who, of course, falls for the 'lay there and I'll groom you nicely' trick EVERY time) having to defend herself--without loosing the prime blankie spot. So it results in 15 minutes or so of the animals lying, to lazy to get up, while play fighting. Hilarious.


(I do actually have video but...I made the mistake of talking while recording it and I refuse to upload video w/ my voice on it--I'm not feeling smart enough to figure out how to get my voice OFF it.)

Cats really don't have much of a sense of humor.

La Doof Kitton was facing off with El Gato in the middle of the living room floor.
There was darkness and fury and growling and laying back of ears as they circled each other...

And then Mr. G flung himself dramatically from the couch where he had been sitting between the two kitties and yelled "OOOH, I wanna wrestle too!" and bowled them both over...one with his left hand, one with his right.

The cats picked themselves up and were so shocked they both just sat there as he bowled them over again.
At which point, El Gato scrabbled to her feet and fled to the bedroom where she has been hiding ever since. (When I went to talk her out of the corner she laid her ears back and purred as I pet her--quite clearly saying "I like you, WHY did you marry such a dofus? he needs to learn some manners." I reminded her that Mr. G is the one who fills the food dishes and she allowed one ear to come forward. Almost.) La Doof Kitton pounced on Mr G's hand, bit it hard, and then climbed to the top of the bookshelves, preparing to fling himself down in a blaze of nomming glory...

And then there was a random bit of imagined movement from the catnip mouse in the corner and La Doof Kitton forgot that he was stalking Mr. G and prepared to hunt down and destroy the catnip mouse.

La Doof Kitton is NOT helpful when I'm baking.

There's nothing like carefully pouring the batter from the bowl into the cake pan when, suddenly, my head jerks toward the floor because La Doof waited until THAT MOMENT to try to climb my ponytail. He was hanging from it, trying to climb, Rapunzel-esque, to the tasty batter. OW.

I chased him off, popped the pumpkin roll into the oven, and set about making a sugared surface for it to cool on...meaning a towel well sprinkled w/ powdered sugar.

Good thing this one isn't for guests and we'll be eating it in house--because I finished sprinkling the towel, turned my back long enough to put the sifter in the sink and turn back around...there are kitty pawprints all across the sugar. (and a ghostly white trail of white footprints led from the sugar-coated towel across the kitchen table, onto the BLACK chair and across the kitchen floor)

I chased him away again, take the cake out of the oven and have it cooling...

There was NO PLACE I can leave this cake to cool that is out of reach, and after trying 4 separate places, I've given up. I spent the better part of the next hour carrying a wire-rack w/ a cooling roll of cake on it with me...it's sitting next to me on the desk, because then I can keep him from eating it.

Drying racks don't hold kitties very well.

Drying racks are generally handy household objects. They're excellent inventions for those of us who would otherwise leave articles of clothing hanging from the ceiling fan or wadded up on a corner of the laundry room floor (a method which, I must confess, doesn't work well) to dry. They're also objects that are made to be easily collapsible for storage reasons. (which is odd considering I can't remember the last time I collapsed and stored mine...)

By virtue of this last quality, they are NOT kitton safe. Kittons who attempt to climb these objects will find themselves lying in the middle of the floor, trapped under a drying rack and a heap of damp clothing.

(and, while a normal cat would have fled in terror from the loud, noisy, startling, flinging-of-damp clothing object that fell on top of it, La Doof Kitton waited for me to remove all the clothing from burying him...and then promptly attempted to re-climb the drying rack as I attepted to set it back up)

Gotta love computer cords

I just heard a cry of "La Doof Kitton, Let GO of the *expletive* mouse cord"

Yes, the wrong thing to do when daddy is playing WOW is to sneak under the computer desk, find the mouse cord, and pull while wrapping it around yourself.
This makes daddy's character DIE.
And leads to many swears.

But it is dang funny.
(although he lost interest and is, instead, now playing with the door stops. So this is being typed with a background of *twang. Twaaaang. Twang. *)

Mmmm, chips

Everyone loves potato chips. And you can't eat just one...

Which is why, apparently, La Doof Kitton chewed a hole in a second bag of potato chips after chewing a hole in the first bag.
Holes which I discovered when taking care of groceries, I picked up the existing bags of chips, and watched rather stupidly as chips and crumbs poured out of the bottom of 2 bags into a ginormous mess in the middle of the floor.

(Apparently though, he doesn't like eating chips. He just THINKS he likes chips until he manages to get the bag opened, licks off a few, and then moves on to something else.)

And now we have to find a new home for the chips.

Ooooh, jewelry!

I came home from work today and wondered why La Doof Kitton kept attacking the bedspread; that's not his normal style.

And then I saw it...my sapphire bracelet was on the bed.
I gaped, I swore, I threatened to beat knots on his wee gray skull and I took it away and went to put it back in the bracelet drawer of my jewelry box, which is when I noticed that he has figured out those drawers.
(Initially, I figured I had left things out where they were accessible, not that he was this much smarter than me. I should know by now that he's smarter than me.)

The bracelet drawer was pulled out and I have steadily been hunting down my shiny bits; the sapphires from the bed, the blue glass beads from inside the hamper (I have no idea how either--like I said, he's smarter than me), the garnets from the edge of a closet, etc.

SOMEWHERE in the house a small plain gold chain bracelet is hiding, I have no idea where. I think La Doof Kitton is hoping to keep his spoils of war as a necklace and I"m still at a loss for how better to store my baubles.

How La Doof Kitton became a felon...

There were some nice police officers at our house recently (some people know that story, others don't. Suffice to say, everyone is FINE; it was routine, they were nice people doing their job. And Dawg DID have a license so we didn't have to pay that fine. Like we did last time officials visited with us.)

AENYHOO, Dawg was shut into a room because, well, she's Dawg. Which was fine except during their checking, the nice officer didn't realize she was there and kinda startled him by ramming herself head first into the door and making "Hi, Let me out to pounce you!!!" noises when he opened it to make sure there weren't cat burglars in that room.
(and then we put her outside. Where she promptly trekked through 6 inch deep mud then, when coming inside, wiped her paws off ALL by herself...on the officer's pants. Yeah, her training kinda went out the window...)

During all of this, El Gato the Splendiferous was nowhere to be found.
And La Doof Kitton, by virtue of being La Doof Kitton, planted himself in the middle of the coffee table in the living room (center of attention) and stood on his hind feet to make himself seen.
So when asked we said "oh yes, he loves everybody"

SO the nice officer reached out to pet the adorable kitty...and the adorable kitty put out all his claws, grabbed the officer's hand between those nice white paws, and pulled the officer's hand firmly into his mouth.
La Doof Kitton didn't bite down hard (easy for me to say, my hand wasn't being gnawed on), he just held that hand very very firmly while evaluating whether or not police officers taste like chicken. ANd whether or not they deserve biting. And see if he would jerk away.

Apparently the officer passed muster because La Doof Kitton, after a moment, let go. At which point the officer took back his hand with a grin, grabbed for his gun and called the kitty some names that would make me have to put a "not safe for work" disclaimer on the story.
BAD KITTY!

I'm fairly sure assaulting an officer in the line of duty is a felony even for kitties; I also think La Doof Kitton just likes bothering people in authority. And would be amused to know he is a felon.

I was just picking out your jewelry for today

Somewhere, I have a poster where Charlie Brown complains that, knowing the alarm goes off at 7 am, 6:58 is the worst time of day.

La Doof Kitton decided, this morning, to spare us the agony of awaking to the alarm at 6 am. Instead, he climbed up on my dresser (he never gets on my dresser!) and started exploring jewelry. And at precisely 5:58, he started pushing things off the dresser ... twas the sound of bits of metal tinkling and spreading across the floor as a jewlery box and an earring holder and another jewlery thing hit the floor that awoke me.

There is no snooze button for that.

After about 20 minutes, we found my wedding bands. I'll start matching up earrings this evening to make sure they haven't disappeared into the depths of the cat's hiding places.

The Dog did it

"No mom, you've got it ALL wrong.

I was minding my own business when I heard Dawg making those weird growly noises she sometimes makes.

So I came in here and caught her playing in the torturous box of water machine.

I told her to stop but she wouldn't.


So I jumped in to stop her.
So...yeah, she did this.

What do you mean she's outside? Oh, uhm, right, I forgot.
Yeah, did I say Dawg did it?

I meant El Gato did it. Yeah.
And she SAID she was going to frame me and...look, she did!

I told her you were to smart to fall for that ..."

(El Gato was not amused with the accusation.)

Pic, just for fun

I think this is what La Doof Kitton sees sometimes; forbidden items glow with an impossible allure ...

Why we have no plants....

Walked into the kitchen this morning to a reminder that apparently the top of the bookcase is NOT out of La Doof Kitton's reach.

He tried to pretend he was much to innocent to have stolen the flower but just seconds later he succumbed to it's siren call as it convinced him, even though mom was standing RIGHT THERE with a camera to prove he was playing with it, to bat at the forbidden non-toy.

And now that all is said and done, the (few--mostly missing bits for some reason...) fake plants we have in the house are now on top of a curio cabinet without nearby jumping surfaces. We shall see if that's beyond the might paw of La Doof Kitton.

Why we boarded up a room...

There is an accordion door in our basement, blocking one large room off from the rest of the basement (well, it's supposed to block...)

This had to be installed after La Doof Kitton stole paintbrushes and little lead miniatures and bits of important things (repeatedly), in spite of attempts to put them up out of Kitty reach. (We have determined that the only place out of kitty reach is stapled to the ceiling, at least 4 feet from any jumping surface and dangling less than 2 feet from the celing).

La Doof Kitton proved quite adept at opening the magnetic closure on the accordion door. There is a knack to this, one merely beats on the edges of the door until the door sighs audibly, stares at the kitty in frustration and leaves itself agape for a moment. In that moment when the door is barely agape, one must merely get one retractable claw (must have retractable claws for this, that's why it doesn't work for humans trying to open locked doors) in the wee opening. Then the tail becomes the "lever long enough..." and it will eventually pry open.

The Mr. decided that he must better protect his hobby objects (especially since I recently retired a very lovely, poofy, powder brush for him to use (in something involving words like "drybrushing" and "flock" and "terrain") which La Doof Kitton wishes to have an illicit affair with) so he installed a hook-and-eye style latch on the door, about 4 feet off the ground.
Obviously, since mounted on a door, this device does *NOT* meet the standards to keep it out of kitty reach...

Last night, as in all the previous nights, we made sure the hook was firmly hooked and the eye was firmly screwed into the frame, fastened the magnetic latches and went to bed. And we awoke to a door open precisely the width of one kitty. So we gave up and resorted to drastic measures.

Currently, there is a sheet of plywood lightly tacked over the opening to the large opening into the basement. To enter the lair of the hobby supplies, one needs only to grab a claw hammer, pry up one nail, swing the plywood out of the way, and one can enter.
La Doof Kitton hasn't yet figured out how to substitute a retractable claw for a claw hammer but he is working on it.

I sometimes wonder how much the cats swear at each other.

This morning the cats were swearing a lot.

I was in the laundry room, shooing cats off of clean clothes and trying to head out the door. The Mr. translated the conversation the cats had from "hiss, grumble, growl" into something resembling English...

La Doof Kitton: You're fat and mom loves me more
El Gato: *obscenity removed, obscenity removed* you, you *obscenity removed-ing, obscenity removed, obscenity removed-er*
La Doof Kitton: PBBBBBBBbbbbbth
El Gato: *obscenity removed* off and die.
La Doof Kitton: yeah, well...you're fat.
El Gato: Die a slow death. In a fire. Surrounded by dogs.
La Doof Kitton: You'll still be fat.
El Gato: And you'll be dead. And I will eat your food. And possibly your body.

At this point, La Doof Kitton retreated. Sometimes, it's wise to know when you can't win--especially when your opponent is double your weight and irritable before breakfast.

La Doof Kitton caught a cold virus. Kinda

I got up this morning and found this.

Yes, that's the plushy cold virus one finds at lovely stores like thinkgeek. This one lives on a shelf in my office.

Do you realize what this means? It means the LAST
safe place I had to stash things in the office is falling victim to his attacks.

He's awfully lucky that I only have plush bookworms and common colds, not rabies.

La Doof Kitton got caught in a door

There were treatsies all around. Some of our food leftovers that were pet friendly and they all love 'em.

So a plate was put down for each kitty (we dont have them share--it's safer for them not to :-), and the Mr. was taking a plate outside for Dawg (she likes eating outside and then we don't have cat/dog food issues--both of the cats are food thieves) and La Doof Kitton decided Dawg's food was better than his and darted out the door toward Dawg's plate (the cats are inside cats!).

The Mr reacted...and tried to close the slidey screen before the kitten got there....and failed. What he managed to do was to close the slidey scren right-smack on La Doof Kitton's middle.

So, I"m in the basement, and I hear "DUFF<>BABE, HELP" So I sprint up the stairs and...in all of this the screen got knocked off it's track--so it's stuck. It's stuck mildly pinching La Doof Kitton--to tight for him to get out, to tight for him to get back in...the Mr. has given up on the screen and grabbed legs but he can't pull OR push the kitten out. And the normally quiet kitten is YOWLING.

So, I get up there, he holds both hind legs, I loosen the screen, the kitten pops back inside and Dawg looks confuzzled and goes to eat her food. And the kitten is none the worse for wear. And El Gato took the opportunity to eat his food.
El Gato is quite please. La Doof Kitton hasn't quite forgiven us.

"I win" so sayeth La Doof Kitton.

(in response to "I win", the Mr. says "no, you are, officially, an idiot")

I heard a thump. Went into the living room (where the thump came from) and saw nothing out of place.

Repeat.

Repeat once more with a HUGE thump. THe mr yells up from the basement to make sure I'm OK ...yup, I have no idea what it was so I'm fine.

We head into the living room and find:

1) a fake plant (most of our plants are fake, the cats are challenging) on the floor

2) part of a DIFFERENT fake plant on the floor

3) a vase of roses (er, it USED to contain roses) on the floor in a pile of rose petals and a big puddle on the carpet

4) a photo album.

Everything on the book-shelf has been re-bitter apple-ed for tonight.

(which, as I'm getting around to putting this on the new blog, 4 days later, didn't work. Because I found fake plants in the living room for the past 3 mornings. and again 10 minutes ago)

I have no idea how many stamps WERE on the roll yesterday...

but the stamp holder was on the floor (it had been in a drawer...I think) and the roll was completely out of the holder and unrolled and there was about a foot of the adhesive backing w/o any stamps attached....no idea where those stamps are, but I think that bit of paper was shorter.

I think La Doof Kitton was trying to mail Dawg to Boreneo.

(Edited to add:

I must apologize to the googlers who are apparently looking for the number of stamps on a roll and are finding the ramblings of a crazy cat lady...

So for your edification, a US first class stamp is $0.42, there are 100 of them in a roll, and it costs $42.00 last I checked. But I'll have to refer you to usps.gov for updated information or to see how many stamps it would indeed take for your kitten to mail your dog to Borneo or Abu Dhabi.

Happy Googling!)

Intro

Hi
I'm La Doof Kitton. I'm just over a year old and after telling one to many story about me, my momma (G) was asked to blog them. So she is.

She's the one typing this because, well, cats can't type. Or when they do they say things like "Lol, Hai, wherez my cheecken?"
So the rest of the time, you'll have to just let her talk.

She says I do a lot of crazy things, some of which involve Dawg, my big sister (she's very dumb and very large for a cat. I didn't know cats got to 50 pounds big, but she did) and El Gato, my other big sister (who is fat and gray and sometimes kinda stinky).