King of the Chair

This is how this game is played...(keeping in mind, it's hard to photograph these things one handed)
Place cat in office chair (in this instance, I lured the cat into a bag first, then put the bag in the chair...usually, however, the cat puts HIMSELF into the chair)

Sneak behind chair (and by sneak, I mean, go about as nosily and obviously as you'd like...but duck down so they can't see you. They'll forget you're there within 2 seconds. )

Tap human hand on top of chair thusly:



Continue tapping on the chair until the cat responds...this takes between 2 seconds and 15 minutes, depending on the cat. (The cat's response is designed to scare you. It's like staring at the toaster and waiting for it to pop up. You KNOW it's coming. You're expecting it. But you still dump hot coffee all over yourself when it happens.)

Responding looks like this:


And then the cat gets distracted by nothing and you grab it's paw:

And then the cat says "I'm king" and lays on the back of the chair. or back in the seat, depending on what inconveniences the people most at that moment.

At which point, a very ambitious/evil person may put the cat back in the bag and play with the arms...which usually ends up with the chair spinning until everyone is dizzy



Regardless, the game always ends the same way...with a satisfied cat sitting.aying anywhere he darn well pleases.

Running up-side-down

La Doof Kitton likes to run. He runs around the house a lot.

And sometimes, he runs under the couch. He climbs under the couch and rolls so his back is on the carpet and his feet are up in the air. Then he sticks out all of his claws, digs them deep into the underbelly of the couch, and runs around under there.

It's incredibly difficult to get pictures of him doing this but, I tried...(Please not El Gato enjoying the sunbeams and completely ignoring her annoying baby brother. And also note some of the blurryness caused by trying to get a picture of a wee gray perpetual motion machine):

in which La Doof Kitton feeds Dawg more things

wow, I'm an incredibly negligent blogger again. Sorry.

So, twice in the last week, La Doof Kitton fed things to dog.

1-The cheese wrapper
I was having a bout of insomnia. It happens from time to time and usually results in me prowling around the house in the half-darkness and making enough noise to wake up Mr. G and I generally make a pest of myself.
Well, I got hungry while pacing and grabbed a piece of string cheese from the fridge. Because I was pacing I absent-mindedly dropped the wrapper to said piece of string-cheese in the trash can off the kitchen--the one w/o a lid.

The next morning, I realized that Dawg was acting like she had something she wasn't supposed to. I couldn't see anything and I looked and assumed she was acting 'guilty' for some other reason.
But when I went to leave the house, I realized that tiny trash can was knocked over.

I KNOW Dawg didn't go and knock over that trash can because she can't go across the tile and down the step into onto the landing. (okay, maybe she CAN but she won't. Linoleum = lava and stairs in the house = impenetrable barrier). And I know El Gato didn't do it because she actually spent the night in bed with me.
Which means...(dun dun dun)...La Doof Kitton knocked over the trash can, pulled out the cheese wrapper, and brought it somewhere for Dawg to take from him.

(and the good ending is, that made me remember that I had indeedy put a cheese wrapper in there at 4 am. And so I knew what I was looking for. And I retrieved the cheese wrapper before Dawg ingested it--which is MUCH more pleasant than retrieving it after she has ingested it.)

2-The shirt
I have quite a few of what are commonly, in this house, called 'chore coats'. You know, those lined flannel shirts that you wear out to the barn (no, we don't have a barn) to do chores? Most of mine were stolen from my dad (sorry dad) over the years and they live in the front coat closet to grab whenever you need something warmer than just a flannel but not so 'nice' as a Carhartt.

Well, at some unGodly hour like 4am (do you notice how often these things happen at 4 am? why do pets not need things more often at noon? or even 10 pm), it was my turn to take Dawg out when she decided she had an 'emergency' need to go out. I grabbed a chore coat and her leash, headed out into the pouring rain, and tossed the chore coat on the back of a kitchen chair to dry when I came back in.

The next morning, I tried to put Dawg outside and she informed me that, no, she didn't need to go out. Not only had she 'already gone' (at 4 am) but it was still raining...why would she want to go out in that? So I left the animals to their own devices --with El Gato and La Doof Kitton playing "pick in your sibling" and "you can't see me through this cloth--let me hit you while you can't see me" through the chore coat on the back of the chair--while I went about my day.

A while later, I see the coat on the floor and think nothing of it--the cats do tend to knock things over when they play the above games. I also saw Dawg considering laying on the coat--she loves napping on our clothing and while this is one of my nicest chore coats (or, one of dad's nicest chore coats--sorry dad), it wasn't something I cared if she napped on.

Even LATER, Mr. G walked into the room and said "Well Dawg, don't you look all....wait, why are you eating mom's coat?"

Remember I said these are coats you take for chores? well....walking Dawg is a chore. And so, apparently, a long LONG time ago, I filled the breast pocket of the chore coat with dog cookies (we love having pocket sized cookies around).

And...since Dawg isn't quite smart enough to get inside the pocket (the pocket was NOT buttoned. There is a 'flap' but the pocket was plenty big enough to fit a nose into...) she did the next logical thing...she ate the pocket.

So this is no longer one of my 'nicest' chore coats. It's now the one with a giant hole in the left breast. (sorry dad!).
Dawg looked so very disappointed when she realized I was going to take away her new treat-dispensing-bed...but she was thrilled that, upon me grabbing the coat and picking it up, her handiwork came to fruition--since there was no longer a bottom to the pocket, all the crumbs of doggie cookie scattered all over the floor for her to lap up.

Mr. G found this funnier than I did for some reason :-P

And more grooming...

When I finished brushing El Gato, I'm always left with piles of gray kitteh fur. I rolled some of into a wee El Gato's gray kitteh fur sausage so it wouldn't blow into my computer's ventilation while I finished the brushing. La Doof Kitton thought that might be the new, coolest kitteh toy evah. He stole it, played with it, layed on it, rolled around on it and cuddled with it.

Then he tried to eat it.

(directions for making such a toy, if you want to risk the eating are here:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Cat-Toys/
)
Pictures:


(and darn-it-all, the photographic evidence just got me in trouble. Because we just had a conversation that sounded something like this:

Mr. G: *looking over my shoulder* What's he got in those pictures?
Me: Uhm, a pile of El Gato hair
Mr. G: WHAT?
Me: He wanted to help with the brushing...I had rolled up El Gato's hair so it wouldn't blow away and he came and played with it
Mr. G: *reading blog-not-yet-posted* And he ate it?
Me: uhhh *desperately stalling* Look, something sparkly!
Mr. G: That only works on you.
Me: Oh, right. Well, he tried to eat it. I took most of it away when he started eating it. But he did run off with a wad of it and I couldn't find it anywhere--I guess he hid it somewhere.
Mr. G: Like in his stomach.
Me: Maybe.
Mr. G: And do you suppose that might explain why I've cleaned up puked up piles of cat hair every day for the last 3 days?
Me: Maybe.
Mr. G: You should just not tell me these things...
Me: I didn't tell you! I was keeping it secret and just putting it on the blog
Mr. G: *sounded a little incredulous* You don't think that counts as telling me?
Me: Well, both cats have refused to be brushed for the last 3 days so I'm fairly sure they're done eating and puking up hair for now
Mr. G: Well that's good. We'll just go back to the old system of them licking themselves, ingesting hair that way, and puking it up. It takes them longer that way to get a good sized pile of vomit together.

So, there you have it, rolled up bits of cat fur? not a good kitteh toy. ANd likely to lead to marital strife. I suppose that him cleaning up 3 days worth of kitteh vomit means its my turn to do the cat boxes.)

(ETA: we just found the 'toy'/furball. Or what's left of it. Hidden on a shelf in the library. I've no idea how much of it was ingested but I am officially not responsible for any future puking episodes.)

Reluctant about grooming...

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Mmm, microwave goodies

I apologize, I haven't had time to post and I should have.

But, will cute pictures hold off the hordes?


mmm, what have we here?


I'll take my tilapia raw, thanks.

(please note, the toaster in front of La Doof Kitton?
that lives there because it's not as far for it to fall when he decides to push it down to get to the crumbs)

Eavesdropping

I was sitting in the living room, watching Mr. G make himself lunch today, that this is how the conversation went:

*opens microwave to zap lunch*

Huh, lookit, a cupcake. Why would a cupcake have to live in the microwave?

*gray and white paw appears as La Doof Kitton stands on his hind feet and tries to get a claw into the cupcake.*

Oh no you don't little man. Chocolate is bad for kittehs.

*Mr. G sets his lunch down on the table and gets the cupcake...in that moment, La Doof Kitton goes from the floor to the kitchen table, trying to Bogart lunch...*

HEY! Not allowed on the table!

*La Doof Kitton moves to the floor before he can be moved. Mr. G sets the cupcake on the table and puts his lunch in the microwave*

two minutes...start....

*a gray and white paw appers above the edge of the table and one claw manages to hook into the cupcake paper and start dragging it toward the edge of the table...*

HEY!
*paw disappears*

You know it is all your fault we can't have nice things. And that the cupcakes live in the microwave. and that the cookies live in the oven. And that the dog treats are locked in cupboards.

*La Doof Kitton looks up at Mr. G expectantly, sees no treats are forthcoming and walks to the cupboard below the microwave. He nudges it open and climbs inside, to nest on top of the pudding cups*

Yeah, I give up too.

(and I ate the cupcake directly afterwards to remove temptation from the microwave.)