(I actually started to post this tale a week ago...but our DSL modem fried itself mid-post. Literally. And it took a while to get a new one. But AT&T was pretty gracious about the entire thing and didn't charge me for this new piece of plastic attached here, so I have no room to complain)
If you didn't know, Yoplait runs a thingy where sending in lids provides donations to Breast Cancer research. Given how much yogurt this house goes through on a weekly basis (the critters eat it. I eat it. Mr. G eats it), we are saving up a pile o' lids to send in soon. Since all lids must be clean, the pets do their duty every time I open a yogurt at home by volunteering to clean the lid off for me. It works well--they clean the lid off, I run it under water to get anything they miss (HA, like that happens!) and then I stick the lid into a baggie that is attached to the very top of the fridge by a strong magnetic clip.
Well, recently, the Mr. and I left to go about our days...and came home to find yogurt lids strewn about.
APPARENTLY *someone* in the house had managed to climb to the top of the fridge, reach down inside the baggie (the baggie was still firmly magnet-ed to the fridge), and fish out lids. There was a breadcrumb trail of lids that lead from the kitchen to the office and then from the office to the living room. And the next day we found several tucked inside the blanket that's on top of the couch. And a few days later we found several inside the towel that sits on the exercise bike.
He seemed to thoroughly enjoy creating a scavenger hunt--although I believe he was disappointed that the lids lacked yogurt for him to eat (not that he eats it--he only eats it if it irritates the other pets. He likes to play with the lids and steal them from the other pets; he's indifferent to yogurt as a food--he prefers it as a plaything).
So, since it was apparent that the kitton could sit on top of the fridge and dig out yogurt lids, we moved them. We stuck the magnet smack in the middle of the fridge--it wouldn't be reachable from the top OR the floor. or at least we didn't think it would.
We came home to find 1-the baggie o' lids, with teethmarks in it, on the kitchen floor and 2-magnets and a few of the bits of magnetic poetry spread about the kitchen floor. The magnetic poetry was well chewed--I'm not sure who did that, although there was a dog-centric set as a part of the poetry that said 'treat' which is gone altogether--I can only assume Dawg ate it.
Best guess is that La Doof Kitton positioned himself on a counter/the back of a chair/the microwave cart and launched himself at the fridge--grabbing the bag and dragging it downward and scattering magnets as he slid down.
With that sort of determination at play, we gave up and the baggie o' lids is IN the fridge, on a shelf.
Just to remind us that he's boss, however, La Doof Kitton DID apparently climb up and steal the dry erase marker off the magnetic dry-erase board earlier this week. We're still not sure where that went.
(I believe the score for THIS debacle is Pets 3, humans 0)
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
stuck in the cupboards...
I was hungry, so I opened the cupboard where pots and pans are to grab a pan. I turn back around from setting it on the stove just inside to watch a gray kitteh tail disappear into the cupboard. I grumble and attempt to lure him out.
He (shock of shocks :-P) ignores me.
I try to lure him out with scratchy noises and a wadded up piece of paper and a toy and a treat...he (shocking, I know) IGNORES me.
So I leave the cupboard open and start on my lunch and turn around when I hear strange noises I look in the cupboard and see a kitteh butt...the rest of La Doof Kitton is on top of the drawer slider. hanging into the next cupboard over...the one under the sink where all the noxious chemicals are. He apparently climbed onto the drawer slider and decided to go exploring.
So I open that cupboard and debate what to do. He climbs the rest of the way into the under-sink-cupboard and sits there. He debates climbing into the NEXT cupboard over--the one that leads to where the wine rack is--NOTHING good ever comes of that--besides, from there he can get himself (again) behind the drawers o' doom.
I try again to lure him out and he convinces me that he's STUCK--that he can't get around all the bottles and shelves and such...
I have an epiphany and lightning strikes my brain and I walk over to the microwave cart and I roll it away from the fridge. (he likes getting between appliances. And laying there. And refusing to move so we can put appliances back)
Miracle of miracles, SUDDENLY the universe shifts, the atoms align, and La Doof Kitton CAN fit around the bottles and under the small shelf.
And he appears between the microwave cart and fridge and lays down, so he can feel under the fridge for toys. And pulls out a milking and continues laying in the warmth between appliances to enjoy his victory.Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Samurai X
I needed the laugh tonight...
After work, we all relaxed in the living room. Dawg was under my feet, El Gato was on the back of the couch, and La Doof Kitton plopped down on the coffee table, pretending he didn't want to eat the flowers on the other end of the table (he did. and does. He was hoping we'd look away.we didn't yet. He will win and eat them eventually).
Well, he flopped down on the netflix pile...
and got the adhesive jammed onto his fur.
He stood up, confused as to what was pulling his fur...and then he wandered about, still confused. Then he realized he was being attacked by a red and white envelope and did the logical cat thing...he panicked.
So he ran around the living room, being chased by Samurai X until the adhesive gave out.
He then sat on the chair (not the coffee table--apparently it bites) and eyed the envelope warily for a while.
And we laughed. So he eyed us with the look of one who may attempt to murder us later for expressing mirth at his disgrace.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
We still have the 'treat fling' as a part of the nightly ritual. and it amuses me.
Every night, the pets get a 'bedtime treat'. I tell Dawg 'go to bed' and she goes to the hallway (or the bedroom) and waits for me to toss her a treat.
Usually La Doof Kitton is at the 'treat point' (next to where the treats are kept) before I even finish talking to Dawg. If not, he hears the rattle of the treat can and comes running (El Gato doesn't come running but will saunter into the right general direction. Running is to much work).At this point, I shake out a few of the tremendously icky pounce treats (truly, they are indeed icky. Have you ever looked at the ingredients? But El Gato *refuses* to eat any w/ healthy ingredients) and I hold El Gato's in my left hand and La Doof Kitton's in my right. I set El Gato's down in front of her...and I fling La Doof Kitton's across the room in a shower of icky cat-treat rain. Why? because if I set them in front of him, he scarfs them down and steals El Gato's before she can eat them. And if I fling them? he's much more interested in the 'oooh, that treat is trying to escape' treat than he is in the "meh, that treat is just sitting there" treat.
What's scary is that the Mr and I both developed this same treat-feeding mechanism independently...and Uncle D, the cat sitter? he developed it independently as well. Apparently La Doof Kitton's spunk is predictable sometimes :-)
Sunday, September 13, 2009
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.
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):
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):
Friday, September 4, 2009
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
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
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