forgive me kittehs for I have annoyed the piss out of you both

I was trying to get a picture of the scene that unfolds in our household dozens of times every day--that is to say, La Doof Kitton pouncing on El Gato.

So, I picked a day when they were doing a lot of this and I put batteries in the camera and followed them around for about an hour. And they did nothing.
So I decided to start something.

I waited until El Gato was napping and plunked La Doof Kitton onto the bed next to her.
Nothing:




So I grabbed the jeans La Doof Kitton was laying on and I dragged him until they were touching.
Nothing:



So I decided to make the noises of rabid squirrels under the bedspread (La Doof Kitton is convinced that scratchy noises and movement under cloth = rabid squirrel attacks) and instead of the normal reaction (El Gato = indifferent and La Doof Kitton = attack mode), La Doof Kitton acted scared and El Gato, being the loving older sister she is (HA!) attacked the blob to protect him from it as he used her as a shield:



I even tried to dangle strings over top of El Gato for La Doof Kitton to attack...which just earned me the reproach of both kittehs:


So pictures of a pounce/tackle are not forthcoming--I have to wait until I can take them in true photojournalistic, non involvement style.

things La Doof Kitton has messed with since I got home 3 hours ago

(It has been a long night. And this list is hardly conclusive--it just lists the things I caught him doing.)

1-A good pen (which I still haven't found) that I left on the desk.

2-A cheap ballpoint (which I HAVE found--he only hides well the expensive ones) that I left on the desk.

3-A hershey's kiss (at least one) from my v-day stash which he stole and dragged around the house and made me chase him for. I've got an inkling there may be more hidden throughout the house.

4- a rubber spatula (which I set to close to the edge of the counter while baking...he reached up, batted it off, and spread cheesecake batter across my floor as it fell)

5-a piece of venetian glass to go with a desk set (pen-rest) that my MIL brought me back from Italy. He stole it three times tonight and I had to dive for the door to keep from having to chase him everywhere to get it. He didn't drop it but did carry it around the office very primly. (he is now locked out of the office)

6-A melon baller. I was looking for a spring form pan in the laundry-room pantry and moved a box of seldom-used utensils...he took this opportunity to steal a melon baller from the box of utensils and put it (where else) under the drying rack in the laundry room

7-A dryer-lint bison. I cleaned the dryer lint thingy and dropped the ball of blue fuzz into the trash...It's now somewhere in the basement. (And think, this means poor Linty [the lint demon who lives in my dryer vent] is going hungry tonight. I should throw him a few extra mismatched socks just so he doesn't starve. )

8-the cord to my phone charger. Although this was funny--Because I yelled at him while he was chewing on it so he tried to run away with it. But it was still plugged in.
So he got to the end of the cord and there was a *sproing* sound and he's lucky he still has all his teeth.

9-A pad of post it notes. (he didn't get far with them because he rather doesn't like the feel of sticky notes on his teeth or fur)

10-An oven mitt (which I left on the counter but somehow found under the table...)

I think I'm going to bed. That won't make him behave but it means I have 8 hours before I have to deal with his shenanigans again. (although we're averaging 3.3333 debacles per hour that I'm aware of--a lot could happen in the next 8 hours)

The Kitty house...

Last Christmas, Sandy Paws got the kittehs a kittey house. It normally belongs to El Gato; La Doof Kitton tends to only get in when it will irritate another member of the house (namely, El Gato).

Recently, said kitty house moved from under one end table to under the one near the electronics in a vain attempt to protect the electronics from the pets--Dawg likes taking her bones under the table to chew on and the cats fight on and under any surface in the house. We theorized that, since animals must follow the same laws of physics we do, unable to occupy the same space as another object, the presence of the kitty house would make it impossible for Dawg to get under there to chew a bone or for both cats to fit under there at the same time. We were wrong (and I'm not sure who broke the DVD player/receiver but broken it is).

Tonight, Dawg entered the kitty house (or at least her head did) to work on her bone

And 5 minutes later, I got to take this picture (which I swear on my copy of James Herriot's 'All Creatures Great and Small' that I did not, in any way, set up--they did this all on their own)
He looks quite content with his bone. And he will probably now kill me in my sleep for mocking him on the interwebz.

Collars

Recently, I decided that the kitteh's collars (especially El Gato's) were looking rather grungy. I decided to try to fix that but, money being a wee bit tight right now, combined with me trying to learn to sew, I decided to DIY this.

I started with El Gato's. First it got a good washing (and let me say...ew. It looked so very much better after just a washing that I'm rather grossed out that I didn't try that before--no idea how 2 indoor cats generate that amount of filth); the clean collar looked like this:.
(You will notice, of course, that La Doof Kitton 'helped' at every step of this sewing project.)

I adjusted the collar as big as it could go, removed the tags, and pinned on a piece of ribbion like this, then sewed it on (three times, since one time I screwed up and had to rip all the stitches out)--notice the paws in the picture:

I'm holding it up high in this picture to keep it out of La Doof Kitton's paws--he has an unnatural affinity for ribbon.
(and I also must confess that the bow is only in place because, I am my grandmother's protogee. I kinda ripped the ribbon w/ my seam ripper so, of course, I added a bow to cover said rip)


El Gato would like to model for you:
.

During all of this, La Doof Kitton was helping by stealing the ribbon and sliding it under the door to my closet, as seen here:

SO, since my first attempt was moderately successful, I decided to do the same to La Doof Kitton's collar the next day....

Since both kittehs have breakaway collars, I figured it would be easy to remove the collar--after all, every time we try to grab La Doof Kitton, his collar melts away and I am left with a handful of collar while La Doof Kitton enjoys his furry freedom, sans the opressive symbol of his subjugation by furless apes. So, since La Doof Kitton decided he didn't want me to remove his collar properly, I just grabbed a bit of the collar and tugged...and it didn't break away.

You know that moment when you 'have a tiger by the tail...'? Having an angry cat (apparently and understandably angered by collar tugs) by the non-breaking-away-breakaway-collar ain't no picnic either. I eventually got the collar, bandaged up my wounds, and washed the collar. I left it to dry on my sewing table and wandered off to make my apologies to La Doof Kitton by way of a bit of leftover ribbon and make me dinner.

While I was distracted elsewhere in the house ("ooh, shiny!") I heard Mr. G say the words I hear 1000 times a day..."Hey, stop that!" I assumed that La Doof Kitton was into something he shouldn't be into until I heard it "HEY, cats, both of you..." and ran to see what happened (La Doof Kitton raises cain on days that end in 'y'. El Gato raises cain on the 12th of never) and how El Gato was involved.

I had apparently left the door to my sewing project ajar. La Doof Kitton was borrowing spools of thread and hiding them in various spots around the house. El Gato had wandered in, found La Doof Kitton's collar in progress and was attempting to destroy it. She was standing there, the collar hanging from her mouth, shaking it violently and attempting to rip it into small pieces of ribbon and collar. I'm not sure if she thought "I don't want my brother to have a collar like my new pretty one" or if she thought "ick, this smells like the other cat...KILL" or "hey, this tells people where to return him to...If I destroy it, then mail him to Abu Dhabi without return address..." but regardless, it was amusing.
(If you've no idea why El Gato might wish to be rid of La Doof Kitton, I should point out that she seems to miss being an only pet and she has [although I haven't been able to get pictures of it] been pounced by La Doof Kitton 3 times in the time it took for me to type this out)

And it obviously didn't work, seeing as La Doof Kitton is here to model his new collar (note this blog entry in the background :-P):



So, yes, they match, as seen here...but they may not be thrilled about that (but I'm amazed, a picture of them...TOGETHER! Huzzah!)

La Doof Kitton learned about 'pushing' this week

No, he's not pushing the 'nip (although if he realized how much control he could exert over El Gato by becoming her pusher, he might); he has just learned a bit more about the physics of moving furniture.

This started with the hamper.
Between our bed and the wall, there is just room to place a wicker clothes hamper. This serves 2 purposes; it holds dirty clothes and it blocks the access to 'the cubbyhole of doom'.
('The cubbyhole of doom' is a small, cat sized cave between the bed frames and the wall. No matter what we do, there is always a gap and the cats go in it and we live in fear that they'll get stuck or squished when something moves. The cats go in there and refuse to come out just to freak us out)

Well, La Doof Kitton, in a moment of clumsiness, stepped on the lid only when climbing onto the hamper. The lid wedged down and he rode his elevator of the hamper lid down to the floor as he and the lid shoved the hamper away from the wall.
He was thrilled--he not only got behind the hamper, he opened the door to 'the cubbyhole of doom'. He explored this new skill and learned that if he squished himself against the wall, he could fit between the wall and the hamper, slither down to the floor, then shove with all his might, moving the hamper.
He now repeats shoving the hamper away from the wall at least once a night.

The next day, as we were, once again, doing the dance of "chase the kittehs out of the laundry room", La Doof Kitton, as usual, climbed under the drying rack to avoid capture. He decided to see what happened if he used his new-found 'pushing' skills. He immediately discovered that mom is lousy at figuring out what to do when the entire drying rack of clothes moves itself around the laundry room. He was to squirmy and quick to grab w/o dumping my clean laundry onto the floor. The rack itself tends to collapse when you grab one it (leading to the same problem--clean laundry on the floor (and heaven knows that if there is one speck of dirt on my laundry room floor, a clean, white article of clothing will land on it)).
I had to, one at a time, pick up each article of damp clothing, lay it on the dryer, then pick up the drying rack, extricate the kitton, deposit him under a laundry basket for a few minutes (I'd have simply dumped him on the wrong side of the door but then he'd just weasel in when I left), re-hang my clothes, and then take kitton, laundry basket and myself upstairs.

I believe a knowledge of physics simply makes him dangerous--heaven knows he'll use it for evil.

More monsters..

This morning, the humans in the house slept late because we've got a touch of something unpleasant.
La Doof Kitton, being himself, decided to make sure that we were grumpy immediately when we finally dragged ourselves out of bed.

I woke up, took down the baby gate to release the hound, and stumbled to the kitchen to turn on the teakettle. I suddenly realized that the contents of 3 bookshelves wasn't supposed to be lying in the living room floor; the 'basket of odds and ends' (which contains hair clips and car keys and brushes and pet toenail clippers and is 4 shelves up to be as close to out of reach as possible) was upside down and odds and ends littered the floor, books were on their sides and all around the room, nick-knacks and toys were strewn across the carpet. All in all, it looked like a small, Tasmanian devil sized tornado had hit or that a mischievous kitten had spent half the night pushing things off the shelves and watching them bounce across the floor. I'm guessing Taz didn't do it.

(Let me interrupt myself here to mention that, since I've become a responsible grown-up (ha! funny) my toys have gotten more and more expensive. And more and more breakable. So my 'action figures' have been replaced by miniatures; my glass bits have been replaced with wee antiques; my thrift-store paperbacks have been supplemented with (er, not replaced :-) with lovely leather bound editions, etc. This increases my irritation when my belongings are attacked. Everyone knows this, which is why no one messes w/ the thrift store paperbacks and everyone messes with the first edition antiques)

I decide that the fewer pets who are around to 'help' when I'm picking this up, the better. So I go to the door to let Dawg out but stop when I realize that she is begging to go outside to play with a toy. It's not her toy; actually, it's not even my toy. It's a miniature of a monster that Mr. G has taken the job of painting for a friend. Nothing like thinking the dog has a hair clip and realizing that it's something closer to this--and that for extra fun, someone has already put a lot of time and effort into it and it doesn't belong to us:

(No, it wasn't this. This is one we photographed at games day a few years ago painted by someone w/ a lot of talent. I'm an almost adequate painter. Mr. G is a very good painter. The guy who painted that was stupendous)

I immediately switched into "talk them off the ledge" mode; I convinced Dawg to, very gently, lay the wee squid-looking miniature critter into my hand in exchange for a dog biscut. Then I shoved her outside with said biscut as I inspected the miniature. It had not been crushed in the "Jaws of Doom"--small miracle. And the paint was, for the most part, unchipped. Which lead me to wonder where on earth Dawg had found this treasured little monster

Dawg is a destructive force of nature but she doesn't act on her own; the monsters had been secured out of La Doof Kitton's reach in the kitchen...or actually, NOT out of his reach in the kitchen, although we thought they were. Mr. G and I spent the next 40 minutes looking for the other missing miniatures and finding them, eventually, in one piece under the couch. These have now been secured in a locking case in the basement (in the boarded up room).

Everything is back on the respective shelves, and I told La Doof Kitton that finding the pet nailclippers in the middle of the floor is what reminded me that he needed his claws trimmed--here's hoping that he won't choose to remind me of them again this way.

La Doof Kitton, the monster slayer

The kind folks at perpetual kid (again, not getting kickbacks but I wouldn't object to getting them in the future... ;-) included things just for La Doof Kitton.
A family member got me a lovely scarf from the site for Christmas and it came with a wee, orange, rubbery monster finger puppet. I had it perched on my computer but *someone* stole it and now I can't find it.

It was last seen being conquered by La Doof Kitton. He would probably like to thank them for the lovely toy but being as he hid it extremely well and has forgotten where, I won't push it.