Hampers are tiger traps.

(A bit of an aside, this is being written from a different computer. I may be a bit more absent from the interwebz, seeing as parts of my computer [literally] exploded and I'm waiting for new ones)

The other night, I was working on a project and, in a fit of efficiency, I locked the pets out of the office. (they had been helping but seeing as it was a sewing project and seeing as how La Doof Kitton was entranced by the thread moving from the spool to the needle--so entranced that he grabbed the thread and tried to run away with it...twice-creating a big snarl in the machine, I decided they could help when I was done.)

I got up and investigated a crash or 3 (luring us to open the office door to discover a crashed book, a knocked over glass, etc.), I decided that La Doof Kitton had cried 'Wolf' (I'd say he cried 'mess, blood, crash' but it just doesn't have the same ring to it) one to many times and that I was herby, ignoring all further crashes.

With that, decided, I ignored the sound of one cat chasing another cat and ignored the following crash. About 5 minutes later, Mr. G said that I HAD to come see this. And this is what I saw:

This is our laundry hamper. La Doof Kitton regularly lands inside the hamper as he skitters across the top and the top spins like a trash can lid and he lands inside. He is amused by this (and is able to climb out, with a great deal of effort).
El Gato, as best we can tell, is NOT amused by this (nor, do we believe, she is able to climb out. Or at lesat she isn't willing to put in the effort to try.)

The likely scenerio is that La Doof Kitton bothered El Gato the 479th time that night, until he needled her into chasing him. The chase led across the top of the hamper which worked as a giant tiger trap. Then El Gato fell into the hamper. Where she remained stuck until Mr. G and I took pity upon her and lifted her out.

(Little brothers are pesky things, creating traps like this)

kittehs and candies.

(If this story seems familiar, I may have told something similar (not on the blog) a week or 2 ago. We had nearly the same thing happen two times in as many weeks. Which probably means we are slow learners)

Yesterday, Mr. G rummaged through the cupboards for something sweet and came up with a movie-theater-sized box of nerds. Since someone in the house (*cough coughMrGcough cough*) is unable to properly open a box of nerds, he dumped them into a Ziploc sandwich baggie and brought the baggie into the office to munch on while playing on the computer.

La Doof Kitton nosed around the bag a few times. Mr. G reminded La Doof Kitton that as a cat, he doesn't like sweets because, as mommy has repeatedly pointed out, kittons lack the ability to taste sweet (Really. I swear). After the three thousandth, fourth hundred and ninety seven time shoo-ing La Doof Kitton away, the Mr. reached in the bag and pulled out one extremely large blob of wee sweet candy and set it on the desk for La Doof Kitton.

La Doof Kitton sniffed it very carefully. Then he pawed at it very gingerly.
A few moments later, the candy was skittering across the floor as a kitton tongue worried at it.

La Doof Kitton ate his piece of candy, climbed onto the desk to beg for more and waited until Mr. G was distracted (One must always strike when the evil opponent is distracted). At the moment of distraction, La Doof Kitton made his move. He dove into the baggie. NOT, as one might think, into the outside of the baggie but he tried to fit both his front paws and his head (most specifically, his tongue) into the baggie.
The baggie, however, being made to hold the average peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, wasn't able to contain a lot of candy AND the front 1/3 of a cat so it did the logical baggie thing to do and ruptured its contents all over the office. I had no idea nerds could spread themselves that far; we had rainbow carpeting.

El Gato fled in the commotion, Dawg was (thank heavens) outside, and La Doof Kitton worked mightily to eat/play with/stash under the closet door the candies before they could be cleaned up (until Mr. G got out the vacuum--even brave Kittons can't stand the vacuum).

So apparently nerds are tasty goodness that even appeal to those critters who are sweet-taste-receptor deprived. To bad I don't have any more nerds because they're all inside my vacuum.

A TMI tale

I know, I know, I said I didn't have time to post yet. That was the truth, I don't. But I will anyhow because I laughed.

This morning, Mr. G and I were snuggling under the covers, in that nice, sleepy morning state.

Suddenly, I felt my hair get pounced. I realized that Mr. G had snaked his hand under my pillow and was poking his fingers out, teasing La Doof Kitton into pouncing. He did this a few dozen times before giving La Doof Kitton a small nudge and saying "whoops, you fell off the bed" (That sounds much crueler than it is. La Doof Kitton seems to like the 'whoops, you fell off the bed' game).

Mr. G and I continued snuggling and moved on to things not G rated...which is when, from the top of the dresser (which he'd climbed onto after the last round of 'whoops, you fell off the bed), La Doof Kitton pounced exactly the way Mr. G has trained him with this playing--onto the hand that is moving under the covers.

Except, it was my hand, not Mr. G's. And it wasn't where it 'usually' is.

And, La Doof Kitton *ahem* kinda sorta missed the hand by an inch.

And he landed squarely, at full tilt, on *ahem* Mr. G. Which resulted in Mr. G curling himself into the fetal position for several minutes.

And I laughed a little to hard. Which means it's only a matter of time for the universe to sic my pets at me.

I promise more tom-foolery in April

It's not that the kittehs aren't entertaining right now it's that I don't have time to write about it for the moment. Life gets sane again in April.

So a short bit...
last night, I made cat stuff. I started by making the scratchy seen here:
http://www.designspongeonline.com/2009/01/diy-project-recycled-cardboard-kitty-pad.html

Mine isn't quite that pretty but is quite adequate if I do say so myself.
Thus far, La Doof Kitton has walked up to it, smelled it, and set to work chewing on a piece that I cut unevenly and El Gato has glared at me for sprinkling 'her' catnip on it and refuses to touch it.

So I decided toys might be a better choice since I still had cardboard. I made the toys seen here:
http://www.marmaladepets.com/owners/download_ball.html

(copy paper boxes = thinner than normal cardboard = easier to cut w/ scissors but cut the slits narrower than the pattern shows. And now you know)

The cats were mostly indifferent. Then, suddenly, La Doof Kitton decided the ball one was the best ever. He made 3 laps of the house with it before skidding to a stop and dropping it in Dawg's water dish. For future reference, cardboard toys + water = broken. I'll make him another someday, right now, watching him walk up to the soggyness that I scooped out and left on the back doormat and poke it with a paw is a bit of schaudenfraud entertainment for me.

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.