shadesofmauve | Entries tagged with kittehs

He's laying on my bed, obsessively grooming. :D

I got home at 9 tonight, and my housemate still hadn't seen hide nor hair of him (since yesterday morning), so I went out to walk the neighborhood. The first stop for Missing Monkeys is always Neighbor George, because they love to hang out in his yard. Neighbor George has apprehended Monkey before (all his other disappearances were when I'd been gone for several days - he decides I've abandoned him and heads off on his own, poor thing). Neighbor George hadn't seen him either -- but he had heard the absolute faintest of mews near his bedroom, and they weren't from his cat. He suggested checking the yard.

That seemed a little silly -- our yards adjoin, if Monks was in the yard he would come home -- but he got a flashlight and I followed him.

And at the very limit of my hearing, I heard a mew.

I called Monkey.

The mew got the tiniest bit louder.

It seemed to be coming from a junkpile next to the house. We investigated; no cat came shooting out. But there was another mew, and, oops, that was definitely from the foundation.

And then George realized that he'd had the plumber out yesterday, and the plumber had gone under the house -- and sealed it up better when he left, to keep out raccoons.

We unsealed it, and I got down in the crawlspace opening with bonito and flashlight and croon, and Monkey and I cried at each other for a bit, and finally he came close enough that I could actually see him, then haul him out -- and then he jumped over my shoulder and ran off home. We walked back around the block (Neighbor George wanted to be sure he was okay) and found him lounging outside my back door, waiting for his dinner.

The sigh of relief was pretty giant.

Current Mood: relieved

I'm on day two of running on shortened and interrupted sleep, due in small part to my video game addiction and in larger part to a new development: teleporting cats.

My cats usually spend the night locked in the laundry room, because they're young and don't understand the concept of sleep. Over the past few weeks I've relaxed that rule, and as long as they're both in curled on the bed when I go to bed, they're pretty good. As long as Monkey doesn't start a marathon slurpy grooming session where he hits me every time he rocks back and forth, anyway.

But the past two nights, one or t'other of 'em hasn't come in for curfew. I don't want them out at night, and I don't want to wait up either, so I leave the sliding door in my room open a cat's width and the silly teen rebel cat usually saunters in and curls up on the bed sometime between midnight and three. The other cat has to get locked int eh laundry room so they don't BOTH end up outside.

BUT.

The cats have figured out how to get out of the closed and latched laundry room.

It's happened four times so far, never while any of my housemates were even awake, and suddenly I have mewing cat outside my bedroom door. Or inside. Or running through and escaping outside. So I catch the cat and put it back in the laundry room and an hour later it's outside my door again, how is this happening there's a DOOR between these spaces.

The last two nights, a combination of these factors lead to being woken up once every hour or two by a different cat going a different direction.

I tried just giving up and leaving everything open, but if they've been out and about they don't sleep quietly because they have to tell me about their ADVENTURES and also how they LOVE ME and they're so glad I'm still there now they got back and did they mention ADVENTURES? And it's hot and sticky and the open door lets in skeeters and suddenly both cats are outside even though they were in ten seconds ago and the door was closed then, or they're yowling at my door even though they should be locked in the other end of the house, and my freddie, TELEPORTING CATS ARE A PAIN IN THE ASS.

Saturday night while I was dressing for bed I picked something up -- not sure what -- and Erik gave a very startled, happy explanation.

"What?"

"You're CUT!"

My new years exercising plan is paying off -- I have more shoulder definition than I did a month ago! I didn't notice because it's in the back. It's not a huge sign -- I don't carry any weight on my arms, so muscle shows up fast, and my shoulders have always been far, far better than my arms (possibly from all the gardening), but it's still exciting to see results.

The "Tiny Morning Workout" plan is really doing it for me -- I've only missed two days since I started January 2nd. It's all about metagaming myself, really. I tried to do evening exercise multiple times in the past, but it's too easy to put it off, or to say I really, really need to get to bed, and fall off the wagon. They're 'tiny' because if it takes a really significant chunk of time I know I won't make time for them. I'm alternating legs, arms, and core, and nothing takes more than half an hour (I think I do the arm sets in 15 minutes, but it's about time to add another movement and maybe more weight).

The one oddity of my purty new shoulders is that they're asymmetrical. That's not terribly surprising -- we're all asymmetrical, myself more than most -- except that the left side is stronger, and I'm right-hand dominant. E and I tried to think of what could cause that all weekend. Last night I went home and Monkey wanted a cuddle, so I scooped him up, and... sure enough, my fifteen pound cat always goes on my left shoulder.

Mystery solved.

Current Mood: happy

I finally fixed SkellingtonArt.com, so anyone looking for my (still out-of-date) webpage will no longer get an ugly "The owner of this site has borked it beyond all recognition" warning. Rather than fix the old problem I just updated the gallery software, since it was quite out of date. Despite having to fix some code (mostly deprecated php stuff), it was relatively painless. Zenphoto keeps getting better and better.

In celebration, here's a picture of my Little Dude, Mister Monkey Moo.

Y'know. Chillin.

Current Mood: accomplished

When feeling down, try to deal with it like Monkey:

In this life, we must wear many cats. As workers, as friends, in our hobbies...

At the moment I have my Writing Cat on.

He's sprawled on my shoulders, keeping my neck warm and my arms free to type. My only complaint is that his butt is always on my left shoulder, and since that's his, er, heavier end (as with so many of us) I'm in danger of becoming even more asymmetrical than I already am.

I haven't been working on the snugglin' picture because the file and tablet are both at work, and work has been busy busy busy. Perhaps I'll be able to steal a moment or two next week.

(I did have fifteen minutes or so today, but I was inspired on a different project. Oops).

Speaking of cuddles, last night was very cuddly, with E, me, and both cats making for a snuggly-warm tripple cuddle. Quadruple, if you count the fact that E snagged my teddy-bear, too.

I really wish Calliope would sleep through the night. I love having my little feline footwarmers on the bed in the winter, but I can't handle the 2 a.m. Calico-Chorus-o-Love*.

*Now with extra furry-butt-on-your-head! It'll keep you warmer!

Monkey was waiting at the door, patiently as always, and I almost let him into the house. "Huh," thought I, "What's that hanging off you, there? Oh, and over on your shoulder, too? Let's have a look at..."

"Sweety? The cat has slugs."

Monks must have been brushing through some undergrowth or something, because he had two little one-inchers stuck to him, one on his white chest fur, the other on his shoulder. He didn't seem to notice, and was a bit put out when I attacked him with a paper-towel before letting him in the house.

I do like to think of what the slugs must have felt like when he did his usual 30 mph dash towards the house, though.

Double usual caffeine intake + new deshedding tool = non-zero chance that come come morning, Skellington will not have slept at all. And cats will be bald.

I just rode home in the pouring rain and showered all the road grime off. I let the kitties in and they mobbed me -- crazy, uber cuddly, we-must-be-in-contact-at-all-times, LOVE ME! I will lick you and cherish you and call you george and you will pet me and LOVE ME! NEEEEEOW! No! We will not wait for you to get dressed! We shall dry you with our beautiful furs! OMG, DO YOU LOVE ME?!

I know the big mean sky rained on them, too, but I think I need a way to assure them I'm not melting before my mouth is so full of cat hair that I can't breathe.

No, I'm not licking cats. I don't know how the hair gets there. By magic, just like it gets everywhere else. *spits*

Current Mood: cheerful

This is a birthday post, but I did not get a post for my birthday. I did get manual labor, a chunk of old cement, and money towards a tree (and a videogame and earings, but those were early).

westrider came down for the weekend, played lotsa-people-D&D, and he and I managed to have several "I'm From The Internet" conversations that left Erik baffled (he expects this by now when we hang out). Went to see Pearl Django with Erik, where he gave me an early birfday present (earings) in an adorable way*. I took yesterday off work in celebration, planning on getting some garage destruction in. Erik surprised me by taking the afternoon off work and showing up to help. We had a nice dinner, then my folks showed up at my door with cake and a chunk of concrete with a ribbon on. So we had unplanned cake and drinks with them, housemates, and

emony42.

After everyone left I saw Calliope sitting up in a chair, one paw on the table. She reached out and snagged the Giant Hunk O Leftover Cake with one claw and pulled it plate-and-all towards her. After I rescued it, I explained that she's a cat and and cats don't LIKE cake, and gave her a tiny bit to prove it.

Huh. Calliope really likes cake.

*Okay, perhaps for most people the "there's something for you in my pocket" route is really skeazy, but I swear, it worked as adorable. Honest.

**They just had a whole ton of sidewalk/paving removed, and I'm using old concrete to make a patio, so giving it to me was always the recycling plan... but they thought it'd be more fun to give it to me with a ribbon on. For my birfday.

One of my yard plans is to surround the bird feeder with thicket-y, prickly plants to create a bird-safe zone, thick and point enough to deter the cats.

To that end, last weekend I bought and planted a native rose. My supervisor takes her duties very seriously:

"Yes, I AM in charge of this hole. What do you want?"

After over-seeing the diggings, she double-checked for proper plant placement (by the way, get a load of those spines):

And then she showed what she thought of my 'thorny bushes deter cats' idea:

The spines add a nice bite to the flavor. Piquant!

Om nom nom.

Current Mood: crazy

Calliope just looked up "Jesus" on wikipedia.

At least now I know what to say when the church-pushers come to the door: "I'm an atheist, but my cat's interested."

I'm trying to come up with grown-up names for Monkey (tuxedo male) and Squeaker (calico female). Squeaker doesn't squeak nearly as often as she used to, and it turns out everyone has a cat named Monkey, so I think they both deserve something else.

"Squeaker"	"Monkey"
1. Inanna &	Enki (Sumerian gods appearing in Snowcrash)
2. Caliope &	Hammond (they're both organs)
3. Sketch &	Escher
4. Yara
5. Murphy*
6. Musette
	7. Maymun (pronounced my-moon; turk. for monkey) 8. Tenzing (after Norgay)

Many names would work for Squeaker, but so far I think my favorite is Caliope. She needs something that's a bit pretty. Monkey is hard to choose because monkey is actually a good name for him -- he's an adventurous little climber, he clings to me like a baby monkey, and occasionally he'll stick his forepaws in the air in a monkey way when he's getting belly rubs.

Any and all ideas greatly appreciated!

*borrowed from

westrider, who was inspired by Sanya of the Dresden Files describing the character Murphy: "Tiny -- but fierce!"

I'm taking Roomba up to Bainbridge today, to be

westrider's kitteh. The morning cat race will have one less entrant.

Morning Kitten Race:

I open the door the bedroom kittehs are sleeping in.

And we're off! It's Squeaker in the lead, Roomba's coming up the outside, Monkey's dead-last, and now it's Roomba by a nose, and...WAIT! They've remembered I feed them in the bedroom! FULL REVERSE! Monkey's plan becomes clear, he makes brilliant use of his commanding lead to beat the pack to the kibble!

Roomba will get a wonderful new person, and Squeaker & Monkey will live with me. Horatio will get a personals ad on Craigslist momentarily ("Strapping black kitten seeks playmate").

Current Mood: happy

My friend Nancy has a ranch, and the ranch has a barn, and the barn has feral cats, and the cats have kittens. I took home four kittens to socialize to help her out (and 'cause hey! kittens!). I've had 'em for almost two weeks now, so introductions are in order.

( Cut for dangerously high adorability level )

I'm looking for permanent homes for at least two kittens*. I'm torn between keeping Monkey & Squeaker, who are quite fond of each other, or Roomba.

madalchemist is certain they know they're being auditioned and being extra cute, and it'l all change later. Of course, he still yelled "Kitty!" when I was playing with one today. Even the cynical cannot resist The Power Of Kittens.

He has a point, too. Squeaker sat on her haunches and stared at me the entire time I played fiddle around them. Can she really know my weak spots so well?