So,
it's been a little while...cat has been behaving.
At least this time I knew right from the start what it was; cold weather+cat=cuddle.
This, unfortunately, resembles the 'Daily Show' with a good president (or no election year). In other words, nothing much to write about.
Enter our Anniversary...or should I say Anniversary Weekend.
We decided, as we did not have a cake, that for our first anniversary we should revisit the pineapple drinks from our reception (made by Ohana's, a Disney resort).
The drinks rocked at our wedding, and had it not been for a late Maid of Honor we would have had many more...probably to our regret. They were liquid mana, nectar of the gawds, with rum... a whole pineapple, hollowed out, filled with fruit juice and alcohol...mostly alcohol. (did I mention the rum, there was a lot of it...I didn't think a pineapple could hold a fifth of rum by itself...I was wrong).
So anyway, we tried to reproduce these drinks.
We bought a bottle of rum, a small bottle of coconut rum, and two fresh pineapples (on Friday).
We went to a Halloween party on Saturday.
I was hungover Sunday...and Monday...and a little bit of today.
Needless to say, we didn't get to drinking them until today...I was HUNG OVER! The big one...high school level hung over. I wasn't touching SQUAT on Sunday (our actual anniversary)...and was still feeling it Monday.
So tonight...
The bottle(s) come out...
My Fileting knife comes out...
My wife goes to work...
and the kitchen gets coated.
From one end to the other, everything is sticky.
EVERYTHING.
Enter, the Cat.
She has never smelled pineapple.
She parks behind my wife (on a chair) and stares...and stares...almost demandingly.
I have a picture, of her looking over the back of the chair.
It looks expectant.
It looks petulant,
and it looks predatory...all wrapped up into one pint sized little glare.
We mix the rums,
with the cored mush,
and pour them in the pineapples...
We drink.
We think.
We spit...grimace...and whine.
they tasted like kerosene...
We discover why we are NOT bartenders.
At least we giggle.
When Roxz moves to throw away her drink, she fails to do so.
Not fails to throw it away,
but fails to move.
She is cemented.
She is stuck.
With much 'squelch'-ing, she pulls loose and frees herself.
We dispose of the evidence of our failure (unlike the marriage, with much sticky kissing and giggling we plot next year and how to make the drinks palatable, or at least consumable).
She cleans the floor,
with bleach.
As we kiss, saying how much we love each other, I catch movement from my eye.
It's the cat.
She is rolling on the clean floor. Opening her mouth over the tile, breathing deeply.
Eyes half lidded, she rolls again. At first we think 'pineapple', then realize the whole room reeks of bleach,
and it's concentrated where she's breathing.
She's huffing,
bleach.
We have a teenager,
and she's high...
This is my cat,
This is my cat on drugs....
my cat, like a teenager, has no survival instinct.
Showing posts with label Cat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cat. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Apocalypse Butt...
When they pick the Four Horsemen, my cat will be tapped for Pestilence.
They (it's always the ubiquitous 'THEY', but who really would be hiring?)will be hopeful, thinking this Apocalypse will finally work...the perfect team!
She will decline, citing that the job will not be challenging enough.
I may have hinted before, but I will re-iterate now, the ritual that is my cat's violation of all things natural and good.
Daylight Hours Preamble:
She suddenly gets cute and cuddly. As there are sooo many reasons she may be kissing up (food, fear of retribution, the temperature dropped below 70) we are never prepared for the inevitable attack.
She'll be next to myself or the Wife, on the couch usually, when suddenly her head will pop up like she's heard something. Still, no real warning as this is also normal behavior. It's like she sees a spirit.
(Now I know why Medieval societies thought they could look between the ears of a cat to see the dead walking the earth...well, that and Middle Ages peasants weren't known for their brights.)
Then she's off the couch, with a slight bottle-brush action going on, like something's startled her. Some portent of things to come, though she doesn't quite know it yet. We do now.
We didn't. First couple of times this happened we thought she really was a watch kitty...or retarded. Well, we weren't wrong on one count...but this wasn't the symptom.
She starts to pace, investigating, moving about the living room.
(When we were in Florida, where we finally came to understand the signs of the Apocalypse, it was a small apartment where we could witness this unfold before us in its entirety.)
She then starts to run.
Run likes she's fleeing something...
Run AWAY! (we know now, she was fleeing her butt)
She would get a few laps down around the small living room, thundering back and forth, gaining momentum.
She would go round, up onto the back of the couch, ricochet off the head of the recliner, and barrel under the work table. Lather, Rinse, Repeat...about 4 times.
Then she'd pull a 'Matrix' kitty move, go up a wall, pull a U-Turn in the air, and bolt into the bathroom (wherein was contained the litter box) without touching the ground.
There was fear in her eyes that whole time. Abject terror at first. (After her first six months it became a sense of fearful resignation, of inescapable pain that may, with any one of these 'episodes', end in her demise.)
The first time it happened, we thought it was hilarious...
Then she was gone...
for 5 whole minutes.
I know what the speed of Light means, abstractly and quantitatively.
I know what the speed of Sound means, literally.
I never really grasped what the speed of 'stink' was until I saw it first hand.
The cat moved at something akin to the speed of light, after rebounding off the last wall and heading for the bathroom doing her best 'Neo' impression.
I heard the digging, scraping, desperate attempt at burial...a process the feline attempted for 5 straight minutes, I think to a small degree out of shame but certainly out of self preservation.
Then I saw her slink out of the Bathroom.
This slink was not one of fear,
it was not one of pain nor of violation...
it was one of weight
she was weighted down...
Remember Predator, when the alien moved through the woods and caused a ripple effect...or the mirage on hot pavement in the summer?
I swear, before the smell hit me, that I saw a shimmer/ripple in the air rolling over and past the feline pressing her down...(I have now found the speed of smell is in direct proportion to the comedic effect it will produce)
This, the very first time our cat did this to us, the last (printable/intelligible) words out of my wife's mouth for the next 15 minutes were, "Aw, the poor little thing looks like she's sick...is there something wrong with....What...the...F##....ACK...KAFF...HURK".
That's when the wall of STENCH hit us. When I say wall, I mean wall. It was palpable, it would have been as easy to cut as the tension of a Republican Convention Michael Moore showed up to for the buffet.
It hurt.
My eyes watered.
My brain, desperate to preserve itself, attempted to exit my left ear..and my wife fell over the coffee table trying to get to the spray air freshener.
She sprayed, I opened windows, and we fought our way on to the front porch. (there was a brief traffic jam at the door to get out, she won by elbowing me in the groin...to this day I still don't blame her)
We heard mewling...and we didn't care.
We spent somewhere on the order of 15 minutes cursing, through the gagging.
We went back inside, the cat lay on the floor panting as though she'd given birth.
The stench had begun to subside enough to not prompt nausea...much.
My wife looked at me with a pleading expression, after walking into the kitchen to gather the tools of scoopage...and I merely shook my head.
She walked into that bathroom like a condemned criminal headed to the gallows. I saluted. The cat mewled.
I kicked the cat.....
The speed of Stink is a formula involving the level of noxiousness, athleticism of the victims, degree of surprise and direct value of the comedy...and will always, ALWAYS catch the unaware or observed....
ALWAYS.....
They (it's always the ubiquitous 'THEY', but who really would be hiring?)will be hopeful, thinking this Apocalypse will finally work...the perfect team!
She will decline, citing that the job will not be challenging enough.
I may have hinted before, but I will re-iterate now, the ritual that is my cat's violation of all things natural and good.
Daylight Hours Preamble:
She suddenly gets cute and cuddly. As there are sooo many reasons she may be kissing up (food, fear of retribution, the temperature dropped below 70) we are never prepared for the inevitable attack.
She'll be next to myself or the Wife, on the couch usually, when suddenly her head will pop up like she's heard something. Still, no real warning as this is also normal behavior. It's like she sees a spirit.
(Now I know why Medieval societies thought they could look between the ears of a cat to see the dead walking the earth...well, that and Middle Ages peasants weren't known for their brights.)
Then she's off the couch, with a slight bottle-brush action going on, like something's startled her. Some portent of things to come, though she doesn't quite know it yet. We do now.
We didn't. First couple of times this happened we thought she really was a watch kitty...or retarded. Well, we weren't wrong on one count...but this wasn't the symptom.
She starts to pace, investigating, moving about the living room.
(When we were in Florida, where we finally came to understand the signs of the Apocalypse, it was a small apartment where we could witness this unfold before us in its entirety.)
She then starts to run.
Run likes she's fleeing something...
Run AWAY! (we know now, she was fleeing her butt)
She would get a few laps down around the small living room, thundering back and forth, gaining momentum.
She would go round, up onto the back of the couch, ricochet off the head of the recliner, and barrel under the work table. Lather, Rinse, Repeat...about 4 times.
Then she'd pull a 'Matrix' kitty move, go up a wall, pull a U-Turn in the air, and bolt into the bathroom (wherein was contained the litter box) without touching the ground.
There was fear in her eyes that whole time. Abject terror at first. (After her first six months it became a sense of fearful resignation, of inescapable pain that may, with any one of these 'episodes', end in her demise.)
The first time it happened, we thought it was hilarious...
Then she was gone...
for 5 whole minutes.
I know what the speed of Light means, abstractly and quantitatively.
I know what the speed of Sound means, literally.
I never really grasped what the speed of 'stink' was until I saw it first hand.
The cat moved at something akin to the speed of light, after rebounding off the last wall and heading for the bathroom doing her best 'Neo' impression.
I heard the digging, scraping, desperate attempt at burial...a process the feline attempted for 5 straight minutes, I think to a small degree out of shame but certainly out of self preservation.
Then I saw her slink out of the Bathroom.
This slink was not one of fear,
it was not one of pain nor of violation...
it was one of weight
she was weighted down...
Remember Predator, when the alien moved through the woods and caused a ripple effect...or the mirage on hot pavement in the summer?
I swear, before the smell hit me, that I saw a shimmer/ripple in the air rolling over and past the feline pressing her down...(I have now found the speed of smell is in direct proportion to the comedic effect it will produce)
This, the very first time our cat did this to us, the last (printable/intelligible) words out of my wife's mouth for the next 15 minutes were, "Aw, the poor little thing looks like she's sick...is there something wrong with....What...the...F##....ACK...KAFF...HURK".
That's when the wall of STENCH hit us. When I say wall, I mean wall. It was palpable, it would have been as easy to cut as the tension of a Republican Convention Michael Moore showed up to for the buffet.
It hurt.
My eyes watered.
My brain, desperate to preserve itself, attempted to exit my left ear..and my wife fell over the coffee table trying to get to the spray air freshener.
She sprayed, I opened windows, and we fought our way on to the front porch. (there was a brief traffic jam at the door to get out, she won by elbowing me in the groin...to this day I still don't blame her)
We heard mewling...and we didn't care.
We spent somewhere on the order of 15 minutes cursing, through the gagging.
We went back inside, the cat lay on the floor panting as though she'd given birth.
The stench had begun to subside enough to not prompt nausea...much.
My wife looked at me with a pleading expression, after walking into the kitchen to gather the tools of scoopage...and I merely shook my head.
She walked into that bathroom like a condemned criminal headed to the gallows. I saluted. The cat mewled.
I kicked the cat.....
The speed of Stink is a formula involving the level of noxiousness, athleticism of the victims, degree of surprise and direct value of the comedy...and will always, ALWAYS catch the unaware or observed....
ALWAYS.....
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
No, she's not like....
...her momma!
Some people think that the longer an owner has a pet, the more it will become like them.
My wife is sweet, slightly shy but constantly smiling.
She's warm, intelligent and affectionate to all people she lets into her house.
She loves her own mother.
My Mother in Law has been here for a week + now, visiting northern climes from sunny Flori-duh...(yeah, she's batty like me...she likes it cold).
I think this may have been the collective families way to check the layout, make sure I'm treating their 'baby' right...it's what I'd do if my daughter poofed 1000miles away suddenly. (I'd have been driving with a shotgun, but her Mom's nicer than me)
This woman loves animals, in all their forms. She loves em even more than my wife (who once held a job shoveling pooh at a kennel just to have more exposure to dogs).
She made a pet out of a scorpion she found in her bedroom once (much to the chagrin of her husband).
She has a dog, that she loves, that is a bit psychotic. When I say a bit, I mean insanely so.
I am, as far as I know, the only person that has spent any real time in their house and not been bitten by it.
It bit someone trying to rescue it from Hurricane Charley. It bit Kim (my wife's mum) on the face. It regularly sidles up to people for attention and petting WHILE growling...and then looks at you like you're an idiot after he bites you.
His name's Gizmo.
They fed him after midnight.
So far, my cat has scratched and bitten Kim at least 5 times this trip.
The ONLY time I have seen her bite someone was when my wife or I were bathing her/the first time we collared her.
She normally only scratches when playing rough, and usually bolts once she realizes her mistake. (this may be because if it's me...I'll chase the little git all over the house, but meh).
Kim is sweet, like her daughter.
Loves animals like her daughter.
Moves softly and quietly, like her daughter.
This cat doesn't even leave the room when Kim's around (like she does EVERY OTHER HUMAN she doesn't like)...she actually gets cuter.
Like she's baiting someone.
And like all humans with cute animals, we are still suckers...
pet, stroke...NOM! (bleed bleed...'no it's okay, I just spooked her')...
My cat is possessed, so I thought.
Hell, I even started to think Gizmo's sick with something, and Kim just brought it up with her.
No,
I figured it out.
Roxz's cat is getting to be more like her owner....and apparently that's not Roxz...
She's become a curmudgeon....
Should I be proud,
worried
or insulted?
Some people think that the longer an owner has a pet, the more it will become like them.
My wife is sweet, slightly shy but constantly smiling.
She's warm, intelligent and affectionate to all people she lets into her house.
She loves her own mother.
My Mother in Law has been here for a week + now, visiting northern climes from sunny Flori-duh...(yeah, she's batty like me...she likes it cold).
I think this may have been the collective families way to check the layout, make sure I'm treating their 'baby' right...it's what I'd do if my daughter poofed 1000miles away suddenly. (I'd have been driving with a shotgun, but her Mom's nicer than me)
This woman loves animals, in all their forms. She loves em even more than my wife (who once held a job shoveling pooh at a kennel just to have more exposure to dogs).
She made a pet out of a scorpion she found in her bedroom once (much to the chagrin of her husband).
She has a dog, that she loves, that is a bit psychotic. When I say a bit, I mean insanely so.
I am, as far as I know, the only person that has spent any real time in their house and not been bitten by it.
It bit someone trying to rescue it from Hurricane Charley. It bit Kim (my wife's mum) on the face. It regularly sidles up to people for attention and petting WHILE growling...and then looks at you like you're an idiot after he bites you.
His name's Gizmo.
They fed him after midnight.
So far, my cat has scratched and bitten Kim at least 5 times this trip.
The ONLY time I have seen her bite someone was when my wife or I were bathing her/the first time we collared her.
She normally only scratches when playing rough, and usually bolts once she realizes her mistake. (this may be because if it's me...I'll chase the little git all over the house, but meh).
Kim is sweet, like her daughter.
Loves animals like her daughter.
Moves softly and quietly, like her daughter.
This cat doesn't even leave the room when Kim's around (like she does EVERY OTHER HUMAN she doesn't like)...she actually gets cuter.
Like she's baiting someone.
And like all humans with cute animals, we are still suckers...
pet, stroke...NOM! (bleed bleed...'no it's okay, I just spooked her')...
My cat is possessed, so I thought.
Hell, I even started to think Gizmo's sick with something, and Kim just brought it up with her.
No,
I figured it out.
Roxz's cat is getting to be more like her owner....and apparently that's not Roxz...
She's become a curmudgeon....
Should I be proud,
worried
or insulted?
Monday, September 28, 2009
Finally
Autumn has arrived...
I've been up since 2:30am...Wind blustered in 'round about 1:30ish, waking me on and off.
At 2:30, I heard what I swore was the sound of a badger trying to dig to china.
It was my cat.
Befouling the bathroom where her litter is contained...
and though it sounds appropriate..it isn't. She's VILE. We cannot compete. She was trying to bury it. She shouldn't have bothered. It was like trying to bury Chernobyl...
I was awake with the blowing wind, the crashing of limbs from trees and the noxious green cloud threatening the entire upstairs. I fled downstairs. I left the women-folk to their fate, seeing them as sacrificial canaries in a mine shaft. I figured if I started to hear muffled screams and then gurgling...I'd just burn the house down and start over.
I came downstairs, and the stinky beast followed (escaping her own atrocity I am sure) and started to putter (I love that word now). She pestered me for about 15 minutes, looking for handouts or a lap to warm up in. I ignored her.
I started to paint, and couldn't get motivated.
I started to write, and was unfocused.
I burned about 15 minutes getting breakfast set up to send my wife off with good school fuel (I was under the hopeful assumption she and her mother would survive the chemical attack).
I thought about starting the pot of coffee a little early. Rox had pre-set it for 8 cups at 6am.
It was 4am. Dammit...
2 hours...no coffee.
Cat had fallen asleep, no one to abuse.
TV too loud, interwebz boring.
And then it dawned on me...I was looking for something. I was fidgeting and unfocused because of something.
What was it?
What had me pacing, bouncing my leg and unable to sit for any leng...
Well hell, I was chilly.
I needed my robe and my slippers.
The cat woke me up with her vile stench,
and I wanted to kiss the little bugger...
I went outside, shivered in the breeze...and Inhaled deeply.
It was crisp...
It was clean...
It was beautiful (even at 0'dark-thirty)..
It is Autumn.
And even my cat's butt couldn't ruin this morning.
:)
I've been up since 2:30am...Wind blustered in 'round about 1:30ish, waking me on and off.
At 2:30, I heard what I swore was the sound of a badger trying to dig to china.
It was my cat.
Befouling the bathroom where her litter is contained...
and though it sounds appropriate..it isn't. She's VILE. We cannot compete. She was trying to bury it. She shouldn't have bothered. It was like trying to bury Chernobyl...
I was awake with the blowing wind, the crashing of limbs from trees and the noxious green cloud threatening the entire upstairs. I fled downstairs. I left the women-folk to their fate, seeing them as sacrificial canaries in a mine shaft. I figured if I started to hear muffled screams and then gurgling...I'd just burn the house down and start over.
I came downstairs, and the stinky beast followed (escaping her own atrocity I am sure) and started to putter (I love that word now). She pestered me for about 15 minutes, looking for handouts or a lap to warm up in. I ignored her.
I started to paint, and couldn't get motivated.
I started to write, and was unfocused.
I burned about 15 minutes getting breakfast set up to send my wife off with good school fuel (I was under the hopeful assumption she and her mother would survive the chemical attack).
I thought about starting the pot of coffee a little early. Rox had pre-set it for 8 cups at 6am.
It was 4am. Dammit...
2 hours...no coffee.
Cat had fallen asleep, no one to abuse.
TV too loud, interwebz boring.
And then it dawned on me...I was looking for something. I was fidgeting and unfocused because of something.
What was it?
What had me pacing, bouncing my leg and unable to sit for any leng...
Well hell, I was chilly.
I needed my robe and my slippers.
The cat woke me up with her vile stench,
and I wanted to kiss the little bugger...
I went outside, shivered in the breeze...and Inhaled deeply.
It was crisp...
It was clean...
It was beautiful (even at 0'dark-thirty)..
It is Autumn.
And even my cat's butt couldn't ruin this morning.
:)
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Cat Faces VI
Terrified: curiosity with bottle brush tail..
What my wife sees;
Poor wittwe fuzzy-wuffins is scawed of da (dark/thunder/squirrel on the porch that won’t run away/my tromping down the stairs).
What I see;
I am setting up an excuse to claw your face off.
She always gets this bottlebrush ‘jabeebus’ look, and scrambles like the Cubans are invading in ‘Red Dawn’, or runs under ‘mommys’ feet and bristles up. It’s never anything clear, or defined. Half the time, I think she scared herself with something (or is about to get caught doing something).
She bristles, we take pity, somebody scoops her up to console her..and MRRRRROWWRRR…(It’s all fun and games till somebody loses an eye/finger/thumb/nipple).
I think it’s a setup…a ruse…an excuse. I really think she just hates us both.
What my wife sees;
Poor wittwe fuzzy-wuffins is scawed of da (dark/thunder/squirrel on the porch that won’t run away/my tromping down the stairs).
What I see;
I am setting up an excuse to claw your face off.
She always gets this bottlebrush ‘jabeebus’ look, and scrambles like the Cubans are invading in ‘Red Dawn’, or runs under ‘mommys’ feet and bristles up. It’s never anything clear, or defined. Half the time, I think she scared herself with something (or is about to get caught doing something).
She bristles, we take pity, somebody scoops her up to console her..and MRRRRROWWRRR…(It’s all fun and games till somebody loses an eye/finger/thumb/nipple).
I think it’s a setup…a ruse…an excuse. I really think she just hates us both.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Cat Faces V
5-Stoopid look: big eyes, but ears back…
What the wife sees…the poor little thing was fooled, misled, or just doesn’t get the whole ‘real world’ thingy because we keeps ‘da precious’ inside all the time.
What I see…a sympathy ploy. Usually she’s done something terribly wrong, but it only involves MY property (ie;my hobby or some such). If it’s household, or the wife’s, she just runs and hides…quickly. If it’s my stuff she’s molested, how she reacts is dependant on who’s home. Just me, and she runs like hell…the wife home, she acts like she ‘scared’ herself with the noise(impact/what have you) and runs to the mommy with ears down and bottle brush tail ‘mrowping’ to beat the band and tucking in behind her mum’s legs.
It’s self defense…she knows what she’s done…but she knows how to play the stoopid look and get sympathy from the ‘sucker’…
It’s kept her alive this long, so it must have SOME merit?
What the wife sees…the poor little thing was fooled, misled, or just doesn’t get the whole ‘real world’ thingy because we keeps ‘da precious’ inside all the time.
What I see…a sympathy ploy. Usually she’s done something terribly wrong, but it only involves MY property (ie;my hobby or some such). If it’s household, or the wife’s, she just runs and hides…quickly. If it’s my stuff she’s molested, how she reacts is dependant on who’s home. Just me, and she runs like hell…the wife home, she acts like she ‘scared’ herself with the noise(impact/what have you) and runs to the mommy with ears down and bottle brush tail ‘mrowping’ to beat the band and tucking in behind her mum’s legs.
It’s self defense…she knows what she’s done…but she knows how to play the stoopid look and get sympathy from the ‘sucker’…
It’s kept her alive this long, so it must have SOME merit?
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Feline Fail....
So,
I'm sitting here reading a blog...(it's always at the computer, JEEBUS I gotta get a life)
When I hear a galloping of wifely feet.
(or so I hoped, either that or the cat had gained 100+ lbs...NOT an event I wish to consider).
I wonder, as she has gone upstairs exhausted after having class and then entertaining her mother with shopping(an event that always raises my blood pressure)why she has returned to the land of light, and consciousness.
I turn, to see her round the corner, and as I register she holds a bag of biological doom...and a look of terror...then smell hits me.
The cat has perpetrated another atrocity.
This is normal, but not usually so bad that the smell can reach across a room out of a plastic bag and assault my sinuses.
The same sinuses I inherited from my father.
The ones that don't work right.
The ones that can't smell ammonia capsules waved under them.
It is palpable.
It is physical.
It is not merely odor.
I swear I see it reach across the room for me...
I didn't process the smell in the first half second, but my eyes starting to water of their own accord led me to believe what was about to happen was NOT good...by any stretch.
The wife, looking quite cute in her sleep shirt, held it out to me to dispose of...me being the only fully dressed one in the house..as she approached with her own look of anguish.
My body (in that last half second before my brain processed the forceful chemical assault coming from ill-used nerves in my sinus cavity) recoiled in reflex fear.
Behind the wife came the cat, trouncing around the corner with a spring in her step...as though she'd lost weight...
She had...
It was vile.
I grabbed the bag, and nearly threw it AT the cat...
What stopped me???
the wife, gagging through the miasma of 'stink' that followed her down the stairs...
"Don't throw that *kaff..hurk* at my cat..."
(this almost didn't stop me...then she finished)
"the bag might explode!"
Nothing could have arrested my flinging of the litter bag faster...
And the cat just looked up at me with cute 'innocence'...
"mrowr?"
Do domesticated cats have no sense of smell?
I'm sitting here reading a blog...(it's always at the computer, JEEBUS I gotta get a life)
When I hear a galloping of wifely feet.
(or so I hoped, either that or the cat had gained 100+ lbs...NOT an event I wish to consider).
I wonder, as she has gone upstairs exhausted after having class and then entertaining her mother with shopping(an event that always raises my blood pressure)why she has returned to the land of light, and consciousness.
I turn, to see her round the corner, and as I register she holds a bag of biological doom...and a look of terror...then smell hits me.
The cat has perpetrated another atrocity.
This is normal, but not usually so bad that the smell can reach across a room out of a plastic bag and assault my sinuses.
The same sinuses I inherited from my father.
The ones that don't work right.
The ones that can't smell ammonia capsules waved under them.
It is palpable.
It is physical.
It is not merely odor.
I swear I see it reach across the room for me...
I didn't process the smell in the first half second, but my eyes starting to water of their own accord led me to believe what was about to happen was NOT good...by any stretch.
The wife, looking quite cute in her sleep shirt, held it out to me to dispose of...me being the only fully dressed one in the house..as she approached with her own look of anguish.
My body (in that last half second before my brain processed the forceful chemical assault coming from ill-used nerves in my sinus cavity) recoiled in reflex fear.
Behind the wife came the cat, trouncing around the corner with a spring in her step...as though she'd lost weight...
She had...
It was vile.
I grabbed the bag, and nearly threw it AT the cat...
What stopped me???
the wife, gagging through the miasma of 'stink' that followed her down the stairs...
"Don't throw that *kaff..hurk* at my cat..."
(this almost didn't stop me...then she finished)
"the bag might explode!"
Nothing could have arrested my flinging of the litter bag faster...
And the cat just looked up at me with cute 'innocence'...
"mrowr?"
Do domesticated cats have no sense of smell?
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Squirrilla Warfare
So,
as per the norm I was sitting in the kitchen working on something.
(It's always something, and never really qualifies as work according to my spouse...just puttering...when is she going to be old enough for me to accuse her of puttering?)
My cat was on the shelf at the window above my chair.
I have yet to figure out why this animal, who hates me enough to torture me day in and day out, thinks it's safe to hover over me while painting...but she does. And amazingly enough, my paint work is the ONLY thing she has never destroyed. She'll mutilate my finished work, but leave it out with the paint pots and tools and she won't touch it (maybe figures it's worse to annihilate finished work, I dunno).
Anywho, she's at the window when the wife asks "look out there and see why she's so absorbed..and twitching her tail".
After the skunk raid on the carport (later story) and the squirrel raids on other parts of the carport (again, more on that later) I assume we have a vagrant animal about to visit an atrocity upon my property...I was right, but not in the way I expected.
I looked over my shoulder, and saw another cat. A big cat. I mean BIG. This chunky, low slung and mean looking black and white looks like it could have taken an enraged walrus home as a meal.
My cat was looking out the window acting like she wanted to play...I wanted to let her out (she'll be skinned alive and served up as a late night snack by this beast) but the wife was present, and I would have had no excuse...cats just have bad timing, I swear.
So this cat was stalking. It was in the grass, doing that impossibly slow paw over paw ninja-commando low crawl. I looked for an intended victim, and sure enough...on the edge of the carport, there was a squirrel.
Now normally these squirrels are quick on the uptake and twitching their tales in warning (before bolting up a tree) long before any neighborhood cat gets within 20 yards...but this one was within 5. It was pawing around in the grass near where I had spilled some bird seed, so I assumed he was absorbed in eeking out the last remnants of seed from the ground.
I watched, as that cat continued to crawl...foot by foot...paw by paw...ever closer.
It got closer, and started doing that little pre-pounce butt wiggle (you know, the tense 'heap big hunter' wiggle your house cat gets right before assassinating a lightning bug) all cat owners adore. My wife had, at this point, joined me at the window after a quiet hand waving over. I'm expecting a sudden burst of speed and a run, one that NEVER results in a caught squirrel but a chagrined cat...my favorite kind (ok, filleted is my favorite, but polite company and all).
She gets closer, and closer...slower and slower. She's within 5 feet now, right next to the front tire of my CRV, and I start to raise my hand to knock on the glass (I like squirrels, even when they are attempting to raid my bird feeders I like em...I grew up with them as part of my nature, playful little spirits. I don't like cats, evil feline mischief causing beasts. Knock on the glass saves a squirrel and pisses off a cat, win win)...
My wife stopped me. 'watch' she says quietly, and pointed.
As I notice that the 'victim' squirrel actually looked over its shoulder at the cat, I also see what my wife sees. To the immediate right of the cat, on the top of my car's front tire, is another squirrel. Two feet from the hunter. As I saw the squirrel, the cat also seemed to detect something, and looked over the other shoulder...to see the OTHER squirrel stalking IT.
My wife, Roxz, giggles and points again...behind the cat. In the grass, about 15 feet away, is another pair of squirrels.
At this stage, the 'victim'(I mean bait) sits up, and looks at the cat.
The one on my tire hops down and sits up, looking at the cat.
The two behind sit up,
and the one we did not even see on the ROOF of the carport scampers down into the grass...and they all sit up and stare.
I swear I heard the sound of a switchblade...
(so help me gawd, if Al Hitchcock had seen this, there would have never been 'the birds'...it would have been the 'squirrels')
The cat's tail twitched...
It looked about.
It's wasn't happy.
And the 'bait' twitched AT her.
I blinked,
the cat was halfway down the driveway still picking up steam on the way out...
The bait's tail is swishing in the sudden breeze.
The cat wasn't touching the ground, but It was still accelerating.
I don't think it made contact with the ground for the length of the driveway.
I haven't seen it since...
I wonder if I fed my cat to the squirrels, the wife would know?
as per the norm I was sitting in the kitchen working on something.
(It's always something, and never really qualifies as work according to my spouse...just puttering...when is she going to be old enough for me to accuse her of puttering?)
My cat was on the shelf at the window above my chair.
I have yet to figure out why this animal, who hates me enough to torture me day in and day out, thinks it's safe to hover over me while painting...but she does. And amazingly enough, my paint work is the ONLY thing she has never destroyed. She'll mutilate my finished work, but leave it out with the paint pots and tools and she won't touch it (maybe figures it's worse to annihilate finished work, I dunno).
Anywho, she's at the window when the wife asks "look out there and see why she's so absorbed..and twitching her tail".
After the skunk raid on the carport (later story) and the squirrel raids on other parts of the carport (again, more on that later) I assume we have a vagrant animal about to visit an atrocity upon my property...I was right, but not in the way I expected.
I looked over my shoulder, and saw another cat. A big cat. I mean BIG. This chunky, low slung and mean looking black and white looks like it could have taken an enraged walrus home as a meal.
My cat was looking out the window acting like she wanted to play...I wanted to let her out (she'll be skinned alive and served up as a late night snack by this beast) but the wife was present, and I would have had no excuse...cats just have bad timing, I swear.
So this cat was stalking. It was in the grass, doing that impossibly slow paw over paw ninja-commando low crawl. I looked for an intended victim, and sure enough...on the edge of the carport, there was a squirrel.
Now normally these squirrels are quick on the uptake and twitching their tales in warning (before bolting up a tree) long before any neighborhood cat gets within 20 yards...but this one was within 5. It was pawing around in the grass near where I had spilled some bird seed, so I assumed he was absorbed in eeking out the last remnants of seed from the ground.
I watched, as that cat continued to crawl...foot by foot...paw by paw...ever closer.
It got closer, and started doing that little pre-pounce butt wiggle (you know, the tense 'heap big hunter' wiggle your house cat gets right before assassinating a lightning bug) all cat owners adore. My wife had, at this point, joined me at the window after a quiet hand waving over. I'm expecting a sudden burst of speed and a run, one that NEVER results in a caught squirrel but a chagrined cat...my favorite kind (ok, filleted is my favorite, but polite company and all).
She gets closer, and closer...slower and slower. She's within 5 feet now, right next to the front tire of my CRV, and I start to raise my hand to knock on the glass (I like squirrels, even when they are attempting to raid my bird feeders I like em...I grew up with them as part of my nature, playful little spirits. I don't like cats, evil feline mischief causing beasts. Knock on the glass saves a squirrel and pisses off a cat, win win)...
My wife stopped me. 'watch' she says quietly, and pointed.
As I notice that the 'victim' squirrel actually looked over its shoulder at the cat, I also see what my wife sees. To the immediate right of the cat, on the top of my car's front tire, is another squirrel. Two feet from the hunter. As I saw the squirrel, the cat also seemed to detect something, and looked over the other shoulder...to see the OTHER squirrel stalking IT.
My wife, Roxz, giggles and points again...behind the cat. In the grass, about 15 feet away, is another pair of squirrels.
At this stage, the 'victim'(I mean bait) sits up, and looks at the cat.
The one on my tire hops down and sits up, looking at the cat.
The two behind sit up,
and the one we did not even see on the ROOF of the carport scampers down into the grass...and they all sit up and stare.
I swear I heard the sound of a switchblade...
(so help me gawd, if Al Hitchcock had seen this, there would have never been 'the birds'...it would have been the 'squirrels')
The cat's tail twitched...
It looked about.
It's wasn't happy.
And the 'bait' twitched AT her.
I blinked,
the cat was halfway down the driveway still picking up steam on the way out...
The bait's tail is swishing in the sudden breeze.
The cat wasn't touching the ground, but It was still accelerating.
I don't think it made contact with the ground for the length of the driveway.
I haven't seen it since...
I wonder if I fed my cat to the squirrels, the wife would know?
Monday, September 21, 2009
Cat faces... IV (as in an I.V. for my tranquilizers)
or 4, as in the 4th face...not sure at this stage. :)
Denial: I meant to do that.
What the wife sees…embarrassment. Often on the end of a jump gone wrong, an attempt to secure a flying nom or just plain skidding on a floor coming around a corner too fast. Elicits pity from the wife.
What I see…I am going to find a way to pin this on you. Please be smart and check your shoes for the next few days, I have a present for you.
This one is where I equate cats to women. Don’t take this the wrong way ladies, we men are complete dolts when it comes to self inflicted pain, but we just let ourselves look stupid and either think it’s funny, or think no one noticed.
But cats (and women), wow…there is nothing in those feral little eyes that has anything but disdain for you noticing. It’s less a refusal to accept responsibility (which IS there) and more a ‘how DARE you laugh/giggle/even look!’ If you noticed, you are at least partially responsible for her embarrassment, and must suffer. If you laugh, she won’t believe for a minute (no matter evidence to the contrary) that you didn’t set up the series of events to cause her this humiliation…and you shall suffer. If you laughed in front of witnesses, check your shoes for a month.
This look IS very much directed at me. She’ll just walk off if her mommy giggles, but if I do…well, have you ever seen a cat glare? I know I have…it’s a bit frightening.
Denial: I meant to do that.
What the wife sees…embarrassment. Often on the end of a jump gone wrong, an attempt to secure a flying nom or just plain skidding on a floor coming around a corner too fast. Elicits pity from the wife.
What I see…I am going to find a way to pin this on you. Please be smart and check your shoes for the next few days, I have a present for you.
This one is where I equate cats to women. Don’t take this the wrong way ladies, we men are complete dolts when it comes to self inflicted pain, but we just let ourselves look stupid and either think it’s funny, or think no one noticed.
But cats (and women), wow…there is nothing in those feral little eyes that has anything but disdain for you noticing. It’s less a refusal to accept responsibility (which IS there) and more a ‘how DARE you laugh/giggle/even look!’ If you noticed, you are at least partially responsible for her embarrassment, and must suffer. If you laugh, she won’t believe for a minute (no matter evidence to the contrary) that you didn’t set up the series of events to cause her this humiliation…and you shall suffer. If you laughed in front of witnesses, check your shoes for a month.
This look IS very much directed at me. She’ll just walk off if her mommy giggles, but if I do…well, have you ever seen a cat glare? I know I have…it’s a bit frightening.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Kitty Gold
Okay,
the measure of a child is how expensive the gift is vs how much fun they will have punishing their parents by only playing with the box.
The measure of a cat is what she won't eat, but make sport with it's garbage. My cat does not like milk.
My wife, Roxz, had informed me (in the cat's first month in our home) that they sell little plastic rings like those that hold your cap on your milk jug as cat toys. You know, those little flexible plastic rings with the little teeth on them, that keep your milk 'safe' from prying fingers (or at least warn you if some errant 5 year old has drunk from the jug on the store's shelf). I called her a liar. She then took the next little ring off the jug, and tossed it at the cat. It occupied her for an hour, till she lost it under the stove the 4th time and I wouldn't get it out.
KITTY GOLD!
Fast forward to a year later...and about 500 lost little rings of plastic in an old apartment and new home (note:if you leave them under your stove, where the cat deposits them, they WILL breed. neuter your trash).
I am in the dining room, after watching 'Kill Bill part I' with the spouse...debating on watching part II...writing about the 'Mouse Wars', when a whirlwind roars by.
A flurry of fur, fangs and destruction.
A fan is capsized, a note is sucked off the table next to me into the vortex, and I nearly lose a toe.
Imagine, if you will, the Tasmanian devil from Looney Tunes.
The path of destruction moves into the kitchen.
It bounces off the cabinets under the sink, ricochets off the fridge and piles into the secretary. It stops for a moment, image of a cat frozen in mortal combat with something menacing...rises up into the air majestically to pounce once again...and sounds of a tornado start back up.
Under the kitchen table...
around the base, knocking Rox's purse off the chair it hangs on...
back out toward the dining room (I pull my foot under the computer desk quickly)..
She collides with the small rug at the foot of the sink (she managed to miss it when she bounced off the cabinet...I am STILL trying to figure out how).
She tangles. It is an abrupt halt. It is a halt with little dignity, and limbs pointed everywhere. Nothing is more humiliating to a cat than splayed limbs that do NOT involve bathing and exhibitionist impulses. She manages to get her head out of the mess, and glare up and at me.
I get up and start digging, looking for whatever moth may have gotten in, and whether it is mauled or able to be rescued...and I find a small blue plastic ring with many little teeth marks.
I hold this up, shake it at my wife (who is giggling to beat the band) and say, "I blame you...oh I blame you"...
While I am doing this, the cat disentangles herself, and bites my toe...causing me to drop the kitty-gold.
The whirlwind resumes.
I shall not sleep tonight.
(anybody got a good recipe for cat?)
the measure of a child is how expensive the gift is vs how much fun they will have punishing their parents by only playing with the box.
The measure of a cat is what she won't eat, but make sport with it's garbage. My cat does not like milk.
My wife, Roxz, had informed me (in the cat's first month in our home) that they sell little plastic rings like those that hold your cap on your milk jug as cat toys. You know, those little flexible plastic rings with the little teeth on them, that keep your milk 'safe' from prying fingers (or at least warn you if some errant 5 year old has drunk from the jug on the store's shelf). I called her a liar. She then took the next little ring off the jug, and tossed it at the cat. It occupied her for an hour, till she lost it under the stove the 4th time and I wouldn't get it out.
KITTY GOLD!
Fast forward to a year later...and about 500 lost little rings of plastic in an old apartment and new home (note:if you leave them under your stove, where the cat deposits them, they WILL breed. neuter your trash).
I am in the dining room, after watching 'Kill Bill part I' with the spouse...debating on watching part II...writing about the 'Mouse Wars', when a whirlwind roars by.
A flurry of fur, fangs and destruction.
A fan is capsized, a note is sucked off the table next to me into the vortex, and I nearly lose a toe.
Imagine, if you will, the Tasmanian devil from Looney Tunes.
The path of destruction moves into the kitchen.
It bounces off the cabinets under the sink, ricochets off the fridge and piles into the secretary. It stops for a moment, image of a cat frozen in mortal combat with something menacing...rises up into the air majestically to pounce once again...and sounds of a tornado start back up.
Under the kitchen table...
around the base, knocking Rox's purse off the chair it hangs on...
back out toward the dining room (I pull my foot under the computer desk quickly)..
She collides with the small rug at the foot of the sink (she managed to miss it when she bounced off the cabinet...I am STILL trying to figure out how).
She tangles. It is an abrupt halt. It is a halt with little dignity, and limbs pointed everywhere. Nothing is more humiliating to a cat than splayed limbs that do NOT involve bathing and exhibitionist impulses. She manages to get her head out of the mess, and glare up and at me.
I get up and start digging, looking for whatever moth may have gotten in, and whether it is mauled or able to be rescued...and I find a small blue plastic ring with many little teeth marks.
I hold this up, shake it at my wife (who is giggling to beat the band) and say, "I blame you...oh I blame you"...
While I am doing this, the cat disentangles herself, and bites my toe...causing me to drop the kitty-gold.
The whirlwind resumes.
I shall not sleep tonight.
(anybody got a good recipe for cat?)
3 blind mice....
Okay,
3 dead mice.
For those of you that don't know already,
I have been waging a war against the field mice that occasionally invade my kitchen.
It's an old home, a drafty one, and has an old basement with a wine cellar and storm door access.
I see this as a home improvement project in the making, the mice see it as an invitation to a smorgasbord.
I implemented strategies, lost some minor skirmishes (my thumb still remembers the 2nd trap reloading) and have drawn first blood.
I even tried to secure plutonium for radiological battle...no results, other than temporary baldness (fingers still crossed on the 'temporary' part). But I continue to wage a war that our resident feline should be waging for me!
In keeping with the theme of my writings I will find a way to make this at least a bit about my cat.
In addition to her lack of concern for the invasion, desire for the peanut butter on the traps (oh the temptation, but I have behaved) my cat managed to catch fleas from the vermin. 3 weeks, 4 baths, a flea collar and a 50$ package of advantix later...and we still haven't gotten rid of the parasite...but the fleas are gone.
(If you think me cruel, or inhumane, keep in mind a few things...my cat has had fleas since the invasion began a little over a month ago. If you have not had a flea ridden cat trying to share a bed with you constantly, you cannot understand the hatred I have acquired for rodents...you just cannot. It's not the fleas, they don't like me. It's the shaking of the bed, as she scratches. The clawing at the floor if we close the bedroom door. It's the jingle of her collar, or the thumping on the floor, as she scratches...and scratches...and scratches. It was her or the mice.
My vote was for her...I was out-voted by my wife.)
About a week and a half ago, I found another casualty. My second victim.
I re-baited the trap (without personal injury, I was so proud) and waited. After a week plus, I was beginning to think there were no more invaders. The huns had been driven back. The Moors out of Europe. The Vikings from the shore. I left the trap, checking dilligently (twice a day, with hope) to no avail. Had I won? Had they been driven out?
With no thought for the front-lines, the rodents or the cats negligence, my wife and I sat down to have pizza (a treat, as my girth has caused me to partake in a diet...when you view celery with blue cheese dressing a treat, you've gone too far) and watch a movie or two. We chose an action thriller.
In the midst of a fight scene, we hear a 'CLACK' from the kitchen. My head pops up, my hand leaps out and the pause button is pushed. As the cat is not in eyesight, I assume something has been dislodged in the kitchen. I listen, my wife Roxz listens, the world pauses. Uma Thurman is frozen with a snowy background in mid spin with a sword, the clack having coincided with a sword clash I begin to wonder if I was hearing things.
Not trusting the feline to not be trying to outsmart us (assuming she actually thinks that far ahead) I get up slowly and quietly, and tiptoe into the kitchen.
The dim light casts shadows about, the kitchen is empty. No cat hunkers on the counter next to a tumbled utensil. No cat hides under the table atop a pilfered tool. No cat, in fact, stares back from any corner/nook or surface. I start to spin, to go back to my film, when an idea hits me (okay, my wife's forhead...I spun around to fast).
I look at her with this thought foremost, and she reads it in my eyes, "The trap?" she asks.
"Couldn't be that lucky" I respond.
I step to the cupboard under the sink, where my weapons of war are arrayed, and open up. I close it, I turn, and I gloat. My wife accuses me of looking at her with "Pride and boyish glee" in my eyes.
3 down.... :)
When I go to hell, do you think they'll bait man sized traps with pizza?
3 dead mice.
For those of you that don't know already,
I have been waging a war against the field mice that occasionally invade my kitchen.
It's an old home, a drafty one, and has an old basement with a wine cellar and storm door access.
I see this as a home improvement project in the making, the mice see it as an invitation to a smorgasbord.
I implemented strategies, lost some minor skirmishes (my thumb still remembers the 2nd trap reloading) and have drawn first blood.
I even tried to secure plutonium for radiological battle...no results, other than temporary baldness (fingers still crossed on the 'temporary' part). But I continue to wage a war that our resident feline should be waging for me!
In keeping with the theme of my writings I will find a way to make this at least a bit about my cat.
In addition to her lack of concern for the invasion, desire for the peanut butter on the traps (oh the temptation, but I have behaved) my cat managed to catch fleas from the vermin. 3 weeks, 4 baths, a flea collar and a 50$ package of advantix later...and we still haven't gotten rid of the parasite...but the fleas are gone.
(If you think me cruel, or inhumane, keep in mind a few things...my cat has had fleas since the invasion began a little over a month ago. If you have not had a flea ridden cat trying to share a bed with you constantly, you cannot understand the hatred I have acquired for rodents...you just cannot. It's not the fleas, they don't like me. It's the shaking of the bed, as she scratches. The clawing at the floor if we close the bedroom door. It's the jingle of her collar, or the thumping on the floor, as she scratches...and scratches...and scratches. It was her or the mice.
My vote was for her...I was out-voted by my wife.)
About a week and a half ago, I found another casualty. My second victim.
I re-baited the trap (without personal injury, I was so proud) and waited. After a week plus, I was beginning to think there were no more invaders. The huns had been driven back. The Moors out of Europe. The Vikings from the shore. I left the trap, checking dilligently (twice a day, with hope) to no avail. Had I won? Had they been driven out?
With no thought for the front-lines, the rodents or the cats negligence, my wife and I sat down to have pizza (a treat, as my girth has caused me to partake in a diet...when you view celery with blue cheese dressing a treat, you've gone too far) and watch a movie or two. We chose an action thriller.
In the midst of a fight scene, we hear a 'CLACK' from the kitchen. My head pops up, my hand leaps out and the pause button is pushed. As the cat is not in eyesight, I assume something has been dislodged in the kitchen. I listen, my wife Roxz listens, the world pauses. Uma Thurman is frozen with a snowy background in mid spin with a sword, the clack having coincided with a sword clash I begin to wonder if I was hearing things.
Not trusting the feline to not be trying to outsmart us (assuming she actually thinks that far ahead) I get up slowly and quietly, and tiptoe into the kitchen.
The dim light casts shadows about, the kitchen is empty. No cat hunkers on the counter next to a tumbled utensil. No cat hides under the table atop a pilfered tool. No cat, in fact, stares back from any corner/nook or surface. I start to spin, to go back to my film, when an idea hits me (okay, my wife's forhead...I spun around to fast).
I look at her with this thought foremost, and she reads it in my eyes, "The trap?" she asks.
"Couldn't be that lucky" I respond.
I step to the cupboard under the sink, where my weapons of war are arrayed, and open up. I close it, I turn, and I gloat. My wife accuses me of looking at her with "Pride and boyish glee" in my eyes.
3 down.... :)
When I go to hell, do you think they'll bait man sized traps with pizza?
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Cat Faces... III
And the third face...
Evil look: mischief will be accompanied by sharps.
What the wife sees…we did something wrong, and she is upset. We’ve failed the cat somehow. Failed to feed her, pamper her, or generally love her.
What I see…property destruction.
It may be furniture, it may be my leg, but something will look like hamburger quite shortly.
The cat has found an excuse (albeit as minor as not scritching an ear while we are toiling over a hot oven) to mutilate our property OR a good night’s sleep. Usually we don’t see this coming beyond an aloof refusal to allow petting or interaction, or clawings hidden as play with a loose sock. Then the night comes. This is generally Gender non-specific, as I have seen the damage done to my wife’s toes as much as my own.
Objects destroyed, body parts maimed and clothing ruined…par for the course. I don’t understand how these animals survived their domestication…I think they feel the same way about us.
Evil look: mischief will be accompanied by sharps.
What the wife sees…we did something wrong, and she is upset. We’ve failed the cat somehow. Failed to feed her, pamper her, or generally love her.
What I see…property destruction.
It may be furniture, it may be my leg, but something will look like hamburger quite shortly.
The cat has found an excuse (albeit as minor as not scritching an ear while we are toiling over a hot oven) to mutilate our property OR a good night’s sleep. Usually we don’t see this coming beyond an aloof refusal to allow petting or interaction, or clawings hidden as play with a loose sock. Then the night comes. This is generally Gender non-specific, as I have seen the damage done to my wife’s toes as much as my own.
Objects destroyed, body parts maimed and clothing ruined…par for the course. I don’t understand how these animals survived their domestication…I think they feel the same way about us.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Cat Faces...
Cat looks mark 2
Sphinx Look:sophisticated, all knowing
What the wife sees…sophistication and proof of her deserving of treats. Somehow this woman, who proved to me to be quite intelligent in her choice of spouse, sees this look as innate natural wisdom…I then ask her to share the medication.
What I see…proof that the Pharoahs were right to bury the damned things with em, it was their last revenge on the feline and the wife. This look is one of superiority. I wonder how an animal that has to beg (well, occasionally claw) for food shelter and litter changing, can be smart. Then I realize that maybe, just maybe, the fact that I get up to answer these demands indicates intellect is on four legs, not two.
Sphinx Look:sophisticated, all knowing
What the wife sees…sophistication and proof of her deserving of treats. Somehow this woman, who proved to me to be quite intelligent in her choice of spouse, sees this look as innate natural wisdom…I then ask her to share the medication.
What I see…proof that the Pharoahs were right to bury the damned things with em, it was their last revenge on the feline and the wife. This look is one of superiority. I wonder how an animal that has to beg (well, occasionally claw) for food shelter and litter changing, can be smart. Then I realize that maybe, just maybe, the fact that I get up to answer these demands indicates intellect is on four legs, not two.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Cat Faces...
Cat Looks #1;
Curiosity Look: eyes the size of quarters, mischief afoot.
What the wife sees…curiosity and inquisitiveness. This look convinces my wife, regularly, that there actually is something going on in her head. (I don’t get it either)
What I see…deadly intent on anything of mine that is small and valuable…as I collect and paint miniatures and jewelry…this is 90% of what I own.
This look is usually followed (more often after I have retired for the eve) by crashing and shattering sounds throughout the house…or paddy-pawing noises on the dresser near my jewelry box. It once presaged the cat flipping the lid on my pistol case and nestling down for the night in the lid of my .357 container.
Too bad it wasn’t loaded...
Curiosity Look: eyes the size of quarters, mischief afoot.
What the wife sees…curiosity and inquisitiveness. This look convinces my wife, regularly, that there actually is something going on in her head. (I don’t get it either)
What I see…deadly intent on anything of mine that is small and valuable…as I collect and paint miniatures and jewelry…this is 90% of what I own.
This look is usually followed (more often after I have retired for the eve) by crashing and shattering sounds throughout the house…or paddy-pawing noises on the dresser near my jewelry box. It once presaged the cat flipping the lid on my pistol case and nestling down for the night in the lid of my .357 container.
Too bad it wasn’t loaded...
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Cat and the Sleeping Pills
11:24 pm.
Roxz's first day of class tomorrow, and I have decided to make her breakfast.
I am the egg gawd. If you can do it with an egg, I can do it better. If it's been done with an egg, show me how and I will reproduce it...and shortly be able to do it better.
So, in order to assure that said breakfast is made on time, I took an ambien. The same sleeping pills I weaned myself off of a week ago.
I took it at 9:45.
It kicked in at 10:00
I am now downstairs at 11:24.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to wake me up when I am drugged? Much less drugged with a whiskey chaser? It is NOT simple, easy or common. not until the 4-5 hour mark has passed, and the filthy sleeping pills suddenly decide they no longer wish to work. At that point I return to normal Mikey, who's world is loud and disturbing, and non-conducive to sleep.
The cat has figured out the formula for this. She knows, by my rapidly degrading performance downstairs prior to rushing upstairs, that I have taken something. She behaves. She even nuzzles.
She knows she shall have fun.
She starts making noise. To date, I have yet to identify these specific 'wreck his night's sleep' noises. these are different than her 'oo, shiney....must break' noises. Very different from the 'it's moving, I must destroy half the house to kill it' noises. Or the 'I can climb ANYTHING no matter how un-tenable my balance shall be' noises.
No, all those have been identified with years of my life lost to excessive adrenal use.
No, these are new noises...noises that fit nothing. To the non-cat owner, they sound like stomping of a peg-leg on hard wood...or the thumping of a body being drug up the stairs. Occasionally, a hand slipping as it lowers an inner window to the floor and drops it those last few inches.
A collection of sounds that, to the uninitiated , would be perfect for a suspense/thriller/horror movie.
To a cat owner, they are normal noises that an owner only becomes SLIGHTLY concious for...long enough to identify it, and plan revenge on the feline in the form of a bath the next day while drifting back to blessed sleep.
To a person on sleeping pills, it IS every noise from EVERY horror film they watched as a young teen. Every film that ever gave them the heebie-jeebies is coming to life. And it's slow. It digs into your unconscious mind and prompts nightmares of home invasion, body snatchers and kidney thieves.
You finally awake, enough, to register that no one is actually in your room. You stagger up, trying to desperately be quiet...body betraying you as though you'd been on an all night binger..(doesn't help the steady susurration of a rainstorm making your hearing fuzzy and questionable...was that a footstep downstairs?)
In your addled mind, you grab the first thing that comes to hand...coulda been a gun...coulda been your wife...ends up being your long lost uncles hockey stick.
You stumble downstairs, a downstairs that is now eerily quiet. You are flipping lightswitches as you go...you've moved into an older house, with older flourescent fixtures...they flicker on, coming to life slowly and hesitantly, like the lights at a murder scene or in a mad scientists lab.
The bring stark and unwelcome light to a room not disturbed...the next one, it'll be a mess...they couldn't have made noise and not done SOMETHING.
You get the next one, and the next one...each as willies-causing as the next...
then you see her.
In the last room is the Cat. Pulling the Yoga routine licking her unmentionables in your general direction. Looking up with a 'why the hell are you disturbing my bath' kinda look. At her feet, some trinket. A thing of little value (else it would have broken, identifying the noise instantly and bringing wrath down upon the cat's head, not fear throughout the house)...something innocuous, but loud.
You pull your weapon, death in your drug addled mind, and realize that the Sig O would make you a Sig Zero if you committed this act of retribution....so you whimper, stagger back upstairs, and hope that for revenges' sake...you can remember this in the morning.
One of these days, I will actually grab the gun by mistake...and the cat's gonna get hers....one-na these days!
(this is not an after-action review...I am typing this now....and take my word for it, with the typos and slow typing and re-reading...this has taking FAR too long for any sane/sober man...the cat shall suffer, oh yes she shall!)
Roxz's first day of class tomorrow, and I have decided to make her breakfast.
I am the egg gawd. If you can do it with an egg, I can do it better. If it's been done with an egg, show me how and I will reproduce it...and shortly be able to do it better.
So, in order to assure that said breakfast is made on time, I took an ambien. The same sleeping pills I weaned myself off of a week ago.
I took it at 9:45.
It kicked in at 10:00
I am now downstairs at 11:24.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to wake me up when I am drugged? Much less drugged with a whiskey chaser? It is NOT simple, easy or common. not until the 4-5 hour mark has passed, and the filthy sleeping pills suddenly decide they no longer wish to work. At that point I return to normal Mikey, who's world is loud and disturbing, and non-conducive to sleep.
The cat has figured out the formula for this. She knows, by my rapidly degrading performance downstairs prior to rushing upstairs, that I have taken something. She behaves. She even nuzzles.
She knows she shall have fun.
She starts making noise. To date, I have yet to identify these specific 'wreck his night's sleep' noises. these are different than her 'oo, shiney....must break' noises. Very different from the 'it's moving, I must destroy half the house to kill it' noises. Or the 'I can climb ANYTHING no matter how un-tenable my balance shall be' noises.
No, all those have been identified with years of my life lost to excessive adrenal use.
No, these are new noises...noises that fit nothing. To the non-cat owner, they sound like stomping of a peg-leg on hard wood...or the thumping of a body being drug up the stairs. Occasionally, a hand slipping as it lowers an inner window to the floor and drops it those last few inches.
A collection of sounds that, to the uninitiated , would be perfect for a suspense/thriller/horror movie.
To a cat owner, they are normal noises that an owner only becomes SLIGHTLY concious for...long enough to identify it, and plan revenge on the feline in the form of a bath the next day while drifting back to blessed sleep.
To a person on sleeping pills, it IS every noise from EVERY horror film they watched as a young teen. Every film that ever gave them the heebie-jeebies is coming to life. And it's slow. It digs into your unconscious mind and prompts nightmares of home invasion, body snatchers and kidney thieves.
You finally awake, enough, to register that no one is actually in your room. You stagger up, trying to desperately be quiet...body betraying you as though you'd been on an all night binger..(doesn't help the steady susurration of a rainstorm making your hearing fuzzy and questionable...was that a footstep downstairs?)
In your addled mind, you grab the first thing that comes to hand...coulda been a gun...coulda been your wife...ends up being your long lost uncles hockey stick.
You stumble downstairs, a downstairs that is now eerily quiet. You are flipping lightswitches as you go...you've moved into an older house, with older flourescent fixtures...they flicker on, coming to life slowly and hesitantly, like the lights at a murder scene or in a mad scientists lab.
The bring stark and unwelcome light to a room not disturbed...the next one, it'll be a mess...they couldn't have made noise and not done SOMETHING.
You get the next one, and the next one...each as willies-causing as the next...
then you see her.
In the last room is the Cat. Pulling the Yoga routine licking her unmentionables in your general direction. Looking up with a 'why the hell are you disturbing my bath' kinda look. At her feet, some trinket. A thing of little value (else it would have broken, identifying the noise instantly and bringing wrath down upon the cat's head, not fear throughout the house)...something innocuous, but loud.
You pull your weapon, death in your drug addled mind, and realize that the Sig O would make you a Sig Zero if you committed this act of retribution....so you whimper, stagger back upstairs, and hope that for revenges' sake...you can remember this in the morning.
One of these days, I will actually grab the gun by mistake...and the cat's gonna get hers....one-na these days!
(this is not an after-action review...I am typing this now....and take my word for it, with the typos and slow typing and re-reading...this has taking FAR too long for any sane/sober man...the cat shall suffer, oh yes she shall!)
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