Woman in the Middle

I hope you have a wonderful, relaxing weekend! As you can see from the photos below, my cats are already in relaxation mode. Of course, to them, every day is a weekend, with wait staff, cleaning staff, grooming staff, and all they could want, short of someone placing cat treats in their mouths constantly whenever they are awake.

Big yawn from Nox.

Lumos in his usual belly up napping position.

Blackie totally zonked out in one of his favorite places, the window seat.

There is something new in the house. Lumos is one of those cats who would rather drink from a dripping faucet than a water bowl any day. The preferred faucet is the one in the front bathroom. That meant any time one of my daughters went into that bathroom for any reason – straighten hair, put on makeup, brush teeth, use the toilet…- an orange tabby cat was right there with them, ready to lick the drips off the faucet.  He would rush in there so fast he was usually there before they could clear the door, in the way, and ready to be annoying. To try and combat this problem, we bought one of those cat drinking fountains with water that runs constantly. We set it up on a counter in the garage. This is Lumos getting his first look at the newfangled device.

September 11, 2016, over a year after he came into our lives, is the day that Lumos took the last step to becoming a real cat!

With three cats and one dog, everyone gets fed in a different spot – Honey the dog in the kitchen, Elderly Blackie the cat on a little table in the den, and the two young whippersnappers on the counter in the master bathroom. Unfortunately, all this time Lumos has not felt like he could jump up on the bathroom counter. We always had to lift him up to eat his food. This was annoying for him and us. We knew he could do it if he tried, but he just didn’t have the confidence.

The morning of September 11th I was cleaning the counter and everything was moved, leaving a big landing area. Before I put all the normal counter stuff back, Lumos jumped up on the counter!. But, after i returned everything to the counter, he stopped again.

But, the next morning, I was in the bathroom and he reminded me that he needed some dry food. I reached under the sink to grab the food and, lo and behold, Lumos jumped right up again, ready for his food the second I put it in the bowl.

It made me feel like the mother of a toddler. I was proud my baby made such a momentous step, but a little sad, too.  I will miss the cute way Lumos would jump up and run to the entrance to the hall, look back and make some chit- chatty noises, to let me know  he would really like me to go that way. Then, as I approached, he would run a little father down the hall, stop, turn, and chat a little more. He would keep doing this until he was certain I was putting out the food, Then he would sit on the floor, looking up, until I put him up on the counter to eat.

I am glad Mr. Hefty can now get on the counter himself, but I will miss our chit chats.

Sure, I can jump up on the counter now. But did she really just call me Mr. Hefty?

We took a circa 1960 mid-century modern style chair we inherited from Mom in Law’s house out to be reupholstered at the beginning of August. Hubby and I picked it up a week before vacation. It went from looking like this:

To looking like this:

What you can’t see is that the foam on the chair was completely deteriorated. It had to be stripped down to the bare bones and have new foam added even before it could get its new fabric covering.  It was a little pricey and we could have gotten a new chair for less. But we couldn’t have gotten a chair like this for less.  It is a classic, well built, and mid-century cool!

Within two minutes of arriving back in the living room, Lumos had to check it out, as you can see from the photo. Within 10 minutes, the first sound of scratching was heard. Needless to say, the chair is now covered in strategically placed clear packing tape and I am getting a sore throat from yelling at lurking cats, desperate to get a little claw sharpening done on their new scratching post chair.

We have scratching posts (five of them!) all over the house. They do at least 80% of their scratching on them. But that other 20% can do damage. Sigh. Dratted cats! I still love them, but not enough to let them ruin my brand new reupholstery job!

 Just a year ago today….

From this

and this….

to this …

and this!

It has been a year since two poor little scraps of cathood came into our lives.  They are now adult cats (although they will probably always be “the kittens” to me). They are playful, annoying, delightful, fun, cuddly, shed hair everywhere, and we don’t know what we would do without them! Sometimes you find cats, and sometimes they find you. In this instance, I think we found each other.

They have a variety of nicknames. For some reason Hubby started calling Lumos, the orange kitty, “Butter Bean.” So Nox became “Teeny Bean.” I call Nox, who never lost his tiny little kitten voice, “Mr. Squeaky.” I call Lumos “Mr. Shameless” since he has no shame and is always showing off his belly to the world.

All in all, we are glad they are now part of the family. We needed more squeaks and shameless showing off.  Our lives would be so much more boring without it!

To see the whole story, check out the list of words on the right side of the front page of this blog. Click on the word “kittens” and you can read all the stories about Nox and Lumos from day one.

We bought new furniture. For the humans in the house? Of course not! We bought it for the kitties! Blackie could care less. But we have noticed the astonishing phenomenon that if we have plenty of things to scratch on, of the appropriate material (of course) the kittens scratch the furniture less.  The kitten’s favorite thing to scratch on is anything with jute or sisal. Carpet, not so much. So we ordered a tube about two and a half feet tall. Part of the outside is covered with sisal.

Here is Lumos kindly modeling it for me and my camera. Isn’t he cute?

I have it sitting sideways so the sisal side is given maximum exposure. So far only Nox has given it some good scratches. Lumos prefers the jute wrapped scratching post over by the couch. Or the couch. The poor old couch needs to be replaced for the humans in the house, but not until the scratching gets more under control. Finding the preferred material helped a whole bunch.

The new tube might be considered the kitten’s birthday present. More on that in a couple of weeks!

It is all kicks and giggles until the shoe disappears.

Lumos was playing with his favorite toy. For some reason he decided to use Hubby’s tennis shoes as a way to make playing with his toy even more fun. Drop toy in shoe…roll over on back and try to grab toy out of shoe in an upside down position….Hubby commented on what a silly cat Lumos was, and then he and I got on with our morning.

Hubby decided to go back to our bathroom and shave. I answered a phone call from a friend. As I talked to my friend (inviting me to a tea – yay!) I starting hearing these loud bumping noises. As I contemplated the cause, they got REALLY LOUD. I jumped up, still on the phone with my friend, to investigate why it sounded like my house was being torn apart. Just then an orange cat blasted out of the den, a man’s size 10 1/2 Reebok somehow half under him and half chasing him from behind.

Lumos and shoe bashed into me at the entrance to the hall. They then careened off down the hall towards the bedrooms. I yelled “Oh, Baby!” and told my friend “Cat problem. Call you back.”

I ran. following shoe and cat into Eldest Daughter’s bedroom. Lumos then dived under something, her bed I think – it was all such a blur! I knew he was safe for the moment, so I went to tell Hubby about the cat/shoe escapade. We both chuckled and Hubby called dibs on telling Eldest about the shenanigans.

When Hubby got done with shaving he went in search of the cat and his shoe. Lumos reappeared about that time with no shoe in sight. He had that very casual look, as a cat who has just done something ridiculous always does. Hubby requested a flashlight. Eldest has both a double bed and a futon in her room. Since she is the Queen of Crafting, both are stuffed full underneath with various crafting supplies and such. Hubby never did find his shoe. It appeared it would take more than a quick look to unearth it from under the bed or the futon.

Hubby had to go get out his black shoes to wear to the tire store and alignment place.  I checked over Lumos and he seemed to be fine. No dew claw damage or anything like that. He ate some treats. climbed in my lap and kneaded my robe all to heck, loved nipped my fingers, and drooled all over my hands, so I think he was fine.

When Eldest got home, we sent her in with the flashlight. She unearthed the shoe pretty quickly from smack dab in the middle underneath her bed. How cat and shoe got under there, with all those boxes of crafting stuff, will forever be a mystery. Hubby was very happy to get his shoe back!

Note the shoe on the left, with the laces drawn up tight. That is the one that got dragged all over the house. What a story, if only it could talk….

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Putting away the Christmas Decorations has been a slow process this year. (An aside – everything lately seems to be a slow process…hum…) But,  I am happy to report, it is all now put away. Back when the decorations were all put out, the kittens were so curious, and so enjoyed playing with all of the new things, even if we preferred they didn’t!

The thrill of it all did die down after a week or two. and they began treating the Christmas décor as they do everything else, something to be ignored for the most part, only to be rediscovered for a few minutes in a moment of boredom.

Then I began to put the decorations away. Did you know, for kittens, decorations that are being put away are just as fun as decorations when they first come out? Oh, yes they are! And I have to photos to prove it! I think you will be able to tell from the photos who the ringleader is in the decoration craziness.

By the way, all that ribbon used to be on the tree. We used it instead of garland this year.

Well, Nox the kitten just experienced another first – his first hairball. I think I am being accurate when I say he wasn’t impressed.

I was busy back in the bedroom so I missed the grand event. But Eldest Daughter tells me Nox made sounds like he was being run over by a car. She jumped up to see what was wrong and found him looking like he was going to throw up, on carpet, of course. She started to move him, but he wanted none of that and moved himself onto the wood floor. Thanks you, Nox!

He then, with great effort, hacked up a hairball no bigger than a dime. After looking at it with a bit of a wild look in his eyes, Nox leapt over it like it was hot lava and scampered away.

Not all firsts are good firsts!

Lumos has a particular toy he really likes. It is several pieces of slightly fuzzy material braided together. I found it at a dollar store and he just loves to carry it around and pretend it is his prey. But, he has a new thing he likes to do with his favorite toy. Eldest Daughter threw it for him one evening while we were watching TV. He ran and got it, jumped right back on the couch, and dropped it by her side. She threw it again, and he brought it back a  again. This happened at least a dozen times before he tired of the game. Then he did it with me the next day. We have played fetch with him at least once a day ever since.

Excuse me, but isn’t it dogs that are supposed to play fetch? It appears I have a puppy in kitten’s clothing!

What are you talking about? I still say “meow!”