Office Monkey

Warning: If you’re soft-hearted, or even have half a soul, and don’t want to cry, don’t read any further. Abigail, this means you.
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Video: Andrew and Taj

This would be one of the aforementioned stories. That’s Taj.

I’m getting ready for work.

Our darling half-blind kitten Bit has her favorite toy firmly in hand… err, mouth. It’s the remnants of a toy that was once Glitch’s, and was then mostly destroyed by Pixel. Now neither of them want anything to do with it, but Bit adores the broken down ball of purple softness.

She came into the spare room (where I am), carrying it in her mouth. She put it to the floor in front of her, turned to me, and GROWLED.

Bit, for the record, weighs just over 3 and a half pounds.

She has since picked it back up with her mouth, carried it out of the room, and gone to see our other cats while carrying it. She runs up to Glitch or Pixel, toy in mouth, then growls protectively.

After doing a round of the downstairs in that manner, she’s now playing with the toy by herself in this room, making silly combinations of growling and whining noises. With no one near her. Bit is a silly kitty.

• Approximately 1 lb of salmon in each jar.*
• Easily breakable pieces.
• The same tuna you would eat at some of Los Angeles’ finest restaurants.
• Good source of Omega 3.

*Weight prior to freeze-drying.

Does anyone else see the problem I have with this container of cat treats?

(Yet Another Kitten Post)

My kitten-blog is being updated again! I really need to add a new category: “Kittens.”

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I’m writing this right after finishing my last entry. Pixel just moved away from me… and he is lying right underneath Glitch, being groomed by my nice cat.

I’m watching crappy television — the new “Blade the Series.”

It’s just entertaining enough that I’m going to see if it improves — it’s no Buffy, that’s for certain.

I’m reading up on CSS and XHTML — apparently, frames are a no-no — as I have to create the website for our wedding. I should probably not care so much, but I kinda liked the neatness of the Google Web Toolkit — recreating the page dynamically via AJAX seems like fun — albeit overkill. The wedding page needs things like the location and time, not fancy-schmancy effects. Note me still reading up on CSS.

Meanwhile, I have a kitten named Bit on my right, leaning right up against my leg. I have a kitten named Pixel leaning up against my left leg. I have a cat named Glitch sitting at the end of the futon. And now Bit just ran off, probably to do something she’s not supposed to do… I can’t believe I just watched 52 minutes of Blade, and only now is it getting violent. Disappointing.

(It’s 2:30am. I want to be asleep. I need to be asleep. After tossing and turning for an hour, I came downstairs to take some allergy meds. I’m now waiting for them to kick in.)

Glitch has always been free-fed. His food bowl, as regularly as possible, has been kept filled with food. Not always to the brim, but there’s almost always food available for him. Between my work schedule and Mandrina’s gimpiness when we first got him, it seemed like the thing to do. He’s a nice, slender cat, too, so it hasn’t led to any massive weight gain.

Our two problems, however, are making me have to reconsider. Both have “sensitive stomachs,” and I’ve spent a pretty penny figuring that part out. Bit has problems with her output — as in, where it should go. She has never tried to get to Glitch’s food, however.

Pixel, on the other hand, takes the fact that Glitch’s food is up on a table as a challenge. He’s used bar stools as skipping stones. He’s leapt from the top of a 4′ high DVD rack to a table three feet away. He’s the athlete of the two — and too stupid to be scared. He also doesn’t associate punishment “properly.”

The last straw was today. Mandrina and I did some cleanup in the living room over the last week and a half. One of the items moved was the DVD shelf I eventually need to find a better place for. For the moment, it’s living in the breakfast nook. See previous note re Pixel jumping from the top. So I moved the DVD rack a few days ago so that he could no longer jump to the top of it from another table; I moved it next to the table with Glitch’s food. It worked for a whole three days. Then Pixel discovered this morning that he could climb up the side of it, using the Plastic-wrap-like substance that was used to keep all the DVDs in while we were moving. I caught him, and moved the DVD shelf so that if he tried to climb it where he had been, he would bump his head into the bottom of the table.

I came home tonight to discover Glitch needed food. Guess what! He needs food again. Pixel found another route up to Glitch’s food, I’m not even sure which one. I’m tired of trying to make Glitch have to work for his food. It might be time to start feeding Glitch on a schedule — as if I had one!

Anyone have any ideas how to change a cat from free-fed to scheduled feedings?

I’m trying to get some work done before going to bed. It’s one in the morning, so it’s really an uphill battle. Especially because I just realized I need some notes I left in my office.

It does NOT help that a kitten named Pixel decided to climb up into my chair and lie down (is that right, Abigail?) in my lap, PURRING as he falls asleep.

Just not fair!

“Because,” she said, “when you’re scared but you still do it anyway, that’s brave.”

–

The cat wrinkled its nose and managed to look unimpressed. “Calling cats,” it confided, “tends to be a rather overrated activity. Might as well call a whirlwind.”

- Coraline, Neil Gaiman

I will read everything that man ever writes.