barely 9:20 AM, and I’ve done everything for the day

I tell you what, if you get up too early, your day’s over before it starts.

The cat boys woke me at 2-ish this morning. I got up anyway. Dougy made sure I couldn’t slip back into sleep by walking on me, then swishing his tail in my face. Then he jumped off my bed, put his front paws on my mattress, and stuck his face in my face. Cat whiskers get you every time! They tickle, man, they tickle! Andy hangs out by the door. His brother is the wake up maestro of the two, so he lets Dougy do the deed.

OK, I got up. I think the cats thought that meant it was “breakfast for kitties” time. I fooled them. I held out till a little before 3 AM, the usual time they eat. We aren’t starting a 2 o’clock feeding in this household!!! Andy protested; Dougy caught a few z’s. I caught up on some editing on this blog and tried to find a missing video file on my computer. I usually eat breakfast after I feed the boys, but 2 AM is not a time I feel like eating!

“Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Clementine…!”

Andy and Dougy fed, I had to convince myself I felt like making something for myself for breakfast, something like pancakes or biscuits. I settled for peanut butter toast (with no jelly or jam); a new cereal that looks like someone ran out of a full serving of Cheerios, so they mixed in some granola; coffee; and a special treat of Clementine juice instead of cranberry juice. (Those who know me know I am very enthusiastic about these little Clementine oranges! The juice is a bit more tart than navel orange juice, which I prefer.)

Of course, even though they’d just eaten their breakfast, the boys had to come over and watch me make mine. Hint-hint! Andy tosses in some pathetic starving kitten sounds with his performance, which includes big kitten eyes and opening a cabinet door where, I guess, he’s looking for food. Maybe he’s just annoying me instead.

Regardless, there is a routine. Andy wants what I’m fixing, so I let him sniff it. He recoils in horror that anyone would want Clementine juice or coffee, but seems a bit too interested in the peanut butter toast. I have to pull the interesting foods back fast or have kitty whiskers on them. Ha! I never feed the boys human food, even milk, based on recommendations from their veterinarian, but Andy still begs while Dougy snoozes in the background “just in case”….

Dougy catches some z’s while Andy bugs me for a past “feed-the-kitties” snack.

I used up the last of the roasted coffee beans to make coffee this morning so roasted a batch after I had breakfast. The roast take 21 minutes for the darkness I like, and the little roaster makes a batch good for one large mug of coffee for three and a half days. I just roast one batch at a time because the fire alarms in my apartment are too sensitive. As it is, I turn on ceiling fans, the stove hood vent fan, and open a door to make sure roasting fumes don’t trigger the alarm. Tedious!

The 21 minutes the roast takes works out to be just right for the time I need to wash the dishes, which oftentimes include the previous night’s dishes and cooking vessels. It did this morning. Dirty dishes washed and dried, I start the day with a clean slate. That lasts a short time, of course!

When the coffee roaster completes the roast, the unit needs to cool down before I transfer the coffee beans to a container, then the beans need to rest till the next day to develop their full flavor. By 4 AM, this last business was completed, and I finished my tasks for the day! On to the computer to catch up on YouTube, facebook, and this blog. That’s done and it’s only 9:20 AM.

Tomorrow morning, 3 AM will come at 4 AM, thanks to the return to standard time. I’d love to sleep in that extra hour, but I suspect the cat brothers will wake me up at 2 AM again. They never get it straight: “Spring forward, fall back. Or is it Spring back, fall forward? These humans are crazy! Our stomachs say it’s ‘feed the kitties’ time. Wake him up!”

the inner kitten

The cat brothers and I got up at the usual time, way too early.

I fed the boys, then put out the trash since it’s trash day. It’s just two cats and me contributing to the pile, though the quantity we generate astonishes me. It is better now that I don’t get paper copies of two daily newspapers, though I still get one weekly in print. Even then, I generally manage to fill one large trash bag each week, two if I sort out boxes the cats demand I save for them. Most of the trash is related to kitchen activities, though the cats contribute a significant pile from their litter boxes, of which there are three.

After a light breakfast and coffee, I watched “Morning Joe”, which I truly mean to stop doing before I blow a gasket listening to Joe Scarborough blasting away about how the President is guilty of keeping the enrollment numbers for ACA “secret”, you know, that quirky conservative Republican thing where everything always is a conspiracy. Ugh. I promise you I won’t get started!

The boys and I played a bit with their newest laser toy, the Ba-Da-Beam. They are so jaded, they just look at me and give me that world-weary look of two-year old cats that means, “Hey! I know it’s just a light. No substance there!” That is, until Dougy’s inner kitten kicked in: Dougy can’t refuse his inner kitten, so, after a few moments of cynical disdain, he was pumping blood in high-speed pursuit of the light!

Andy’s resistance takes longer to overcome. He watched his brother at play till his inner kitten tugged on his tail and said, “Andy, just pretend to play if you can’t pull off genuine play…!” He hopped off the recliner, his favorite perch, and chased his brother, who was chasing the light in kittenish abandon.

Adrenalin pumping, the boys switched from laser light chasing to their mutually favorite game: “kill the antelope”! That is, chase each other, alternating which one is predator, and which one is prey. They get some pretty good speed on the ground, and make amazing, very athletic leaps onto furniture, over furniture, on top of each other till the game’s done or one of the boys gets a bit too aggressive for the other. In that case, the abused brother goes off for a sulk, and the abusing brother comes to me for reassurance he’s still a “good kitty”. (Which he’s not!) Today played out the way it always does, with one protesting too aggressive play, then running off to sulk.

The sulk didn’t last long. Adrenalin wore off, the boys both stopped by for a nose rub. Noses rubbed, it was time for a cat nap till time for morning treats. Often enough, I join them, each for a little cat nap in his favorite nest.

(To be honest, I just fall asleep in my chair, my inner old fart just too tired from getting up way too early to serve my cats!)

balls for the Speaker

A low front moved in yesterday. My late mother, who was an elementary school teacher, noted she always knew when the weather was about to change because her kids acted up more than usual. Apparently it works using cats as your weather predictors, too:

That isn’t to say the boys were bad all day. At one point they came to me for “a little chat”. (“Un petite chat” ~ Hee! Hee! That’s a pun!)

“What’s the matter, boys. You seem upset, on edge?” I asked.

“It’s that speaker fellow. The television keeps saying he’s a nice person, but he needs some balls,” said Andy, his fuzzy little Persian face scrunched into a scowl, his whiskers cutely framing his smoochy little mouth.

John Boehner. Yeah, he does look like a nice guy!

“It hurts,” piped in Dougy. “We know what it’s like to need your balls and they are gone.”

The boys are empathetic, a characteristic of black Persian cats. I mean, there are people who don’t like blacks. There are people whose eyes bulge in rage once they realize “Persian” and “Eye-ranian” are the same. There are people who are allergic to cats. Then there are people who are superstitious about black cats. And there are people who want to send a few B1s and B2s across the ocean to wipe out those Persian “cats”. I’m unaware of any issues with black Persians…!

“Jeez, Andy and Dougy!” I said. “I thought you were just acting up! So you were trying to find your balls, eh?!”

“Oh yeah!” they exclaimed. “We have lots of balls we’ve lost over the months. You know the ones we really, really like, the ones our auntie gave us, that we bop ahead of us chasing them through the house like we’re playing soccer, the ones we keep losing under chairs and sofas till you find them and give them back to us…!”

The boys, by this time, were hopping up and down in excitement! Oh yes, I know exactly the balls they mean:

Wow! It even has a little bell inside! No wonder the boys love, love, love their auntie! It’s a favorite toy!

“Well, you have several of these balls, in different colors. Are you willing to give the speaker as many as two? This is an important question because he’s playing with a whole lot of people, and he needs lots of balls if they are all going to play along with him…!”

I was a bit concerned. The boys made this incredibly thoughtful gesture, but these are a favorite toy, not to mention a gift from a much beloved auntie.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” the boys exclaimed, jumping up and down, thrashing their tails with increasing excitement and commitment to the mission to share their favorite balls with the speaker. “We don’t need to share any with that other guy, though. He seems to have lots of balls to play with.”

The cat brothers correctly guessed why this fellow’s smiling: he has plenty of balls to play with, providing he doesn’t lose them under chairs and sofas….

“I like the idea a lot, boys. I have plenty of postage and you have plenty of balls. Let’s send those balls to Washington today, before the blizzard hits!”

“Mrow!” purred the boys. They may be black Persian cats, but they are patriotic native born black Persian cats, no matter what Donald Trump says.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Here’s where you send your gift of balls to the House Speaker Boehner:

The Honorable John A. Boehner
United States House of Representatives
1011 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-3508

Andy, Dougy, and I thank you!

birthday toy blahs

The television advertisement showed happy cats slobbering all over the toy. Even old, fat cats spring up and play, the advertisement suggested.

You bought it! Now, weeks later, your cats mostly ignore it – and it runs on three C-cell batteries whether they play with it or it just sits there running, intending to seduce the little furballs!

I flipped the toy’s cover up on one side to expose the “mousie”. That, surely, will bring the boys in. Webcam ready, I turned the toy on: Dougy came at a full gallop! Here we go:

Hunh!? “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink”?

Dougy has his priorities, and first priority apparently is paper!

@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@!@

The name of the second song, incidentally is Waunobe March, not Waunebe March, as it appears in the credits.

“Waunobe March” ~ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
ISRC CODE: USUAN1100016

The first song also is a Kevin MacLeod piece:

“Cantina Blues” ~ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
ISRC CODE: USUAN1100407

Dougy vs. the newspaper

I never know what kind of show to expect from the boys. Today Dougy decided to take on a newspaper on the light stand by my chair. (“My chair” because neither cat likes to lounge in it…!)

Most newspapers I read are on the Internet, but I still get a “hard copy” of my cousin Sharon Wheelock’s weekly, the Grant County News. It is that newspaper Dougy shamelessly attacked. I’m glad it is an old issue, one I left there as a buffer to coffee and water drips when I put a mug or glass down on the stand.

The bad part about making cat videos is naughty behavior oftentimes is the best for video. So, when I should be encouraging Dougy or Andy to cool it, I’m grabbing my camera instead.

If people didn’t encourage me with positive comments on my videos, I wouldn’t make them. It’s your fault Dougy and Andy are naughty boys, then! Ha!

weather and haircuts for the boys

The boys have a trip to the cat groomer coming up on Wednesday the 18th. I may have to ask for a longer final length on their hair than usual now that Fall is almost here on the High Plains.

This is how cool it was at 6:48 AM today. Fall is around the corner!

Actually, other than the problematic butt hair (poop balls) and armpit hair (mats), both Dougy and Andy seem to handle longer hair better than they used to. They are cuter and more Persian cat-esque with longer hair, too! Persians have that “owl face” thing about them that I find especially appealing.

Their hair takes on some very attractive qualities when it’s longer, too. You see more of the characteristic “smoke Persian” pelage qualities, something you can see in yesterday’s photo of Dougy in the box that I used for my Christmas stamp and card illustration. Those highlights on his coat actually are the effect of how light hits it.

Smoke Persian qualities show on the boys when their hair is longer.

Though the boys seem to be black cats, they are more multi-colored, with soft shades of grays ranging to darker grays, then black on their legs, shoulder, faces, and hindquarters, depending on how light hits them. They are very dramatic cats when in motion!

Better grooming is a big part of the reduced hair issues. Andy doesn’t need much brushing because he has less undercoat than Dougy, but neither has had a problem with bad hair mats since I started taking them to Sarah, their groomer. She’s a cat-grooming goddess! I like Sarah! More importantly, the boys are good boys for her: They like Sarah, too!

Speaking of Sarah, who regards Andy and Dougy as her favorites, I intend to start tipping her. Until my Seattle sister mentioned she tipped her boy’s groomer, it hadn’t occurred to me to do the same. Sarah’s excellent care of my boys means they are cleaner, I don’t have to watch out for poop balls or wash poop (“poop baths”) out of their hair.

Sox the tuxedo cat, Andy and Dougy’s Seattle cat cousin.

I don’t know what a reasonable tip for a pet groomer might be, but I’m starting out with a generous one that is the sum of what I would have tipped Sarah from the first session till the one on the 18th.

I can’t emphasize how much difference her excellent work’s made in the lives of the boys, or, for that matter, mine! I was close to finding a new home for them, the poop issue was so bad. I would have missed out on a lot of joy in my life….

It’s a dull day here on the High Plains…

Andy is cool~ !

But Dougy was the subject of my 2012 Christmas card and postage stamp!

cross purposes

The boys are great fun most days, but there are other days when one cat on my computer desk is a challenge , and the intrusion of a second one is one cat too many.

When I began making the video below, I envisioned it as a vignette of Andy playing with a pen. Andy chose to expand the theme into “very cute cat playing a game with his human by dropping a pen over the side of a shelf so the human had to retrieve it for the cute cat”.

Dougy didn’t have anything better to do, so he stopped by for a nose rub or whatever he could get out of me. He refused to let the distraction of the pen stop him from his quest! He stood his ground – right between Andy and me while I was trying to make the video of Andy.

Oh well. “Surviving retirement with two cats” is, after all, the general theme of this blog.

The cat slept in.

It’s a rare day that I get up before my cats. Today, Dougy greeted me with his now-standard body walk with kneading session, but Andy slept away on the little bookcase by my bed, oblivious to the time.

“Oblivious to the time”?! What? Feed-the-kitties time, and Andy hasn’t joined the assault on my sleep to shame me into an early start to my day so the cats get to eat yummy cat food at a little after 3:00 AM?

You got it. Today the cat slept in!

There he was, curled into a ball, butt hair just touching the oscillating fan when it paused before returning the opposite direction, oblivious to Dougy and me carrying on with the routine we have once I give up and prepare to get out of bed.

Andy is a back sleeper, unless it's by the fan. (Taken several months ago.)

Andy is a back sleeper, unless it’s by the fan. (This photo was taken several months ago, when the boys were yearlings.)

“Prepare to get out of bed”? Yeah, I have to make sure everything’s operating before I stand because misjudging the state of my legs can result in pain and a fall. I’m reminded of something my mother said once when the subject of falls came up. “Don’t worry, Doug. I know how to fall.” And she did: when you feel a fall coming on, relax, and you hurt nothing more than your dignity! Most times.

Allied with knowing how to fall is knowing how to get up. That I learned from my father, who had his share of falls as he grew older. Picking him up from a fall was difficult for either my mother or me alone, or together for that matter. Dad always said that if we could maneuver him to a solid support (chair, bed), he could use his upper body strength to get up. And he could!

I have falls taken care of, though the best bet is to let my legs determine how soon I stand up. In the intervening time, I sit on the side of the bed. Dougy rubs against my legs to encourage a little haste because kitty stomachs need regular, timely filling. So, I pat on the edge of the bed. Pat-pat-pat! That’s Dougy’s and my morning routine.

Bed patting prompts Dougy to jump on the bed. He continues his destruction of the box springs covering by doing a scratch-stretch to let me know he is impatient for some action that takes us all to the kitchen. Then he jumps up on the bed and rubs against my side and back. Well, to get a little petting, too, but that’s a side benefit!

Shortly after we begin the ritual, he hops back down on the floor to walk toward the kitchen, stopping here and there to look over his shoulder to see if I’m moving yet.

Andy usually is down there with Dougy, making a nuisance of himself rubbing against my legs, resisting all attempts to pet or pick him up. If I won’t get up, he’ll use my desire to pet him as a tool to pry me off the bed. I reach toward him, and he runs away. The little poop! He knows I like to pet my cats, so he plays me to get me moving. Anyone who doesn’t believe cats train their humans never met my Andy!

But Andy himself was sleeping in today, right? Last night was a cooler night than we’ve had in a couple of weeks. I think Andy was just too comfortable to get up. He slept and slept, even with the racket Dougy and I made.

My body finally signalled time to get up. I reached over to greet Andy with a nose kiss – his nose, my index finger. Both boys like this business because my “nose kiss” involves a nose rub of that spot between the eyes that Persian cats can’t reach easily. Both boys close their eyes, tilt their heads back in a swoon, yawn, and give me a kitty signal that means “More! More!” Better than catnip. Better than tuna! Well, maybe not that good, but pretty darn agreeable!

Today, I woke Andy when I touched his nose. Andy has a kitten face, thanks to a more delicate build than his brother’s. He looks sweet – and is sweet – when he first wakes up. He has to work into his typical cattitude because he truly is a sweet little cat when his guard is down. My finger to his nose, he yawned a big waking up yawn, but didn’t get up. That fan breeze felt too good to move away from it. I rubbed that special between-the-eyes spot, he swooned, tilted his head back, yawned, and signalled he wanted more! Tuna could wait.

I like it when Andy is relaxed. He is a serious little cat. Unlike Dougy, a very playful cat, Andy is slow to get involved with toys. He does interact easily with Dougy, fortunately, so I always feel good when they chase each other through the house, playing predator-prey, a favorite cat game of theirs. I also like it when he just wakes up because he always wakes up in a sweet mood.

This side of Andy is so sweet, I think I should get up earlier than I do so I can start my day with a happy Andycat. Or not. I’ll just take a chance that I’ll catch him waking up during the day. If I want “happy”, I know where to rub!

Wake up! >Mrow<

You can tell a cat, but not much, as the joke goes. They definitely respond to people differently than dogs do, but it isn’t as critical as how we respond to them. Ask Andy. Ask Dougy. What is a kitty to do when it’s breakfast time and your human won’t get out of bed?

My boys are predictably accurate about the time. They know when it’s three in the morning, so pester me for as long as it takes to make sure I’m up and feeding them by that time. Believe it, they do pester me until I get up to feed the kitties, and all stops are out if I try to sleep past three.

How demanding can a cat that sleeps 23-3/4 hours a day be!?

Here are some of their favorite cat tricks to get me out of bed:

1. Standing by my bed, meowing. [Not effective because neither Andy nor Dougy meows very loud. If I am awake, I know that it signals more harassment until I get up; if not, I don’t hear it. FAIL!]

2. Jumping on my bed and meowing by my head. [A bit more effective, but usually a FAIL because of the same reasons standing by my bed and meowing is a FAIL. Andy just jumps on my bed, but usually stares at me long enough to try to decide if I’m faking sleep or am actually sleeping. He is my stealthy cat. After a short time, he’ll jump over to a favorite spot on top of the little bookcase next to my bed. There’s a fan on it, a folded blanket for his comfort, but, best yet, a good view of me in bed where he can see me but I can’t see him. He watches, watches, watches…! You know you are watched when Andy watches you. Dougy, however, scratches on the mattress, which irritates me but usually doesn’t achieve the desired effect. Then he jumps, landing by my head. The moment he lands he always meows, just once. The landing can wake me. The meow just tells me which of the two landed. Andy makes no sound. I try to not open my eyes, though, and pretend I am still asleep. Between them, they sometimes have success.]

3a. Walking on me. [Less effective than it could be because their predecessor, Louie, weighed as much as both Andy and Dougy together. Dougy usually is the designated walker, and I kind of like it when he does because it feels like a massage. FAIL.]

3b. Andy and Dougy are rank amateurs compared with the late Louie. He’d usually walk on me, starting at one end, then end at the other after he took a slow stroll on my body. I handled his almost 24 pounds (10.8 kilos or so) treading on me except for that spot between my pelvis and bottom of my rib cage. When he landed there, it hurt like heck unless I anticipated it and tensed my muscles. When I tensed my muscles, he’d hop off my body, stroll to my face, and start to stick his butt in it. He knew I was awake and that I always got up before he got his butt too close to my face. I definitely hopped up and fed the kitty! Louie was a tough cat, a veteran of the streets. You couldn’t fool him by keeping your eyes closed!

Louie reacts

Cute or not, you didn’t want Louie’s butt in your face. As a boy cat, he sometimes was less than fastidious about personal hygiene…!

louie ponders an outside life

4. Knead the human. [Definitely a FAIL because Dougy, who has has a “mommy fixation” on my beard, doesn’t realize that kneading feels good so long as he doesn’t do it on bare skin. Plus, he has to nestle up to me to do it, which gives me a chance to gain more rest when I stroke his fur. That in turn prompts more kneading. I’m having a good time, Dougy’s forgetting why he’s kneading me because he’s having a good time, too. I just have to make sure he doesn’t get in my beard. It creeps me out when he nestles in my beard, and tries to nurse. ICK!]

5. Sniff the human’s face! [SUCCESS! I know where those little kitty faces have been, so the moment I sense one coming my way, I fend it off. They know I’m awake then, and gloves are off till they get me out of bed. This is when they start to gang harass me. Otherwise it’s a solo business, each in his turn. Besides, those cat whiskers tickle!]

6. Wag your tail in the human’s face. [This is a recent development that is guaranteed to get the point across to me: Get up. NOW! Absolute SUCCESS! Fie on you, Dougy. You discovered my kyptonite! Andy hasn’t learned this trick yet.]

7. Late in life, Louie discovered something that makes him unique among the four cats I’ve had in my life. His failsafe method to get me up? He’d stand on my shoulder with his back feet, put his front feet on my blankets, then walk my blankets down toward my waist. When you are a 24 pound cat, you can do this!