Tagged: meow
My kitty amusement for the day.
Taco is a smart little f-er. He was being whiny and annoying, so I decided to give him treats to shut his loud mouth up.
First of all, he grabbed the treats with his paws and didn’t let go until he hit the ground so he was sure he’d have it. The time he missed, he whacked it under the wire rack in the kitchen. It’s just wide and low enough that he can’t fit his fat paw all the way to the back where the treat landed. So I gave him another, and put the bag away. I walked away for a sec, and came back to see him FRANTICALLY trying to figure out a way to get to it.
He looked at me, meowed the HOARSEST meow I’ve ever heard, as if he were a starving child in Africa and that was the only morsel of food he was ever going to have again and OMG what am I going to do…and his tail was straight up and absolutely QUIVERING.
Then he went back to frantically trying to get to it while I fell on the ground laughing at him.
Oh, these cats.
GIVE ME MY FOOOOOOODZ
Bad kitty mommy again.
This picture of Moosh in a kitty bed on the human bed does not relate to my story at all. Just felt like throwing it in here.
I have been a bad kitty mommy this week. I’ve been so busy and cranky and having to deal with a bazillion things that I didn’t notice the litter box was at capacity. The other night, Taco loudly made his displeasure known. When I realized the cause of his discontent, I went over to deal with it. But the Litter Genie was full, so that took some extra time to re-set.
I noticed Taco had stopped meowing. Why? Because he was peeing on the couch. Yes, we have puppy pads there for this very reason, but he TRIED to hold it. From the sheer volume of pee there, I assume he’d been holding it for quite awhile. Those puppy pads kinda suck, too, his paws were wet — so I panicked and did what everyone (I think everyone, anyway) would do…I marched him to the bathroom to attempt a paw washing in the sink. This did not go over well. I got a couple of vague rinses in and gave up, tried to dry them off with toilet paper and promptly locked him in the bathroom for what I thought would be an appropriate amount of time for him to clean himself up and not get cat pee smell everywhere. As I did that, he meowed weirdly, in a way that sent me into yet another panic that I had hurt in somehow in the sink struggle.
I think he was just traumatized, because he seems to be fine now.
It’s been awhile since he peed on the couch, but it’s just as frustrating and even more so because I could have prevented it. I mean, living your life with a shower curtain and puppy pads on your couch is hardly a way to live…and I didn’t need to make matters worse. Of course, it pissed off the boyfriend too (who yes, could have cleaned the litter box as well) which I do understand…after all, he did buy the couches and all. But he’s a cat (Taco, not the boyfriend), and it’s mostly my fault anyway.
This week has just been unpleasant overall. But this always raises my spirits:
MEOWlympics.
As most of the world is, I’m currently fascinated with the olympics. At the tender age of 30, I realize my athletic prime has passed and it’s unlikely that I’ll find my niche to win gold. But I think about the sports and activities that passed me by…like gymnastics. I’m 5’8″ now, and I’m broad. If I stopped eating, I’d still be a large skeleton. So that wasn’t a sport made for me. Rhythmic gymnastics? I remember having some cassette tape when I was a kid…it came with the stick with the ribbon and you were supposed to do twirlies with it but that’s about all I remember of it. Obviously rhythmic gymnastics didn’t make that much of an impression on me either. I did swimming for awhile, I wasn’t bad but I wasn’t Natalie Coughlin or anything. I took diving classes, I was terrified. Not of the height, but the flippy flips. I think I saw the Greg Louganis faceplant too early in life. Never been much of a runner, so that’s out. It’s just flat out amusing to watch me play tennis. I manage to hit the ball over the fence repeatedly. Fencing sounds fun but I never had the opportunity. Weightlifting, in theory, sounds like something I would be good at. I build muscle easily. But I’m also prone to injury and “clean and jerk” sounds like waaaaay too much opportunity to pop something out of place.
Now SHOTPUT. That is something I could have excelled at. Except I don’t recall them offering that in high school. Where does one go to start shotputting? I’m excellent at throwing things. Aiming, that is a different story. The safest place to be is where I am trying to throw something.
Which brings me, in a VERY roundabout way, to the subject of my post. Throwing mousies. I am SUPER KICK ASS at throwing mousies.
Unfortunately for the boyfriend, as per the above-mentioned aiming abilities, I usually hit him with the mousies. Face, crotch, the exact place on the floor where he will immediately step on it and curse me…this is not on purpose. The cats, bless their hearts, will come to a screeching halt when mousie lands on Daddy. They know better. It would probably be worse if he got hit with cat, too. I’m also one of those people who laugh at inappropriate times…which makes him even madder. My own ineptness at aiming and the hilarity that ensues brings on a giggle that can’t be controlled. The inappropriateness of it makes me giggle more, and well, you can see where that goes.
I’ve always thought that the cats lose the mousies under things and in closets and such…but after writing this I’m questioning that conclusion.
To be fair, there ARE cat toys everywhere, and it’s just the mousies that seem to go missing.
Seriously, though, if being a crazy cat lady was an olympic sport I would win gold every four years. I realize I have stiff competition, but I’m pretty crazy. I exercise my crazy cat ladyness EVERY FREAKIN’ DAY.
UPDATE: I just found the thing that I did with the cassette tape (and by that I mean I searched the interwebz) — GET IN SHAPE, GIRL! OMG I totally remember this! I wish I still had this. I sense a youtube 80s fest.
Florida loses one crazy cat lady. TREAT HER WELL, SEATTLE!
I’m having a sad week. One of my most very dear friends is moving. Really far away. Pretty much as far away as you can get and still be in the contiguous United States. We are bonded forever through our love for Bloodhound Gang, Leslie Hall, crafting, spending money and above all, kitties. Yes, she is just as crazy cat lady as me. She has spent an equal amount of time at the vet (OK, maybe not EQUAL, mine are lemons, after all…but close) and equal time on google searching cat things. We have spent a great deal of time relating kitty stories. I can’t even remotely begin to count the number of lolcats we have sent each other over the years. And she’s leaving.
Sigh.
So this, my Polish sister, is for you. A tribute to you through your furry kid, Aleister. The cutest ginger I know!
May you and the hubby fare well in the long, long, long, long meowing car ride. And past that, I hope all three of you adjust quickly and love your new adventures in Seattle. Just like Milo and Otis. Oh, and I hope you finagle adding a kitten to the fam too =)
I stole these from her facebook because I suck at remembering things, like sending myself the kitten pics of Aleister I have on my work computer. Enjoy anyway.
She likes to dress up her cat too.
Aleister is very chic.
Artsy pic of kitty? Check.
I miss you already!
Too busy for cats???
It seems like I never have time to write anymore. And when I do, I’m too tired. Both jobs have been busting my ass lately. Usually I would get out of the part time job early at least a few times a week, but this hasn’t been the case lately. Adding to that, I’ve been renewing my vows with the gym lately. No more “Eh, I’ll just go sit on my ass and mess around with my blog” between jobs. Only sweat. And pain. So sore. And I keep injuring myself. That’s normal, though, I am the super klutz. I will, however, take this opportunity to show off my new shoes, which I LOVE!
My sweet Asics. Too bad I suck at running. But they make me think I can! I tried. My knees hurt. Love you, elliptical!
So I think the cats have been feeling a tad left out.
Putting your nose in your brother’s butt is NOT gonna get you attention.
After all, there’s no treadmill for kitties at the gym, and they’re miserable when they leave the house, anyway. The upside to all of this is that they’ve been extra needy when I AM home, which makes me feel super loved. They have been so snuggly while I sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night to Taco giving himself a bath while curled up on my stomach. I thought it was an odd place to take a bath, but in a weird way I liked that he was comfortable enough there.
Moosh hasn’t slept on my head in months, but has the past few days. Taco’s been sleeping on my feet when I sit on the recliner, even. So cute.
Sleeping kitty…IN YOUR FACE
It’s also very buggy outside. Like, a lot. They keep flying in. Fortunately, Taco is a master of the hunt. Last night, one flew in and within 30 seconds he had it down and eaten. Lower food bills, to boot!
This is Taco eating his catch. Yum.
So I have no exciting cat insights today because I have been too busy to pester or enjoy them. What a sad life. Sigh.
So sad and alone!
All black cats do not look the same.
I love black cats. I don’t know why. I also love the color black. I’m not goth or anything, it just matches with things so well. And it’s slimming.
Fatty, he lives with my mom, he’s rotund (as the name implies). He’s got medium length hair so he’s extra fluffy, and he’s got big, wide greenish-gold eyes.
Large and in charge.
Jager, he was our little kitten that we lost to FIP (I always want to write about him but it’s too personal to a story for me to share just yet), he was wiry and had amber colored eyes.
Jager, my boo.
Moosh, he’s a big boy (like a panther, not like Fatty) and his eyes change color, but they’re mostly midway between Fatty’s and Jager’s.
Lurkin’ like a panther.
They all look completely different to me. When we lost Jager, the boyfriend didn’t want another black cat, because he felt like it would remind him of Jager too much. To me, this is like saying all girls with blonde hair look the same. That’s ridiculous. Moosh won him over anyway, so that was a moot point. When I talked him into a 2nd, I wanted another black one, but he thought it would be confusing. This is why we don’t have children. What if we had twins? Chaos would ensue. Also a moot point, because Taco came along, and although he has a black brother, I didn’t have much choice in the matter, because Taco was up for grabs, not his brother Zorro.
You can barely see Zorro, but that’s brotherly love.
So because all cats have slightly different facial features, eye shape, eye color, etc., it greatly surprises me when I browse around other cat blogs to see pictures of kitties that look strikingly similar to my own. This is not to say I couldn’t pick mine out of a lineup. Moosh has one little fu manchu whisker on his chin and stray white hairs here and there that I know the exact placement of. Taco has a freckle on his head and a little one on his chin.
I can usually even tell which one of them is sleeping on my feet at night, just by moving. Moosh is more bulk. Taco is more snake. He just melts into wherever he is.
Last night I was out with some friends, including the one who gave us Taco. She still has Zorro, and the momma of the two. We often compare kitty stories, but her boyfriend hadn’t heard them before and was amazed to hear that they’re so similar even though they’ve grown up in two totally different environments. Granted, my friend is one of the awesomest people that I know and a fellow crazy cat lady, so I’m sure the parenting skills are on par with my own, but cats do form their own personalities so it is pretty interesting that their genetics have such an effect on them. They’re both loud, jump chest high and get into EVERYTHING. Zorro doesn’t pee on their couch though. I got the lemon. But lemon cats are my THING, apparently, so I roll with it.
Sigh. This makes me want another black cat.
Cats in the wild? Nah, they’re pussies.
Sometimes I’m half tempted to let my cats out just to see how they would really interact with other animals. They’ll spend hours cackling at a non-moving lizard just outside the window. Taco stares down Stella, the big Boxer that lives a few houses down (she’s actually afraid of him, this amuses me).
Notice the tail thwacking.
The other day there was a random turtle on the sidewalk. Snapper turtle.
Those things have bigger claws than the cats do and a dinosaur tail. The cats didn’t see it, but Stella sure did. Her owner was holding her back while we studied it, and probably for good reason. I think “snapper turtle” is an apt name.
Stella has no idea.
Anyway, I occasionally wonder how my spoiled little brats would react without a window barring them from actual contact and smell. Would they be so big and bad? Or would they cower in the corner like Taco does when people he doesn’t know come into the house? The bunnies that eat the grass outside in the morning don’t look all that concerned. Nor does the giant neighborhood stray that comes by to ‘bow up every once in awhile. My guys act all big and mighty but I’m guessing they really wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. I’m fairly certain they would starve within days. Their natural instincts have been replaced by recognizing me and the boyfriend as the giver of food. I’m certain they have lost all intrinsic knowledge of how to catch their own food. With how much they fight, they have a better chance of catching and eating each other. I think Moosh would win. He’s bigger, even though he lets Taco push him out of the way to eat his food.
I will give them this — they are excellent bug chasers.
Taco is not, in fact, admiring the fine velvet painting of kittens I found at a thrift store. There’s a bug in the light.
But, as the crazy cat lady and overbearing kitty mommy that I am, my fear of them getting outside FAR outweighs my curiosity, so they’re safe…for now. Until someone pukes on my brand new sneakers. Then their asses are on their own.
My Cat From Hell = Jersey Shore
So My Cat From Hell’s new season starts soon (if you haven’t seen it, it’s on Animal Planet, you need to watch). I love this show. I love quirky Jackson Galaxy, his penchant for for the rockabilly-ish and how he fixes even the worst of kitties, and makes the humans do actual work to ensure the kitty is living his or her best life. And chides them when they don’t put in the effort.
But essentially, I realize, I watch this show for the same reason I watch Jersey Shore: I feel better about my cats (and myself, when I watch Jerz). Jersey Shore is a bunch of pompous drunk morons who do really stupid things and say really stupid crap and get into the most ridiculous of fights. They make me feel better about ANY shenanagans I have caused by a night of too much Jager. Because as low as my lowest low is, I have never been that low. Nor have my lows occurred on such a consistent basis.
Moosh Moosh likes to play with…bachelorette party favors. So embarrassing!
While Taco is quite possibly the biggest pain in the ass the cat world has ever seen, he’s relatively harmless. I would really like to fix the whole “pee on the couch” thing but for the most part, his antics are merely annoying and sometimes border on endearing. (UPDATE: The boyfriend read this blog and voiced his displeasure with my lack of concern about the couch peeing. As if I like it! Honey. I’m just saying it could be worse. At least it’s a medical problem.) Despite being loud and overly curious, he’s lovey, he’s cute, and he never tries to scratch my eyeballs out. Moosh is a oddball, with his random licking of things and proneness to perching, but overall he’s a very well-behaved cat.
Takin’ it like a man.
These kitties on My Cat From Hell, they are crazy. The one that freaked me out most was the cat that launched himself chest high at his person. Moosh will launch himself on my shoulders, but not to go claw-crazy at my face. Most of the time the owners are well-meaning people, they just don’t understand cat like Jackson Galaxy.
So my confidence is boosted two-fold. One, my cats, albeit a little wacko, are not nearly as bad as these cats, which gives me a source of motherly pride, as well as a little bit of arrogance. Two, half the stuff Jackson teaches these people is stuff I already do innately. This makes me feel like I am MEANT to be a crazy cat lady. I KNOW cats. No special training needed. I don’t really know what this says about me, other than that I am a very empathetic person and I find cats more pleasant than humans. But I like to think this makes me special.
Just like I like to think that as long as I never show my “kooka” in a drunken haze on national television, that I am doing way better at life than a lot of people are. Although I rarely get embarrassed, because when you are as clumsy as me, you learn to be amused at your own antics. Otherwise I’d spend most of my life red-faced.
Bad hair day? Nope. Par for the course.
Talking to cats. Can’t help myself.
I talk to my cats. This may make me wacko, I understand this. This is ok with me. All in all, it’s probably a lot like talking to one’s self.
Moosh giving me the “whatever” eye.
I do know that both Moosh and Taco respond to the sound of their names.
If I coo “Mooshymooshmooshy” real low, Moosh gets all lovey, and will come smush my face, but first he’ll “mrrrp” at me.
Pay attention to meeeeeeeeee
Taco, as per usual, will respond to his name loudly. A conversation between Taco and I goes something like this:
“Meow!”
“What?”
“Meow!”
“What?”
“Meooooowwwww”
“WHAT DO YOU WANT???”
*jumps on lap, usually at an inconvenient time*
I will discuss things with them as if they understand. I tell Moosh that if he doesn’t finish his food, his brother will eat it. Then I tell Taco not to eat his brother’s food (neither takes my advice).
When Taco takes a dump, I tell him how much it stinks, and ask him what the hell he ate to produce such disgusting waste, as if he has a choice in the matter of his food (somewhere, subconsciously, I think he’s stealing shit from the fridge, I guess). He ignores me.
When they’re fighting, I tell them to cut it out and be nice to each other, or to play nice. They stop to look at me for a split second, then immediately resume fighting.
I ask them why they’re not bald, since their hair is EVERYWHERE, mostly stuck in my eyes. Also met with ignoring.
I alert them when there’s another cat or a bunny outside: “Ooooooh it’s a bunny! Look at the bunny, kitties!” while pushing them toward the window to look. This sometimes gets a response in the bunny’s direction, or prompts them to rub on my legs.
This is prime snuggle time.
Most embarrassing is snuggle talk. This is when I talk to them like they are little babies while making myself sound incapable of brain activity. “Who’s my boo-bear? Who likes a snuggle? You’re my cute-face snugglebunny. You love mommy, don’t you? Mommy loves YOU. Look at that belly! You’re so silly.” As hard as this is to admit, I can go on like this for hours. You know your relationship with your significant other is solid when you can do all of this in front of them without care, and without them batting an eye.
The point of this is, science tells me that they don’t know what the eff I’m saying, that it’s the tone of my voice, blah blah blah. But then, science also tells me that cats only meow at humans…so isn’t that equally as futile as me talking to them? Taco doesn’t have tones in his meows. It’s either WHINE or OMG EMERGENCY. If there was an actual emergency, I would have no idea, because I gave up on running out to find out what’s wrong with him when he makes that cry, because there is never anything wrong with him.
It’s not like people really listen to each other anyway. At least my cats cock their head and give me the impression what I’m saying is important. And for that, I thank them.
Love and cats.
A scientific mind overanalyzes everything. This is what I tell myself to make myself feel better, anyway.
Although I am a fan of all animals, I am most definitely a cat person. I won’t even kill insects unless they are stinging me or in my house, which I consider fair game.
After a lifetime of careful thought, this is my conclusion: I love things more when I have to fight for it. This is true of my love life as well.
He doesn’t even let me win mini-golf on my birthday.
The boyfriend and I will have been together for 9 years as of June 7th. We’ve definitely had our ups and downs but in the end, I love the hell out of him and I know he loves the hell out of me — I mean, how could he not? But we don’t always LIKE each other. I’m not saying that we ever hate each other…we’re just both independent people who are totally ok having alone time and we are both easily annoyed. There is a balance of power in a relationship that is always shifting. My theory is that this is what keeps things interesting. We always love each other, but the upper hand goes back and forth.
This, I think, is the basis of why I am a cat person. Hear me out.
The balance of power is always shifting in the kitty/kitty mommy relationship. They sit on your lap JUST as you’re about to get up, but refuse to sit there when you put them there yourself. They adore you when they’re ready to be fed, but might completely ignore you for an entire day in between feedings. Dogs love you ALL the time. Nothing against dogs, or people who love them. Personally, I just love a good fight. This is a genetic thing. I’m cocky, I can be arrogant, and every once in awhile I need a worthy opponent to take me down a peg or two.
So those times when I’m walking up to my house and see one of the babies jump in the window, looking happy to see me (when it’s NOT time for food), it brings me joy. They love me. I’ve won one round in the uphill lifetime battle. When I get an after-food snuggle, or a purr without being touched, I win. I will never continuously hold the upper hand. It just makes the victories that much sweeter.
im on yur lap, steelin yur comfurt
And boyfriend (I know you tell me you read this but I don’t believe you), I love you. I know this is a RIDICULOUS anniversary message but after 9 years, I had to try something new. So here it is. Thank you for loving me and the kitties even though sometimes you pretend not to. And thank you for being my lifetime sparring partner. You keep me interested. Otherwise you’d be long gone =P
Can we get a kitten?
MEOW hear this! 