Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Operation "Unhinged"

All the Cats decided a couple days ago that since the humans are on vacation and around the house a lot, we're going to drive them crazy. Now that we're four-on-four, the idea is that each Cat has taken a human to work with and push until they snap.

Jasper vs. Kim: Jasper really hasn't changed his normal behavior much. He's watching Kim and everytime she settles down, he'll sit down next to her and continuously meow in one second intervals until Kim is forced to move, or he's booted from her vicinity. For this little "experiment" though, he's also added a night element where he'll also do this when Kim is in bed. After he sees that she's asleep, he'll jump up on the bed, walk up near her head and again meow in perfect one second intervals. He doesn't change pitch or length of meow ... it's almost like he's playing a recording over and over again. This is starting to prove fairly effective in getting to Kim's boiling over point.

Jenny vs. K: Similar to Jasper, Jenny now watches to see where K goes to play and as soon as she sits down, will go over and practically sit on her, or at the very least sit on K's toys. Since Jenny only weighs a few pounds less than K, K cannot move her easily and becomes frustrated. Since K is only three years old, she may be harder to crack, but Jenny's giving it her all.

Ming vs. Syd: I've taken on Syd. Although Syd is only seven years old, she sleeps like a teenager. She loves to sleep in during the mornings. Frankly, since I can't hear too well anymore, I didn't realize how effective my plan would be, but now every morning for the past few days, I'll go into Syd's room, jump on her bed and sit on her chest. Then I'll put my face about an inch in front of hers and Yowl. I thought I was just whispering, but the other Cats have told me that I'm almost echoing through the house. Well, this forces Syd up. What's driving her crazy is that she loves us Cats and really wants to have us in her room, but she wants me to leave so she can sleep.

NotSo vs. Ed: By far the best idea so far is how NotSo has targeted Ed. NotSo has figured out a wavelength of Ed's brain that triggers when Ed is going to sit down. No matter where NotSo is in the house, as soon as Ed goes to sit down, NotSo gets the signal and will race in and sit in Ed's intended chair. This is especially effective since Ed still wary of upsetting NotSo since he's the new cat and disabled on top of it. Ed, who usually thinks nothing of booting any of the other cats off chairs will actually find another chair to sit in or bribe NotSo off the original chair. Finding another chair is really not an option because NotSo will just race to that chair and sit in it first. He's perfected the "What? I've been sitting here the whole time! How could you almost sit on me?" look.

If this proves effective, I may have to make this a "Games Cats Play" game and let all the other Cats in the world know. I'm sure any Cats reading this blog will try it on their humans. I hope they report back to provide a test sampling on the success. Who knows, maybe this will be the effective course of action to bring Cats closer to their plan of global domination!

Sunday, December 26, 2004

Oh MAN I Hate Winter.

I know that winter in North Carolina is nothing like what I grew up with in Northeastern Missouri, but I still don't like seeing the snow fall.

I can't get warm.

The only funny part is that NotSo is not used to seeing snow and he was FREAKING OUT! He'd sit at the windows and get all bristled up. I spent the day going from warm spot to warm spot.

Here's a picture of the snow in my backyard.

December 26th

Saturday, December 25, 2004

Merry Christmas!!!!

Meow, Meow, Meow!!

Purrrrrrr.

Merry Christmas to all. I hope everyone has a safe and happy Holiday.

Peace and Love,
Mingling

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Me and My Peeps

Me and the boys, enjoying the sun on a below freezing day. (Ed took a pretty good pic.)

The Boys

Click to open a window with a larger pic.

Monday, December 20, 2004

Games Cats Play, part 5: YARRRGH!

Playing Field: Anywhere in the house where Cats can be up higher than the humans, or with sufficient hiding spaces for Cats near human walkways.

Game Time: Any time of day.

Player A: Cat

Player B: Human

Game Play: Yet another "surprise game". Since humans are always preoccupied with one thing or another, this game is really effective in bringing them back to reality. Player A will take game position either hidden from Player B's view, or higher than Player B. As Player B stands under Player A's position, or as Player B walks by Player A's position, Player A begins the game and reaches out a paw to quickly touch Player B, causing Player B to yell, "YARRRGH!!!"

Player A's objective is to get Player B to yell, curse, drop items, trip, jump, or any manner of causing embarassment and humiliation. (Isn't that what we Cats really want, anyway?)

Player B's objective is to not look like a fool.

Points: This is a win/lose game.

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Kids, Kids and More Freakin' Kids

Last weekend, Kim and Ed had a birthday party for K, their youngest offspring, since she'd just turned three. They can't throw a party for adults for anything, but they are becoming known for their kid's birthday parties.

All I know is that for 2 hours on what should've been a quiet Sunday afternoon, Hell opened up and let nine dancing demons out to harass and torment the Cats in the house. Sure, they look like mini-humans, but demons are what they are!

K had something called a "Princess" party, where the house seemed to sprout purple and pink ribbons (whoo hooo!), balloons (yikes!) and they even put up a tent that looked like a castle. (The Cats all thought it was for us, but boy did we find out different!) Now, tell me how two humans who have been owned by Cats all their lives can put up streaming strips of paper and NOT ALLOW the Cats to play with them. Sometimes Humans can be idiots. We have instincts, ya know. The strips sway and move. WE.JUST.GOT.TO.GET.THE.PAPER!!! But then the urchins started to arrive. Now, I hate to admit it, but I like humans. They're fun to watch, and if a human knows about Cats, they can be Very useful to provide scritches and dish out food. But the little ones ... the offspring ... now they can be downright evil. I have not been poked, prodded, picked up and chased more in a long time. Now, I wanted to stick around and see what was going on, but every time I was getting ready to find a prime spot out of reach, I kept getting moved somewhere that ended up be more accessible. Then some lady even carried me upstairs!! Well, I came and sat on the stairs and cursed her but good! Once the kids left, I was able to relax and it's a good thing that I take meds for my sore hips, or I would've been unable to move the next day.

A question about silly rites of sacrifice that humans seem to enjoy. I realize that they are primitive compared to Cats, but one of their birthday ceremonies is downright barbaric!! They took a small animal called something like a "Pinata" and HUNG it from a HOOK!!!! Then they allowed each offspring in turn to take a large stick and hit the poor beast until body parts started flying off until finally it's sides split and the guts fell out. Then they proceeded to EAT the OFFAL!!!!! Now like any self respecting Cat, I would love a good helping of raw meat, but this didn't smell like anything I'd want to eat. There was one little male that when given the stick, seemed to zone into his own world and beat the living sh*t out of the animal. It literally took four adults to grab him and bring him back to reality. Scary!

Why do humans breed?

What's With the White Stuff?

I know I mentioned that I'll be doing an entry on a K's birthday party, but ...

It's been getting cold lately (I've mentioned before that I'm in North Carolina, USA and anything below 30 degrees F is just danged cold.) Well, I just looked out the window a few minutes ago and there were huge white snowflakes falling down from the sky. YIKES!!!

I heard Kim and Ed talking that it's not supposed to stick, but this reminds me of Missouri. I did hear that it's not even supposed to get up to 30 degrees F tomorrow! I think I'll spend the day curled up on someone's bed.

Let's see what it's like in the morning.

Saturday, December 18, 2004

Stay Tuned

Meow.

Sorry I haven't written in a while. We've been REALLY busy getting ready for the holidays, and my arthritis is acting up. Also, the computer I usually use is totally down (the magic smoke that makes electronics work came out of the back of the computer,) so I have to sneak time on one of Ed's other computers.

I've got a couple posts to enter in the next couple of evenings, I just haven't decided whether to publish the posts separately, or combine them.

Topics include:

  • A birthday party for Kim's and Ed's three year old offspring where 9 other mini-humans where invited to invade my house.

  • Something called "Girl Scouts" and what happens when they have a meeting at my house.



No wonder I've been sore lately. I need to get back to my nap.

Sunday, December 12, 2004

NotSo Not Fair

Mew?

All the Cats in the house like to wrestle, but NotSo has started a fighting tactic that is really not fair. Not that we don't still like to wrestle with him, but what he does makes the humans in the house laugh at us, and that is NOT COOL! We've tried to tell NotSo to cool it on the move, but I guess he likes being the clown.

What he does is this: When wrestling, he'll run up next to us so his hind end is even with our head. He'll then lift his hind leg, like how those evil dogs pee. He'll kick his leg over our head, then SIT.ON.OUR.HEAD!!! What's up with that?!? The first time he did it, I thought he'd just lost his balance, but he's done it again and again, to all us Cats!!! The Humans just roll on the floor laughing.

I heard Ed say he was going to keep the camcorder on hand to try and get some video of it. If he does, I'll never be able to look myself in the mirror again!

Christmas Time is Near!

Purrr!!

It's that wonderful time of year, again. Christmas. It's time for Ed to start baking things, and Kim has been busy getting the decorations out. (Although tomorrow is the big birthday party for their youngest offspring, so the house is only partially decorated, and the only baking Ed has done is a birthday cake and some candies for the party.)

They put up the Christmas tree and Ed put all the lights on it today. If I have any gripe about Christmas, it's that when their oldest offspring, Syd, was born, they quit buying live trees and bought a huge (9ft. tall) fake tree. This is too bad, because I used to love the smell of the tree, and even better, I used to LOVE eating the pine needles and barfing my Christmas barfs. It's just not the same with the fake tree. Although, Ed and Kim did buy a very plush tree skirt that all the Cats in the house love to sleep on. We can't wait until they start putting the ornaments on the tree, so we can knock them down and play with them. We know that they put their "good" things up high, but we're trying to talk NotSo into climbing the tree to get them down.

We'll see. I'm waiting for Ed to take some pictures of us under the tree, and I'll grab them and post them.