Apricot Tries Out the Hammock

Remember how I got the hammock top / double scratching post little cat tree to put next to the settee so Apricot would have a way to participate in the settee fun without actually scratching the settee itself?

Well, tonight I managed to coax him into trying out the hammock part. He's been very enthusiastic about the scratching post bits, but has avoided the hammock.

Here is he is, the arm of the settee in view

And here he is being all nonchalant about it.
That's a new expression for him!

He seemed quite pleased with it, and actually slept there for about fifteen minutes before getting up to go elsewhere. This is a long time for him.

I think the last trust issue is going to be sleeping next to me, truly sleeping with complete abandonment. At that point I'll know he's gotten to the stage where he trusts me to take care of him and guard him.

The problem with him thinking I'm a cat instead of an all-powerful human is that he doesn't quite trust that I can protect him against all comers.

He's not wrong. There are certain things I can't protect him against, and I wish very much that I could. 

So I can't actually tell him that he's completely safe with me simply because I know it's not true and that would come across in my voice. Thus, this sleep thing is going to be something he decides completely on his own, without any coaxing from me.

Which will make it all the more special when it happens.

Colby and Thimble Photos

I asked for some portrait orientated photos for use in wallpaper on my phone, and while I actually only asked for one, she sent me a large assortment. Some of them are really cute, so I thought I'd share.

Whap! (That would be Colby
doing the whapping)

What's down there?
from Thimble with a more cautious
Colby behind

My favorite: Thimble's got the feather
but it's Colby who's licking his chops!

I has a hat! (from Thimble)

Kitties getting sleepy

No, wait, no we're not.
Colby looks slightly
disapproving again.

Apricot's First Christmas Tree Ornaments

Today I put the ornaments on the Christmas tree.

Wary but present (ha ha, sorry about that)

I tried to do it while he was asleep, but you probably already know that doesn't work.

However, while he got down from his napping spot, and spent a lot of time walking in and out of the living room (in both directions--sometimes he headed into the hallway and sometimes into the kitchen) he never went to hide and always came back. 

At first he actually supervised the ornaments from a short distance away (although more than the distance in the pictures) but it got to him after a while and he started having to leave the room to calm down and then come back. It's the only explanation I've got for his odd behavior.

I was very proud of my brave boy. He never hid during the whole tree ornament decking out, and there were a lot of new noises like popping plastic (the ornament boxes that have the molded plastic in two parts that has the bit that makes it stick together), and crinkling tissue paper. I was able to finish the whole tree.

While I was hanging the ornaments up I was trying to explain to him why this was something I liked ... and honestly if you think about it, christmas trees and their ornamentation are a little silly! But it's something I like very much and now I have a nicely decorated tree.

I do however have a rather unusual feature this year in that there is a band of no ornaments from the bottom of the tree up about a foot. The very bottom of the tree has the kitty toy ornaments, but after those the tree is bare for a little while.

Since Apricot has never been around a tree before, and since I have to go to work and can't be around to supervise it 24/7, I'm trying not to tempt him. I don't think I have to worry since he's a very cautious kitty and is rather inclined to ask before doing most things.

He is doing something odd to the tree, though. He is apparently pulling bits of green off it. I've seen him do it (and implored him not to, so hopefully he'll get the idea it's not something you do, just like he used to try to bite the carpet edges when he first arrived but now carpet is just "underneath" to be walked on) and I keep finding single plastic short pieces of green. I do hope he doesn't manage to denude the bottom branches. He'd have to really work at it, so I'm not too worried.

But hey, I now have a decorated house (as much as I plan to decorate this year) as I got some other stuff out for the kitchen, and I don't have a terrified kitty, so happy for both of us!

Apricot's First Christmas Tree

Today is Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. This is the day I officially start Christmas by putting up my Christmas tree.

Last year I didn't have Christmas because Pippin was gone and it was his favorite holiday. I didn't want to have it without him. I'm not sure but that I didn't make a mistake, skipping Christmas last year. However, since no strange man in a blue box has showed up to let me go back in time, I have to live with my decision!

But this year I wanted to have Christmas. I just didn't know how my scaredy cat would respond. I didn't even know how to explain Christmas to him. The tree part. What, should I tell him I'm bringing in a tree? No, it's a fake tree, not a real one. And I put lights on it. And hang things on it. It's all perfectly logical. And impossible to explain. I might as well try to explain the computer to him.

I got the giant green bag that holds the tree during the year out of the shed and put it on the back porch. Apricot didn't even let me get to the point of bringing the tree sections inside. He saw the green bag on the porch through the patio doors (from across the room in the hallway entrance!) and skedaddled into the bedroom and under the headboard.

Sigh. Well, it'll be easier without having to be slow and careful around him. I set up the tree, bringing all the pieces in and stacking them in order (hey, I got it right the first time for once) and getting the branches spread out. I don't have to attach branches to the tree like some fake trees, but the top ones get a bit scrunched together during the year.

And I got out the tree skirt and the lights and a few household non-tree decorations from the closet I keep those in. I was grateful for Apricot's disappearing act here because I'd forgotten that the closet the Christmas stuff is in (minus the ornaments) is the same closet where the vacuum cleaner monster lives. Oops.

I played Christmas music and circled the tree with the lights, starting at the bottom and going around and around to the top. I actually got myself a smidge dizzy doing it, too! That's never happened before.

I didn't put the ornaments on. I'll do that later. I want Apricot to get used to the tree before I start hanging things all over it.

He still hadn't come out yet. I was starting to think I'd scared him but good and he wasn't coming out for days again. So I went to that side of the bed and sat down on the floor and played my phone games that he's used to the music from.

After a while he got up, stretched, and sauntered out from under the headboard. Inside I was rejoicing mightily but I stayed calm outside and expressed my delight in less bouncy ways than I wanted to!

He knew something was up in the living room (how could he not, with all the noises I'd been making, bumping and unzipping and popping lids off storage boxes and so forth). He looked back to make sure I was coming too, and then slowly made his way into the living room to check out the new thing that I'd told him was a really fun thing that I enjoyed.

He's actually made slower journeys down the hall (when I got the big cat trees delivered, for example). He paused briefly when he saw the tree, and then went over to investigate it. (Whoo hoo! Investigation instead of hiding!)

Something is not right here.
This is very strange.

At first he was hesitant and very cautious, in case, I suppose, the tree was alive and might take offense at being sniffed.

The tree branches got thoroughly sniffed.

Then he got more confident, when no tree attack proved imminent, and went around and around, sniffing bits of the tree and the tree skirt as he went. Pippin loved to lie on the tree skirt and watch the world go around him. Unlike the rest of the house which has had a year and two months to "air out," these things have been packed away.

So I think part of Apricot's fascination was the ancient smell of another cat. A smell he's probably familiar with as a faint part of the house, but not a smell that's been very strong up till now.

(Yeah, when I was putting the tree up I found a small clump of underfur caught on the bottom branches of the tree from when Pippin was rubbing his back against the branches. I had to have a moment to collect myself at that point.)

What's in there?

Finally he got bold enough to see where the tree was keeping its legs. He poked his face down into the center hole of the tree skirt and peered around for a moment, seeing the metal structure the tree supports itself on.

The tree had been thoroughly investigated and deemed not-a-danger, so he left it alone and went about his normal morning routine ... I guess. I haven't been home enough during weekdays to know what his normal routine is. But he seemed quite content. 

He likes to be in the same room I am. (This is "cat" for "I like you.") I went into the kitchen for something or other and he followed, so I picked up a christmas cat toy that is in the kitchen and offered to play.

I didn't even realize he'd licked his nose
until I looked at the series of photos
I'd been taking. Apparently it was a
very quick lick.

So we played with the toy for a little while. 

The toy (it's a "J" shaped stuffed letter with a glittery stuffed ball attached to it) has a short funny tale attached. I got Apricot some more ear drops (remember he had that yeast infection that's a recurring thing? Well, it recurred) that were special anti-fungal only and had to be special-ordered from a mail pharmacy in Arizona called, appropriately enough, RoadRunner Pharmacy. 

When the box came, it was a large "one-size-ships-all" kind of box with a lot of packing material and a tiny bottle. I'd brought it in with everything else that day, and I'd heard something softly go jingle-jingle but couldn't figure out what I was carrying that would go "jingle-jingle." I had my phone at the top of my suspect list.

Nope. Turns out it wasn't the phone. The mail-order pharmacy had included this tiny Christmas-themed toy in the bottom of the box. Good thing I took the box and packing materials apart for recycling purposes or I would have tossed it out! The jingle bell was on the toy, but neither I nor Apricot appreciated it (since it was loud once it wasn't muffled by packing material) and I took it off the toy so we could play with it without wincing. 

The really funny part is that the toy was made by the pet company that my company bought last year! We get an extremely limited selection of toys from them in our company store every so often.

I got a grab on-camera!
And a blurry toy.

Well, so far so good with Christmas this year. I wonder how he'll take to me putting ornaments on the tree ...

PS. In case you are wondering how I plan to deal with Christmas + kittens, they don't come until the week after Christmas, and I plan to put all the Christmas stuff away the weekend before they come home!

Diverting Apricot (again)

So I got a new settee for the living room and have been enjoying it very much. Apricot has, more than once, "pretended" to scratch on the back corner that sticks out into the living room. He hasn't put his claws out, instead pulling his paws down the sides of the corner.

Before I read the Way of Cats blog, I would have tried to discourage this behavior while being intensely puzzled as to why he wanted to scratch on my new furniture instead of the myriad of scratching surfaces available to him.

Now I know why. It's an important place to me, judging by the amount of time I spend in it. He wants to be a part of that. Cats have scent glands in their paws the same as they do on the sides of their face, and scratching not only exercises their muscles and pulls the old claw sheaths off, it also scent marks the spot as "theirs."

Apricot apparently knew I didn't want him actually scratching the settee, but he wanted to have his scent mark on it too. (Just by sitting in it repeatedly I've made it smell like me. And no, I can't smell either my scent or his on it. I'm ultra-sensitive to odors, but cats make me look nose-blind.)

Well, here's what you do. You set up an approved scratching surface right next to the object that he's attempting to scratch that you don't want him to. So I got a little tiny scratching post / hammock combo so that not only can he scratch it, he can also be in the hammock right next to the settee if he likes.

I'm thinking to the future when there's three cats. The two Maine Coons should be too big for the hammock, leaving it a perfect place for Apricot, should he want a place that they can't use. (I say "should" because in the reviews, a couple people said their big cat just wedged themselves into the hammock anyway, despite technically not fitting!)

It worked like a charm. Apricot scratched on it within an hour of me setting it up. (Given his wary response to anything new in the house, this is marvelous.)

He looked at me first, as if to check, and when I said, "yes, that's for you to scratch, that's a good boy" he went after it with enthusiasm.

The edge of the settee is barely visible to the right

He now scratches on both the posts quite happily, and I praise him lots when he does it, and now my brand new furniture is out of danger and my cat is happy, so everybody wins!

The Visit: Aftermath

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

On the drive home I saw a large cloud that looked like an elephant. Thanks to the marvels of modern communication devices, I took a picture of it with my phone before it blew into another shape. The wind was quite brisk and was trying to help me change lanes sometimes.

It's a racing elephant. See, it's streamlined!

So I get home, and I smell of all the cats at Ginger's house. All my stuff I took with me smells of her place and her cats.

Apricot's reaction was sort of in the middle. He was very interested in these new smells. Intensely interested, to the point where he didn't want his usual "come home cuddle." (Much to my disappointment.) 

He didn't show any signs of aggressive displeasure, like backing off or hissing. He did prefer that I stop bothering him so he could investigate in peace, even waiting until I left the kitchen before going back in and sniffing more.

Something smells funny

And although he let me pet him and seemed to enjoy it like he usually does, he did get distracted by the smells on me. So I changed pants and took off the top shirt layer and washed my hands, and that helped.

Now he is on the top of the highest cat tree where he often goes to rest or think when he's been challenged by an event, so I think he's up there assimilating things and thinking them over.

This was the goal, after all. I wanted to introduce the scents so they would be not completely unfamiliar when the kittens come home. I will go visit one more time before they come home, so he'll smell them again without meeting them. And next time I go visit I plan to take the washcloths that I brought to her house this time (they had Apricot scent on them from him sleeping on them) and rub each kitten down with one, and let him smell those individually, instead of the mass "FELINE" scent he got today.

I'm not really looking forward to the integration process. I'm looking forward to after that, when everybody is (hopefully) happy together!

...

Ah ha. I finally put two and two together and realized what's got Apricot so spooked (I mean, he's only mildly spooked since he's not under the headboard, but still). He was mostly interested in the stuff that stayed in my car the whole time. I couldn't figure it out until I remembered I'd accidentally left my car window down.

The car was in their garage (an extremely large place!) where there is also a breeding cage for Luke and his current paramour. Luke is an intact male. They have a distinctive scent and I don't mean the spraying the walls scent. It's just a smell that is strong enough that I can smell it. Which means it's entirely reasonable that it got onto the stuff in the car through the open window.

An intact male of Luke's age and size is a danger to a young cat such as Apricot would have been when Apricot was roaming loose, before the shelter. I'm sure he learned that lesson (stay away from the older, unfixed male cats) quite early on. So for my stuff to come back smelling of an intact male would have been quite disturbing.

With that viewpoint in mind, it's amazing Apricot responded as calmly as he did.

The Visit: Photos: Colby, Thimble, and Myself

Ginger has lots of experience taking photos of people and kittens, so she had me sit on the end of a sofa (a "fainting couch" if you're wondering why it doesn't have the arm of a sofa at the end I'm sitting on) so that I was against the background of her plants. 

Yeah, not only can she make lovely kittens, but she's got a thumb so green you'd swear her house was in the middle of a tropical jungle.

Thimble in my lap. I'm not actually holding
him there; my hands are in motion petting him.

We did pictures with Thimble first, and
then she goes and gets Colby
and hands him to me,
while I've still got Thimble.
I was having a challenge kitten-wrangling!

Later, when Thimble
snuggled up against my shoulder.
I really liked this part!

Thimble and me. I'm doing
 the cat kiss blinks at him.
They all respond quite well to that.
Cinder seemed quite pleased that
I knew how to do "cat kisses." 

Colby finally getting un-distracted
by everything else
long enough to look up at me.
He's easily distracted, more so than his brother!

His (Colby's) eyes aren't changing
to green like everybody else's.
Ginger says she doesn't know
what he's planning for eye color!

The Visit: Photos: Size Comparison

So I have this thing called a Car-Go for the kittens when I bring them home. It goes in the back seat of the car and is like a big carrier. I brought it so they could get used to it. When I visit in mid-December I'll bring it home again, minus kitten contents, and Apricot can investigate the smells. Then when I bring it home with kittens at the end of December, he'll have already associated those smells with that Car-Go.

Here is Thimble on top of a rabbit Batter toy. (Apricot has a small version that is a mouse. I was trying to get him a rabbit and got the large size by mistake. But the kittens will be just the right size for it when they grow more.)

Thimble attacking the Batter toy.

Now you met Wally if you read the previous Visit post. He's the size that Colby will be. Thimble will be bigger. Keep that in mind.

Here is Wally in the same Car-Go for comparison purposes.

Wally investigating the places Apricot face-marked

Seems incredible that they grow so much, but human babies are so much tinier than grown up versions, so I guess it's not really incredible. Just an everyday miracle we're so used to we don't even wonder at it anymore.

Also, look at Thimble's tiny tail versus Wally's lovely plume. I wonder when they start developing that part?

The Visit: Overview

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Today I got to see my kittens for the first time in person.

My first impression is that of terminal adorableness. They are so cute! I've never been around such small kittens (relatively speaking) before. Young, how about that. The youngest kitten I'd interacted with was Pippin at 4 months. So these little ones at a month and two weeks were quite the youngest I've met.

They are so soft and fuzzy. And also the ends are prickly. I don't think they can retract their claws yet, and they aren't heavy enough for the claws to do much damage (I did get one minor scratch).

They were hanging out in the bathroom. Ginger lured them out into the bedroom and we both sat down on the floor.

To my surprise, Colby came right to me. He seems to be very outgoing but also easily distracted (I think that part describes all kittens though) and while he wanted to be petted and played with, he also lost interest and dived back into the kitten group (which sounds like they were all together, which they weren't).

Thimble held back a little and took a while to warm up to me, but after he did, he was the one who ended up in my hands the most often of the two.

The others all have names now, too. The one the other couple picked they've named Hero. Ginger is keeping Wolf, the no-white brown tabby. She named him that because he's always by himself and has been that way since day one (so it's a very good thing that I couldn't get him!). The little girl is named Spice to go with her big sister (possibly genetically related but possibly not) that the couple getting Spice had gotten last year. They'd named the first one Sugar, so this one is Spice.

Back to the youngest kittens: they felt so very fragile. I had to "calibrate" my hands to make sure I wasn't using too much force or too little. Like holding an egg. It took me about half an hour of picking them up gingerly and putting them down to get the hang of it, but then it was lovely fun.

We played with them with a wand toy that has five strands hanging from it and the strands each end with wooden beads. If you hold it just right each bead group spreads out from the others and you can get all five kittens involved at the same time. Of course, the kittens found each other's beads more interesting than their own, so it's not like it was one strand per kitten.

It was challenging to get Thimble to play because he'd step back and let the others rampage through the space he was just in, and that meant he wasn't getting a chance at a bead strand.

I have this vision of people coming to my house (that didn't meet them as kittens) and Colby comes out and they're all like, he's so friendly and so very big, as they're petting him. Colby is going to be the smaller of the two. Ginger estimates a final weight of 17-19 pounds on him. Thimble is probably going to be 22-25 pounds, she thinks. He's also got this massive head already, and simply looks big. So my visitors are exclaiming delightedly over the friendly out-going Colby, when in comes Thimble, ambling in slowly, like he did when I first met him, only his full size. And my visitors take a slow step back and go, "that's a cat?" and I'll be all, "don't worry, he's a sweetie."

Thimble in the back,
Colby in the front.

I also discovered something I found surprising. I decided to see how they'd take to an over the shoulder hold, the way I used to carry Pippin. Apricot doesn't like that kind of hold. He prefers to be held in front, so he can see out. I thought it was because of his feral background that he wanted to see what was around him in front.

Nope. Turns out that might be part of it, but it's also just a preference. Colby likes to be held the same way, in front, supported by both arms. That makes it difficult to pet him and hold him at the same time!

But Thimble ... I put him up against my shoulder, and he snuggled right in. He even inched himself up so his front legs were over my shoulder and his upper chest was right on top of my shoulder, which is exactly the way Pippin would do. (And when Pippin was frightened, he'd wrap one long paw around the other side of my neck, holding on to me. Sometimes he could hold so tight, just his muscles, no claws, that it got challenging to get a full breath!)

Shoulder cat!

Ginger very sweetly took pictures of me and Thimble and Colby, because it's difficult to take selfies when your hands are occupied with sweet fuzzy kittens.

I've been doing arm and shoulder strengthening exercises since I met Ginger and her cat family back in June. I wasn't actually expecting a large improvement. It's only me holding my walking stick out in front of me (and to the sides) and holding the pose for a count of forty (I'm edging up on fifty) while I'm out doing my daily walk, and repeating each hold for ten times (because I have ten fingers to count with).

But when I got a 28 pound box of litter for setting up the third litterbox, I was surprised at how not-difficult it was to get in and out of the grocery cart. So when I visited this time, I wanted to lift Wally again.

Wally is the neutered boy who is a pet cat and lives in the house. Wally is the benevolent uncle cat to the kittens. He loves kittens. He's apparently got good memories of being a kitten and loves to watch over them. While they were playing on the floor with the wand toy with Ginger and me, Wally was on the bed, his long arms stretched out over the edge and crossed comfortably, and a sappy look on his face. He's funny. Thimble is likely going to resemble him a lot, at least physically.

Wally is the one where I can put my hand on his head between his ears and my fingers don't touch the ears on either side. Big broad head. So he weighs (Ginger's estimate) between 17 and 19 pounds. Last time I visited, I could lift him, but it felt very unsure and he thought so too, because he gave me a "please put me down before you drop me" look.

This time I lifted him and it was easy. I could even hold him for a short while before putting him down. I am quite impressed with my progress!

I am going to put more pictures and commentary in separate posts. The day was very busy and I'm sure I'm forgetting things.

Tuesday's Goofy Photos

Well, I found on Sunday night that the high-white brown tabby was my Thimble, and the black and white was my Colby. Tuesday after a rotten day at work I came home to a load of photoshoot pictures in my email of my two kittens together (and some separate). These are the ones I liked the very best of all the photos.

Go get it! No, you first!

Colby's on the left now.
Thimble is very paws-aware.
You'll notice he uses his paws a lot more.

Thimble is on the left now. Pointing again.

They've switched again. Colby left, Thimble right.

This photo shows their relative sizes very well.
See their paws are at the same spot toward us?
That means the size of Thimble being bigger
than Colby is not a camera illusion. He
really is that much bigger.

This needs someone to give it a LOLCat
caption. I love how Thimble's just going
with the yawn, and Colby seems somewhat
horrified at his behavior.

Colby looking sweet
(which he can be)

Thimble wants picked up ...
or that's what that look would tell me.

Well, it is 8:30 on Wednesday night. I have been writing about my visit to see them, and catching up on other smaller posts (like this one) and Apricot has been by repeatedly to tell me it's time for me to go to bed. (He's so weird. He doesn't go to bed with me. He doesn't even go to sleep at the same time. Why he's so interested in my bedtime is beyond me. No, he doesn't get treats when I'm getting ready for bed. But if I'm not getting ready for bed by 8, he'll come in and do drive by "hey, you, notice the time?" checks. So I'll go to bed.

It's Thanksgiving tomorrow. And I have a lot to be thankful for this year.

Apricot Achieves Lap

This happened Sunday night while I was waiting to find out which kittens were mine. (I wrote it Wednesday, but I'm making it say "sunday" on the publish date so it's in chronological order.)

I was watching Iron Man, of all movies for this to happen during. I mean, it's surround sound and several gun battles, so there are sounds of shots coming from all around the room. Gotta be unnerving to a cat who doesn't understand human technology.

Apricot had been hiding off and on all day as the thunderstorm cells came through. So perhaps he felt he hadn't had enough time with me. In any case, he comes in after the movie had just started and jumped up on the soft with me.

I thought he was going to curl up with his head against my hip, because he'd done that during a tv show the Monday before. I had my hand ready to pet him once he settled.

Well, my hand was in the way of what he intended. So he just nudged it aside, clambered onto my lap, all of him, and fell asleep.

He wasn't sleeping deeply, because he was also purring the whole time. He stayed for about 45 minutes. Which was amazing to me. It's the longest he's spent in direct contact with me, ever.

And then after he left, he came back and curled up on the hammock on the floor next to the sofa that I can reach over the edge and pet him. He stayed there for a while, left, and then came back and got onto my lap again.

Only this time he wasn't stretched out along my legs; this time he curled up against my stomach, pressing himself against me. So I obligingly hugged him (gently, of course). This only lasted his usual five minutes or so.

Of course I don't have pictures. It's dark except for the tv screen in there. But I remember his weight on my legs and the purring rumbling through my veins. I do so love it when a cat chooses to be a lap cat!

These Are My Kittens

Sunday, Nov 23, 2014

I just found out which of the three kittens are mine. Luckily I've just decided on names for them, too, so here they are:

These will be my two kittens.

He'll get called Colby for short.
(Thank you to my friend whose grandson
is named Colby without the "Jack" for
letting me name my cat Colby, too.)

 Hopefully I can resist trying to remove the spot on his face ... nah, it'll be like my sister-in-law's cat who has specks of black on her white front legs. Every time you notice them you try to rub the dirt off, and realize that no, whoops, that's just her. So let's amend that to hopefully he'll learn to enjoy having his whisker pad rubbed!

And he'll get called Thimble for short.
Thimbleberries are an old word for raspberries,
and Thimble is mostly because he's the
2nd largest in the litter ...

I've asked for personality descriptions. I don't know much about them as people, just the way they look.

In Which I Fix a Picture Frame and Apricot is Okay

Last Friday I was so tired from work that when I was home I wasn't too precise in my motions. This ended up in me somehow lifting a picture frame off its hook on the wall and having it fall, crash, to the floor in the bathroom.

Apricot, like most cats, thinks bathroom time is fascinating and likes to hang out while I'm in there. So he was right there when the picture fell. He skittered off, quite startled, but came back almost at once. I apologized wearily for making startling noises, and was in the process of picking up the picture frame.

Luckily this picture frame is one I got after I learned the hard way that if you are using a command adhesive picture frame hook to keep your picture on the wall, you do not get glass. So it's either the unbreakable glass or a clear glass-like plastic in this frame, I forget which, but it didn't break.

The frame, on the other hand, had a weird thing where one side of it appeared to be coming off. Later, sitting on the settee, having had my supper and rested a bit, I was actually able to take it apart, figure out what had happened in the fall, and fix it. I was quite proud of myself. I hardly ever am able to fix things like that and end up having to spend money to buy a new one.

While I was examining it (and fixing it) on the settee, Apricot came over and checked me (and it) out from the floor, and seemed quite okay with it all. I was rather expecting him to see the thing-that-made-sudden-noise in my hands and decide the other end of the living room might be a good place to be right now. But he didn't. Treated me just like he does when I've got the laptop in my lap.

This happened at another time.
He decided to see if the settee arm
would work for being there. I think
he decided it was too narrow....

Retrospective: The Glass Breakage Story

When I first moved to my house, I'd never really done a lot of picture hanging before. I learned that with drywall, it's a pain in the neck. You have to have a drill, and a special drywall screw, and you can still mess it up so the thing won't hold.

And then I discovered Command Adhesive hooks. These are wonderful for lightweight picture frames. I knew better than to use them for large (more than 11x14) pictures, but smaller ones are great.

I thought.

I had a pencil drawing of a horse that a lady drew for me when I was a kid and in love with horses. It's an awesome pencil sketch and one of my treasures. I had it in a frame, behind glass, hanging up on the wall right outside the master bedroom's bathroom curtain. (I changed the door to a curtain since you can close the bedroom's door for privacy if there's more than just you in the house, and that way the door arc doesn't make the bedroom even smaller). There's a blanket chest against the wall on the other side, leaving a narrow pathway to walk through between the blanket chest and the (other) wall, the one the picture was hanging from.

One night I woke up from a dream of hearing glass shatter. It was one of those things where you're not quite sure if you dreamed it or if it actually happened and you incorporated it into the dream right as the sound woke you up. But I was quite convinced it came from the right side of the bed, the side opposite to the bathroom. I shrugged and made a mental note to check in the morning. Pippin didn't usually go on that side of the bedroom so I wasn't too worried about him (besides, he mostly slept through the night with me on the bed).

When I got up in the morning, I checked all the pictures on that wall. Nothing was broken and there was no glass on the carpet. I shrugged and figured that it was a dream, after all.

This was before I started walking an hour every morning. The bedroom isn't well lit (what's the point?) and once I'd decided the glass break sound was a dream, I stopped paying attention to the floor and walls.

Normal morning procedure involved me going into the little bathroom off the master bedroom through that narrow corridor and cleaning the litterbox in the shower. (I use the bigger bathroom to take showers in, so this shower is where the litterbox lives.) I do the other stuff one does in the morning in a bathroom, come back out, put clothes on for work, eat breakfast and leave for work.

Pippin's morning routine involved getting up, eating his own breakfast, using the litterbox before I left, and settling into the pink room for his morning nap. I discovered quite late in his life that the reason he didn't mind going on long trips with me without a litterbox in the car was that he was used to spending the entire day not using the bathroom. He wouldn't use the litterbox unless I was in the building.

(The last surgery he had, to remove a skin cancer tumor, is one that they like to keep him overnight. I was worried about that whole bathroom issue and talked the surgeon into considering letting me take him home. The surgeon did the surgery an hour and a half before he normally started surgeries, and by the time they were almost ready to close that evening, he was willing to let me take Pippin home. When I came to pick him up, the surgeon said to me in that voice that always makes me laugh, the one where the person sounds amazed that I actually knew what I was talking about, he said "you were right, he didn't use the litterbox all day." And when I got Pippin home, I had enough experience to know to put him down in the litterbox, where he promptly relaxed his muscles and pee'd enough to make a monster litter ball.)

So anyway, back to the glass story. You've already guessed what happened. That glass breakage sound was real; it just came from the left side of the bed instead of the right side. The picture of the horse had fallen straight down and hit the floor. It was carpet, but apparently that didn't matter.

The impact shattered the glass lengthwise. It was an 8.5 x 11 picture frame, so that meant the glass was in 11" long shards. The glass had fallen out of the frame and scattered across that narrow space we both had to walk through. Twice.

I came home that afternoon from work and found the glass shards on the carpet.

To this day I have no idea how both Pippin and I managed to walk through that area, two times each, without cutting a foot to the bone, or even getting the slightest scratch. There was no room for a human foot between the shards. Pippin might have been able to, if he was paying attention ... although he was usually as sleepy and bumbling as I was in the mornings. But still. There is no way I should have been able to make it through that space twice without cutting myself.

My only explanation involves quantum physics. I didn't know it was there; I didn't observe it being there; so until it was observed, it both did and did not exist in the space.

I learned from this experience and now all my Command Adhesive-hung pictures have either no glass or glass that doesn't break / clear plastic!

Diverting Apricot

Sunday, Nov 23, 2014

My scared little kitty is currently hiding under the bed. So I checked the weather forecast and sure enough it has "storm" lightning through the raining clouds. Even though there isn't any storm outside, just rain. He's never been wrong before ...

So when there isn't weather about, he is becoming bolder and wanting to explore more. This started with asking to be up on the bathroom counter. I don't mind him on the bathroom counter and I told him so, but he still wasn't sure.

He looked up at the counter top and back at me, up at the counter top and back at me. Repeat until I finish what I'm doing and can get up. (We are in the bathroom, after all.) I asked him if he wanted some help, and he looked up at the counter top and back at me. He knows what I mean by that (help = pick him up), and I shrugged inside and figured, okay, we'll try it.

I slowly scooped him up and put him on the counter. He barely even gave the fact that I was carrying him for a moment a passing consideration and began exploring his new realm. I was quite pleased. He's learning that being picked up can get him to interesting places that he wants to be, not just scary places like the vet's office counters.

He has jumped up there on his own, once that I saw. But he doesn't like to. I think due to the bathroom configuration there isn't enough room for him to get a running leap at it, and he doesn't like to launch to that height from a standing start. It's rather interesting, because Pippin was the same way, only in Pippin's case it was because he couldn't see the place he was going to land, and I'm really not sure what it is in Apricot's case. I'm just speculating about the amount of energy required to jump to that height being objectionable to him. I mean, I've met a cat who liked to jump (from the floor) to the top of an open door. That cat had to not only reach the top of the door, but he had to go higher and come down onto the door edge, otherwise he'd just push the hinged door away from himself.

Yesterday Apricot decided that if the bathroom counter was interesting, the kitchen counter would be even better.

I don't want him on the kitchen counter and I told him so, calmly, while he looked longingly at it from the floor. He even put his paws up on the cabinet doors, trying to get tall enough to look over the edge. I offered no help, just stood there and kept saying that he wasn't allowed up there.

After a while I decided to put into practice a lesson I learned from the Way of Cats blog. If your cat is doing something you don't want him to (or in this case, contemplating it) you distract them. Especially young cats, like Apricot, have a short attention span, and distracting him will often work to put the entire concept out of his head.

There's generally a toy within reach no matter where in the house I am, and the kitchen is no exception. I gathered up a puffball string toy and distracted Apricot from the counters quite successfully.

However, he'd been really interested. Another thing I learned from Way of Cats is expanding their territory. He wanted to expand his territory up onto the counters. I didn't want him to do that, but I could let him expand his territory into a different area. Way of Cats suggested opening closets that are normally closed, but the opportunity came yesterday with a drawer I was putting clothes into.

My bed is extremely high in part because it has drawers underneath. Since I do laundry on Saturdays, I was putting some clothes into one of the drawers. Apricot came in and expressed interest instead of turning around and leaving. (He often leaves because the drawers make noise when they slide in and out.)

I certainly don't mind him being in drawers (there's cat hair on my clothes just from wearing them; there's very little point in trying to keep cat hair off of them while they're in closets or drawers). So I asked if he would like to be in.

He allowed as to how he might want to explore it.

 The drawers have a bed skirt that cover them, and when I open the drawers I have to lift up the bed skirt. The bed frame itself has a little lip that I can hook the bed skirt into, which is how it's being held off the drawer here.

This is fun!

Even let me get a close-up picture.

He hasn't expressed an interest in the kitchen counters since. Perhaps this whole diversion tactic and expanding territory thing really does work? Or I'll have to do it periodically ... 

He didn't stay in the drawer for too long, which is nice, because I wanted to have it closed eventually and if I walk off and leave it open, I have a tendency to forget I've done so and then end up tripping over it. Trust me. Drawers and cabinet doors have it in for my shins!

Holding Apricot

Thursday, Nov 20, 2014

Last week on Wednesday we achieved a new milestone. Apricot does not like to be held while you're standing up. This makes sense because the only times anybody held him at the shelter like that, it was to take him to get something medical done. He really really doesn't like you to walk while you're holding him.

I've been slowly working on this. It's a deeply ingrained aversion and will take years to overcome ... if it ever goes away completely. He may always flinch a little when I pick him up. I'm starting the process by simply picking him up and then putting him back down exactly where he was. I've been doing this for months now.

He's progressed to the point where he doesn't always want to be down right away. Sometimes he lets me hold him for longer. As in seconds longer, but every little bit helps. And occasionally he'll let me hold him for minutes at a time.

Last Wednesday he let me hold him for long enough that I had to put him down not because he asked to be down, but because my muscle strength was running out. Now I'm a bit of a weakling, so it's not like we stood there for hours. It was probably five to ten minutes.

It helped that I was standing in front of the patio doors at the time. He's discovered that he has a different viewpoint from my arms than he does from the floor, and since he really likes watching his kitty tv, this is fascinating enough that it overcomes the aversion of a human holding him.

What was really encouraging was that we'd actually started about five to ten feet away from the patio doors, and I had picked him up and then walked over to the doors. He wanted to be down the minute I started moving, but as it only took seconds to get to the doors with their enchanting view, he didn't have time to get upset enough or frantic enough to not be distracted by the activity outside the patio doors.

Now he's "backslid" since then; we're back to moments only. That's understandable, though. When you do something for the first time that really scares you, even if everything turns out okay, you have to have time to think about it and gather your courage before you try it again. I can be patient. With this, at least! Like I said, it'll probably take years.

Kitty Cuddles when I get home from work
can sometimes lead to sleepy kitty!

Then this past Monday he came in while I was watching Once Upon a Time and got up on the couch, curled up with his head against my hip, and stayed there for the last quarter or so of the episode. I've been wanting him to do that sort of thing for just ages.

Of course, just like with the holding, he has now become skittish and unwilling to get up on the sofa while I'm watching tv. I'll grant you that the crime shows I've been watching since Monday are a little less "cat friendly" since they have sudden bang sounds and things like that. He will, eventually, get used to it.

He may get used to it faster if the kittens spend time with me while watching tv, just out of jealousy. I can do that too!

The kittens are six weeks old today. Another six weeks and I can bring them home. Another four days and I'll know which two I can bring home!

Two of these three ...

I Don't Believe in Signs

Tuesday, Nov 11, 2014

For the better part of a decade or more, I've been carrying around on my keychain a single charm. It looks like a mini-license plate and says "I love my cat" with a heart where the word 'love' is. The rest of the printing, the part that made it look like a mini license plate, has long since rubbed off, but the "I love my cat" part was engraved into it, so that part endured all these years.

I remember very distinctly standing in front of the display, choosing the one I would get. There were lots and lots of different sayings on the plates; names (but not mine--they never have mine), professions, like "doctor", and other "I 'heart'" stuff. There were two cat ones. "I love my cat" and "I love my cats".

I remember thinking that I never intended to have multiple cats again, and I only had the one now (Pippin) so I should get the one that said "I love my cat."

My memories are usually rather vague and fuzzy (even when a cat isn't in them) and are one of the reasons for this blog--it's to help me remember what happened. The only reason I know the Retrospective tales is because I've told those tales many times to many different people. And sometimes a photograph will jog my memory. So it's interesting to me how distinct my memory is of choosing this charm.

Today the corner broke, opening the hole that let me keep it on my keychain, and it fell into my hand. I could tuck it into my scrapbook-photo album, but I can never keep it on my keychain again.

Today, when I'm less than eight weeks away from having a multiple cat household for the first time in fifteen years.

I really don't believe in mystic signs.

Really I don't.

The Week in Pictures

 Sunday, Nov 9, 2014

The dark is here and my S.A.D. is already in full swing. This makes me want to hibernate and not communicate with anyone, and my eagerness to blog has a tendency to go downhill.

So I thought I'd try something different. In this post I'm going to put a series of pictures from last week and tell you what's going on in each, and we'll see how long winded I get.

Apricot on his kitchen outpost last Sunday

I got two short sitting stools with padded tops for the kitchen. The idea is that the cats can sit on them and watch me working with food on the counter while not actually being on the counter in my way. Hopefully it will get them out from underfoot as well. And they are much more convenient for a driveby petting or head kiss/bump too!

Apricot had to be coaxed up a few times, but lately I've been turning around to find him up on the kitchen outpost instead of right behind me on the floor (he cured me of stepping back without turning around months ago). This is quite lovely and I let him know how pleased I am. The more attention he gets while on the outpost, the more likely he is to use it!

- - - - -

Upside down, the silly boy.

On Monday I was very tired and Apricot echoes my mood, so the feather toy play was extremely unexciting due to both of us being lackadaisical about it. I ended up calling my mom while sitting on the ottoman next to the chair, letting the feathers rest in the braided rug basket.

Apricot came over and jumped in the basket on top of the feathers, and then rolled over so as to (apparently) pin the feathers to the bottom of the basket underneath him. You can see the black string running into the basket with him.

I had to put my poor mom on hold while I took pictures. But you see, this is the first time Apricot has been "safe" enough to go with a full upside-down pose in a basket that if you remember, he was first too afraid of to even go near. Look at that fuzzy tummy!

- - - - -

Apricot's back end

This was taken last Wednesday. I love how he has his back feet almost primly crossed, like a genteel lady. When the other end, inside the tunnel, is busy attacking the shadow of the feathers on the tunnel's top!

Since the tunnel remains a favored spot to play with the feathers, I have been getting this view quite a lot lately. 

- - - - -

Kitten pinwheel

On Saturday, two of my friends and I went to a Christmas craft fair in a nearby town. On the way there (I wasn't driving), my phone went ding and I found Mrs. McFadden had sent me video and a picture. The kittens were four weeks old on Thursday and their teeth are starting to emerge. This sort of causes weaning to happen because mommy Cinder is quite motivated to get them to stop nursing at this point. Anybody who's had sharp kitten teeth sunk into their skin can sympathize with her!

I think this is so funny, three of the kittens in a rotation. We're only missing the fourth part of the pinwheel! Cinder is helping the weaning process along by making them eat their vegetables before they can have dessert. I mean, she's making them try eating their milk-replacer-softened kibble before she lets them nurse. She's such a good mommy.

- - - - -

Max has melted

Saturday night we were at my brother's place. Last year his downstairs chimney had been blocked by something and wouldn't pull a draft so the whole winter he could only have a fire in the upstairs fireplace oven. This year he'd gone to great lengths to clean out the chimney and the downstairs fireplace stove worked a treat! It had flames dancing and everything. (The upstairs version burns too hot to have flames. It's a disappointment that way.)

The sofa is directly opposite the fireplace and it attracted nearly all the cats. Max was in his traditional spot on the sofa but he was all "melted" from the heat, sprawled out and toasty. You could even pet his belly without getting nommed on. Well, if you weren't the fourth person to try it, anyway!

- - - - -

What's out there?

I have started sitting for short periods of time on the litter box's box in front of the patio window. There is room for Apricot to sit beside me. The reason I've started sitting there is because Apricot loves this way of being together. He looks out the window and I randomly pet him or play with my phone. 

Today when I took this photo I had walked over to the box, said Apricot's name to attract his attention, and sat down. He immediately got up from where he was in the living room and raced over and up onto the box so he could be beside me. I find it so very sweet when he does this sort of thing!

- - - - -

Here are the kittens, at four weeks old. I do so love getting kitten videos from Mrs. McFadden. The kittens are stronger and more aware of each other as playmates now. Watching them play together makes me very glad that I'm getting two instead of only one. Just imagine poor Apricot if he had one kitten in the house wanting to play with him constantly!