The Monster in the Laundry Closet

Thimble had discovered a monster living in the laundry closet, and his human mama seemed completely unaware of it. The thing most resembled a snake, although it was nearly bigger around than he was. It had silver skin and was skeletal, with ribs sticking out all down its length.

This was most alarming and must be dealt with at once. It seemed to be trying to get into the big box that his human mama reached into while playing with her removable fur. He tried to check and see if it was coming through, but his mama sprayed him with water when he put his head inside, letting him know it was a forbidden place.

Well, if he couldn't make sure she was safe from that end, he was just going to have to muster up his courage and kill it. It was dreadfully scary, but he did it. He bit down into its neck right behind where it had its head stuck into the big white box, and he ripped a hole in its skin.

To his astonishment, it was hollow, with a kind of fluff coating the inside of the skin. Warm, moist breath exuded from the break ... he must have bitten through its windpipe, then, instead of the preferred cat's target of breaking the spine. But he didn't think anything could live with a hole that big in its skin, however strange the being, and so he retreated to let it die on its own.

***

I was hanging up wet laundry on the extendable rack afixed above the dryer, when I noticed a bit of dryer floof attached (mostly by friction) to one of the rods. The dryer was running at the moment, and the floof waved back and forth, the motion attracting my attention.

But the dryer filter thingy comes out of the door, which is in the front. How did a bit of dryer floof get back there? I leaned over the dryer to look down at the back of it, and saw a great gaping hole in my dryer vent that leads to the wall where it then vents to the outside. Or that's the idea, anyway. Now it was mostly venting out the hole.

I sighed. Thimble! Do you have to chew on everything?

To my own astonishment, I managed to be able to turn the dryer around in place inside the laundry closet. To my further astonishment, I was able to figure out how the vent was attached and un-attach it, trim the broken part off, and reattach it with only a trip to my parents' house for a wire cutters as a hitch in the plan to fix the dryer vent.

No harm done, essentially, but now I am keeping the laundry doors shut. This has led me to the conundrum of how to dry the inside of the washer, since I can't leave its front-loading door open and still close the laundry doors. If anyone has any clever ideas, I'd love to hear them!

Leftover April Photos

An assortment of kitty photos without any long stories attached. Most of these got into my Instagram feed ...

Thimble's after a wand toy 

Thimble dangling a wand toy in his paws

Thimble teething on a cardboard box
provided for the purpose

Colby, my dapper gentleman,
reclining on his puzzle box

Colby's trying to mail his brother
to Australia!

Apricot's half hearted attempt to grab a toy
(Almost there -- can you push it toward me a bit?)

Apricot, again lazy,
looks underneath to see what
Colby is doing.

Thimble using the curtain as a coverlet

Apricot asleep in the wingback chair

Colby and I took a nap together

Three in the sunshine

Thimble's Really Cool Trick

I have been teaching Thimble to leap to my shoulder on command. This was in anticipation of his gaining enough weight and size that I might be unable to lift him without his help. Colby was guesstimated, when young, to reach 20 pounds; Thimble was guesstimated at 25-30 lbs. I can lift a 20 pound cat. I didn't know about Thimble. (At 6 months those guesstimates were altered to be Colby, 16-18 pounds; Thimble, 18-20 pounds. So they'll both be lift-able for me ... but it's still fun to have Thimble leap to my shoulder!)

I started when he was too little to have the strength to leap from the ground to my shoulder on purpose, because I want him to always hit a middle height surface before he hits my shoulder in order to bleed off some of the force of the leap.

He's had this trick down to a fine art for a while, but since I'm in the trick, it's impossible to video it myself. (There's equipment that will let you do so, but I don't have any of it.) So I had to wait until my sister came to visit in order to have someone video it. The one above was in the morning, after we came back from my early morning walk. 

Thimble loves to do this. He doesn't require any reward save that of being able to leap up to my shoulder. In fact, teaching him to do it was quite easy and only took a few tries. Teaching him to do it only on command was more difficult and he still forgets sometimes, especially during those times when he knows I'm going to tell him he can come up soon and he's too impatient to wait.

During those times I simply don't catch him and he dribbles down my front and lands on the ground rather puzzled as to why it didn't work. He'll give me a "huh?" look and I say, "I didn't tell you you could." (I don't continue the sentence, which would more fully be "could come up" because those two words at the end are part of the command structure for inviting him up, and that would just be confusing.)

The signal for him to do the trick is three-fold. I say "come up" or "you can come up now" and/or "do you want a ride?"; I lean forward slightly, and I tap my shoulder. If we're in a new spot and he's not sure where to jump up to, I pat the surface as well (the desk, bathroom counter, etc). It works amazingly well. I'm surprised he's gotten the "pat the surface" concept--that seems to be more complicated to me.

In the bottom video I had come home from work. This is one of his predictable times to be up. But, in order to get Sophia set up with my phone (no, I don't have a dedicated video camera ... why would I?) and all that, I had delayed his expected routine. 

Normally, like the cat he is, he prefers to be coaxed a little. "Are you sure you want me to be up?" "Really, really sure?" However, this time, he was waiting in the kitchen cat tree by the window, ready and waiting to launch himself across the room and up onto my shoulder. My step-back in the video is not from his weight hitting my shoulder--he doesn't weigh that much yet. No, this was because I was a little surprised at the speed he achieved, and I also found it hilariously funny that he was that eager. I try not to laugh at them when they aren't doing something deliberately to make me laugh, but I couldn't quite bite back a laugh for this one.

New Human!

My sister came to visit two weeks ago. She comes to visit us about every 6 months now, and the last time she was here, the kittens were alive but still too tiny to leave their mommy, so they weren't here. Just Apricot.

Apricot spent most of that visit watching her every move from the safety and vantage point of his cubbyhole in the living room cat tree. This visit he spent most of the time she was in the house hiding under the sofa.

I was puzzled by this, but as the visit went on (she came on a Wednesday and left the next Saturday, so half a week) I came to realize that he just couldn't keep track of two rambunctious kittens and a human at the same time. (Remember, he doesn't think I count as "human.") While he loves his younger brothers, they are bigger than he is now, and they don't really give fair warning (which to Apricot would mean half an hour to think about it) before initiating a mighty battle.

In the evenings, sometimes we would go in and sit on the sofa he was hiding under in order to (hopefully) get him used to her voice, at least. This had an unintended consequence. Thimble would go underneath (how on earth he still fits I have no idea ... perhaps kittens have access to a fourth physical dimension) and pester Apricot until my sister and I would see an orange furry streak across the room as Apricot left for un-pestering hiding spaces.

Poor guy. But don't feel too sorry for him. He still managed to gain weight between that Thursday and the following Sunday. Usually when I have a visitor or two, the ones that stay for half an hour to an hour and play with the kittens, Apricot doesn't gain weight during the time period that spans their visit. The trauma of hiding from humans puts him off his food, apparently. Since he gained weight while my sister was here, he was obviously hiding mostly from habit.

The kittens responded very predictably to her visit. Thimble inspected her thoroughly when she arrived, and then at an undetectable signal from him, when he determined her to be "okay", Colby came forward and started interacting with her.

Thimble helped us make the guest bed up. (I'm a terrible hostess. I wait till my guest arrives before putting sheets on the bed. It's because three of the four sides of the bed are extremely hard to get to, and it's so much easier with two people who both have opposable thumbs.)

Sophia, my sister, said the kittens were a hoot and left her in stitches with their antics. Apparently, their attention span is hilarious. (I guess I don't notice because quite honestly, mine is shorter than theirs.) She says that they would find her absolutely fascinating ... for about half a minute, and then something else would catch their attention and off they'd go.

She also does stretches and exercises that make the human body go in ways I don't normally make my body do (or can't, in a lot of cases) and they found that absolutely fascinating as well. For about half a minute.

When she left, they were a little disappointed, I think. You see, with two humans in the house, they had someone else to be fascinated by once they got bored with the first one. So they could sort of ping-pong back and forth between us. With only one ... well, toys don't move on their own and I'm apparently very boring (given that I have very little energy once I survive the work day and come home, that's not surprising).

I wonder what they will think of her when she comes back in the fall. I wonder what she will think of them. They were bigger than Apricot in physical size but only Thimble weighs more than Apricot, and they weren't that much bigger. They're also obviously teenager type kittens with all legs and ears and a big head each.

They have plumy tails but not as much as they're going to get, I don't think. And they have some more growing to do, in height and length as well as weight.

First day here: Thimble naps next to my sister

Colby's keeping an eye on supper
The shelf is next to the table.

Sophia has a square cooler that is softsided. Thimble decided to sit on it. He does things like this.

Well, being empty, as she had put her cold stuff into my fridge, the cooler slowly subsided under his weight. Sophia was giggling as she watched Thimble slowly sink down toward the floor, riding the cooler with much determination. He finally gave up just before he collapsed it completely and got off.

The cooler, being made to be squished and rebound, slowly pushed itself back up to its square shape. Thimble watched from the floor in astonishment. So did Colby, having come over during the whole initial thing.

I am, of course, on the wrong side of the table
to get any really good photos of this.

Trapped!

When I came home yesterday, that is to say, Monday, no one greeted me in the kitchen. No one at all. We'd just had a thunderstorm and I rather expected Apricot to be hidden away somewhere, as he is terrified of thunderstorms, but where were the kittens? Don't tell me they'd been scared by the thunderstorm (and Apricot's reaction to it) and were hiding under the sofa with him.

I shrugged and figured they'd show up eventually, and proceeded to start to take my shoes off. To my astonishment, a fuzzy orange tabby back curved by me. Apricot? Yes, there he was. Seemingly unworried about the thunderstorm we'd just had (I had left work after it passed over, but apparently there was huge hail and a tornado ... not sure about the rumor about the tornado though).

So ... okay, I had upside-down kitty (with just Apricot) and Apricot Cuddles (without anyone else hanging out in the kitchen) and it was so weird. Like before they came. There was no noise from the rest of the house. Where-ever could they be?

I waited as long as I could for them but nobody showed up. I supposed I would continue with the rest of the afternoon's chores, so I headed back to the bedroom in order to start cleaning the litter boxes. As I passed the bathroom door I noticed it was closed.

Now wait just a minute. I don't close that door unless I'm on the inside of it. I didn't leave it closed this morning. Uh oh.

I opened the door cautiously, and was greeted by a wave of black, white, and brown tabby fur as they both surged out of the bathroom and into the hallway. They weren't vocalizing, but I didn't need meows to know they were telling me how very traumatic it had been to be trapped in the bathroom.

Well, I sympathized with them and petted them and reassured them and acted very puzzled as to how they got in there. Mostly because I was, but also because there was a hint of accusation in how they were acting around me. A very vague hint, nothing concrete, but I could tell the thought had crossed their minds that somehow I'd trapped them in there.

I cast back to the morning and no, I'd given everybody their goodbye kiss right before I left, so I hadn't accidentally trapped them in there. I even gave a moment's thought to the idea that Apricot had gotten so fed up with kitten behavior that he had somehow shut the door, but the door doesn't swing in that direction. In order to shut it without opposable thumbs, you'd have to push it shut, and that would only work from the inside.

Which meant they had to have done it to themselves.

Later that evening Thimble actually demonstrated how it had happened, or at least the beginning of it. He went behind the door in that small area left between the door and the wall when the door is opened, and he and Colby started playing footsie through the hinge gap. (This made me wince, thinking of squashed paws.) As they played, Thimble's movement kept bumping the door and making it swing farther and farther shut.

The only thing I can think of is that he had gotten it almost shut, Colby was inside with him after the hinge gap became too small to work with, and then the sudden pressure drop from the thunderstorm pulled the door shut the rest of the way. I know it can do that because I've seen it happen; it's how they both got trapped in there that I'm not sure of.

But in any case, now I keep my little bathroom heater in front of the door to hold it open.

I don't know how long they were in there. If it was just during the thunderstorm, it was less than an hour. But they had managed to up-dump the trashcan (that would be Colby's doing, I imagine), scratch up the bathroom rug (which looks fine once I pulled the loose bits off it), bundle the floor towel up and toss it in the corner, and knock over the shell dolly (a small figure made of shells that looks like a human person). Oddly, they didn't knock off any of the three breakables I have on the counter.

So, no harm done to either them or the bathroom's contents. They were fine and Thimble came rushing into the bathroom this afternoon when I asked him if he wanted to keep me company while I took my bath.

Where I've Been

A longer time than usual has passed between blog posts, and the name of the first post before the break should give you a clue as to what was happening. I was fighting sleep deprivation along with a weird sick/allergy/who knows what (massive headaches but not sinus, being so cold I actually had to go home early one day, etc. Weird).

Colby (underneath) and Thimble in the morning.

But kitty things happened as well as the unpleasant stuff ... although I have to admit Thimble was part of the sleep deprivation problem. We're still working on that, but the last few days he's been really good about letting me sleep even after I get up in the middle of the night for my bathroom break. He had thought that once I was up, I was up, and no going back to sleep!

In the morning when I wake up, quite often Thimble will be on the bed. Colby is there sometimes, and occasionally Apricot will come and join the gathering for a short while. He'll have me pet him and he'll purr in a stuttering sort of way that if he were a car would get him a quick trip to the mechanic, and then he'll leave again.

Thimble looking out the window

Colby still loves his tent.

They are learning to adapt to my energy level (which is practically non-existent). When I come home in the afternoon there is about a half an hour of stuff--both me putting things away from work and cuddling/playing with them. Thimble usually gets a ride back to the bedroom where I then clean the litterboxes. I have to make sure I get a good cuddle in with Colby because otherwise he kind of retires into the background. Apricot doesn't; making sure I see him and pet him beyond the "Apricot Cuddles" of the initial greeting ritual. I find this odd, actually, that in some ways, Colby is shyer and more retiring than Apricot!

And then after all that is over, and I sit down to read or play on the phone or work on the computer or watch tv, they calm down and often I get a companion, depending on what I'm doing. Watching tv I get a Colby in my lap; reading or playing on the phone I often get a Thimble, and the computer is a toss up. Sometimes no one shows up. Sometimes, like today, Apricot checks in. And last Saturday, Thimble was being helpful. (Really and truly, you see, because his warmth helped keep my hands from freezing, which they were trying to do, and because he was sleeping, I was actually able to get things done.) 

Thimble is being helpful while I work on the computer.

The Puzzle Box

I got the kittens (and Apricot if he wants it) a puzzle box. This is a wooden box with holes in it, and you put toys inside the box, or treats (haven't done this yet) and the cats have to fish the toys out.

This was a big hit with both kittens.

As usual, Colby is my model.

His foot just fits.

Although I have Colby in the pictures, it's actually Thimble who likes the box the best. This was a surprise to me because usually Colby's my puzzler cat.

Colby has great fun sitting on the box with his paws down in it, like the picture above, without actually hunting for anything. Colby also has great fun fishing toys out of the box.

But I saw Thimble take a favored toy over to the box, drop it in deliberately, and then fish it back out again. That's taking the puzzle box to a new level! (And of course, I wasn't randomly filming, so I don't have any evidence.)

The video is the first time they've seen the puzzle box. The two solid sponge balls come with the box. They are easily extracted, and serve as a teaching toy. I've put more challenging toys in since (some of them have stayed ...)

The thing is, the balls are light and bat around quite easily, and so the balls have become favorite toys too, of all three cats. So favorite are these toys that one has completely vanished and the other only sporadically shows up. I've ordered more. Apricot loves them, and anything to get my chubby cat to move is helpful.

One of the balls showed up the other day after my bath, so once I had wiped down the tub and it had gotten two very interested kittens in it (they like the faucet drip), I tossed the ball in, as well. This was a big hit. They discovered they could bat it around and it would roll up the sides and then back to them. I left them playing with it in the tub while I made myself supper.

When I went back in, Colby was still in the tub, fascinated by the drip, and Thimble was outside the tub, apparently playing with the shower curtain (also outside the tub in order to dry better). He knows he's not supposed to play with the curtain, but just like the nest of wires behind my computer desk, he's discovered that if he takes a toy there, he can protest that he wasn't playing with the forbidden thing, just the toy.

Thus I knew to lift up the shower curtain and check, and sure enough, there was the ball. Thimble had managed to get it in his mouth for long enough to get it out of the tub.

I haven't seen it yet today ... the ball, I mean. I'm sure it will show up, but the two of them have been chomping on cardboard in the kitchen while I write this. (Puncturing the cardboard boxes that will eventually be recycled is an allowed, and encouraged, activity. They've got to do something to alleviate the teething pain.)

Half a Year Old

Colby and Thimble are half a year old, and in honor of the occasion and the fact that it's poetry month, I wrote a limerick about it.

***

My boys are 6 months old today

They're growing up in every way

They're getting tall 

But that's not all

You won't believe what 6 month kittens weigh.

***

Yeah, I know, don't quit my day job. Also, 12 lbs 7.5 oz (Thimble) and 11 lbs 12.0 oz (Colby). For perspective, full grown Apricot, who is overweight, bless his heart, is 12 lbs 10 oz. However, there is good news for me on the horizon--I was rather dreading the predicted 25-30 pounds Thimble had gotten at 3 months. But now that's been revised to 18-20 lbs for him and 16-18 lbs for Colby. Those are weights I can handle!

Colby, a bit borked, this morning.

Thimble, posing, this morning.

So this morning, I'm getting ready for work in the bedroom, and Thimble's beside me as I put on clothes--he's on the bed. In the hallway where we can see them, Colby and Apricot are having a mighty battle.

Apricot decides he's done having a mighty battle, and starts to walk away. Colby changes his mind about the battle being over, and pounces on Apricot, in an effort to restart it.

Apricot was done, and he extricates himself from the playfight and starts to walk away again.

Colby pounces again. At this point, they have moved out of my line of sight.

The next thing I hear (quite quickly, too) is Colby squalling like he's being shredded.

Now I've heard and seen him do this before. Kittens are supposed to squawk like that when the other kitten is being a bit too rough, but Colby does it when he wants out of a situation, even if the other kitten is playing just fine.

I leaned my head out the door (to make sure that's all it was), to see Colby on his stomach with Apricot on top of him. They both looked back at me when they heard me, but I think Apricot had been nomming on Colby's ear.

The previous time I'd seen Colby whine to get out of a situation he got himself into, it was Thimble chewing on his ear and it was actually Apricot who went over to tell Thimble enough was enough, back off. So Apricot knows Colby doesn't like his ears chewed on, and since Colby wouldn't leave him alone when Apricot was polite about it, Apricot then applied that knowledge.

I just grinned and shook my head and said, "Colby, you're such a whiner." Apricot let him up and Colby let Apricot go on his way unmolested, so everyone was fine.

And Apricot this morning, who is about 2 years old