A Very Sudden Appearance

As usual in my life, I do everything (big) backwards. Instead of saving a downpayment and then buying a house, I bought the house with a 100% mortgage (right before the massive changes in mortgages happened) and then started saving.

And here, instead of exercising and eating right to lose weight, I lost the weight first and then started eating right, and then it occurred to me that having begun to eat all this protein, I might as well try to do something useful with it (like build muscle).

A gym membership was just going to be a waste of money. Just imagine my sensory issues combined with the sounds of all those different machines, the movement and smells of all those different people, and the sounds and echos of the people talking and grunting and ... makes me shudder just thinking about it.

I have a small house, so space is kind of at a premium, but I found a semi-recumbent exercise bike that was really quiet and had a fully enclosed flywheel, so the only motion is the bike pedals. (Which Thimble still got his face thumped by, twice, but that's just Thimble. He's a scientist. If something happens once he has to investigate it and see if it'll happen again. If it does, then he stops doing that thing. Thus the getting thumped twice by the pedals while I was using the bike).

I've been doing this on a daily basis, riding the bike after work. The cats have mostly just abandoned the room I'm in. I'm not going anywhere so there's no point in keeping an eye on me, and I'm not in a useful petting or cuddling position so as far as they're concerned, they might as well be watching the kitty tv out the window.

Thimble will come in about half an hour into my forty-five minute ride and hang out on the back of the sofa, but that's so that when I'm done and come collapse on the sofa, he's in a good position to come curl up on my lap. Or sprawl across it, depending on his mood.

I was playing phone games while riding the bike yesterday, and didn't even realize that Colby was in the room, with all my attention focused on the game.

All of the sudden with no sound, and no warning, my arms were filled with fifteen plus pounds of black fur and the phone had vanished (under all the fur) and Colby's back foot was on my hip, with every intention of settling on my lap and forcing me to stop peddling.

Well, hello, Colby.

I put the phone aside after extracting it and pausing the game, and then gathered Colby up into my arms and turned him upside-down like holding a human baby--this way I can support his weight with both arms and I can hold him longer.

He's perfectly happy this way. He was held like this a lot as a small kitten so he's not only content with such a cuddle hold, he's actually happy with it. So I held him as long as I could but my arms started screaming mercy at me far sooner than Colby would like, and when I managed to put him down without dumping him into the pedal area (not as easy as I thought it would be) he turned right back around and threatened to jump up into my arms again.

I had to beg him not to. Literally, I said, out-loud, in English, "I would love to Colby but my arms can't hold your weight that long and I'm afraid I'll drop you if you come up again."

And he gave an exasperated sigh, leaped up on the sofa (it's right next to the bike) and curled up on the cushion to sleep. Thimble wasn't in the room yet, and also, Thimble's spot is up on the back of the head rest, not on the seat cushions.

When I finished my ride Colby was still there so I sat down beside him and woke him up by gently tugging him onto my lap and cuddling him, so that made him happy.