Wednesday, September 28, 2016

The Hazards of Teaching Your Cats English: the Sleep Version

I like having my cats understand me when I talk, so, having 28 years of proof that cats can learn English, I set out to deliberately teach all my boys English (instead of seeing how much they'd pick up on their own).

How do you teach a cat a human language, you ask? I'm glad you did. You see, what you do is you use the same phrase every time for the same thing. "Time for supper," for example. And you use lots of phrases. "Want to help me clean up?" after I come in all sweaty from walking in the morning. "Anybody want to help me take a bath?" which used to get Thimble into the bathroom, all excited, when he was a kitten, but now it gets me a bored look from everybody. Thimble decided playing in the damp tub after I'd finished my shower was not worth the time it took to get his fur dry afterwards. I teach time by saying "I'll be back in an hour" every morning when I head out on my walk, which takes an hour. As they get older I've added more complex combinations.

Still, it always takes me by surprise how much they know, and what they then do with it.

Consider the following two phrases, said at different times on different days. "I'm sorry, I'm just so tired." (After not being able to pet them sufficiently or play with them enough.) And, "Okay, guys, I need you to help me get to bed early so I can sleep more. Maybe that will help me be less tired."

Amazingly, this last phrase actually works: they do their best to keep me moving through the after-work chores until I'm in bed and not let me stop and play on the phone or worse, nap on the floor.

However, I was not expecting them to put those two phrases together, figure out that making me stay in bed would make me less tired, and then try (twice!) to make me not get up in the morning.

The first time, I woke up with Colby stretched along one side and Thimble along the other side. Unfortunately for their plans, I can still lift and move a sixteen pound cat (Colby) so I can get out of bed. It is unusual for Colby to be on the bed with me, but not unheard of; it is highly unusual for Thimble to be on the bed instead of the headboard.
Far left: Colby's ear and front leg sticking out; Middle: Colby's back leg and Thimble's face in Colby's black tail, Far Right: middle of Thimble. (I sleep on my side, thus the curve in the lineup.)

The next time, about a week later, I woke up with both cats on one side, the side of the bed I have always gotten out of. Colby was stretched from my shoulder to my waist, and Thimble had his head resting on Colby's hip and was stretched from my waist to my knees. They were on top of the covers, leaning against me, and I was underneath the covers. This arrangement of cat-to-human actually worked, in that I could not get out of that side of the bed. I was rather impressed by their ingenuity, actually.

But I couldn't call my boss and explain that I couldn't come to work because my cats had me pinned in bed. I don't believe she'd understand that to be a legitimate excuse!

So, reluctantly, I slipped out the other side of the bed. I looked back, and both of them were giving me indignant glares.

They haven't tried it since. I guess they gave up. For now.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Colby on the Bookshelf

One day I came back from my walk and couldn't find Colby anywhere. When I finally saw him, I was baffled. He was on top of the seven-foot-tall bookshelf. With an eight-foot-tall ceiling. He's taller than a foot when he stands up. (Stands like a normal cat on all four feet).

I could not, for the life of me, figure out how he got up there.
He's quite proud of himself.
 Thimble couldn't figure out how he got up there either, and it was driving him crazy. Colby, the baby, is not supposed to be doing things that Thimble can't!
Puzzled Thimble

The entire bookshelf, for scale. 
 I had to go to work, unfortunately, and Colby was too happy and pleased with himself to want to come down. I had to trust that whatever way he'd used to get up there, he could get down. So I said to him, "I hope you can get down from there."

When I got home from work, Colby, who is usually in one of the cat trees to either side of the big picture window in the kitchen that I park in front of, was instead on the table, in the exact center of the window, as if to ensure that I saw him first thing when I got home. Which I thought was sweet of him, if rather funny.

I began to suspect how he was getting up there after thinking about it for a few days (days in which he repeated the feat several times without letting anybody who cared see him do it. Apricot didn't care but I know Colby avoided both me and Thimble while he got up there so that Thimble would remain puzzled and on the floor).
The other side of the bookshelf.
On the other side of the bookshelf, there is a window-ledge height double-wide bookshelf, upon which rests an end table. You see it there. It's not a sturdy end table. In order to use it to get up to the bookshelf, Colby would have had to figure out that he had to jump on it and then wait for it to stop wobbling before he went the rest of the way. 

Given the clearance on top of the bookshelf, physics dictates that he can't just do a running launch and kick off the table surface on the way up; he'd smash himself into the ceiling. He'd also knock over the end table, and it was never knocked over.

So I suspected he was doing this but I wasn't sure, given the thoughtful behavior necessary to make it work.

One night, I came home to find the wand toy that is usually stored with the stuffed animals in the top shelf on the floor, and Colby on the top of the bookshelf looking pleased with himself. He'd knocked it down. Okay, fine, we'll play with it. Also, so that's why he went to all the trouble of getting up there in the first place. He saw it from the floor (I had apparently not tucked it in enough) and wanted it.

While playing with it later that night, I lured him over to the side of the bookshelf where I thought he was getting up there. I did take video, but it's about ten minutes of Colby dithering about it. He knew Thimble was watching and didn't want to give away his secret.

However, the toy taunting him from the top of the bookshelf was just too much after a while. Sure enough, he jumped to the end table, waited for it to stop wiggling, and then leaped very carefully into the foot-tall space available to him, kind of landing almost on his elbows and knees and sliding into place.

Thimble watched, fascinated, as Colby got to play with the wand toy all by himself up there.

But it wasn't until the next morning that I saw them both up there.
The end of Colby playing King of the Hill
 I guess it took Thimble a while to figure out how to get his taller body into the space Colby had managed. Thimble was up there, and proud of himself, but he didn't really like it up there. He's literally too big to be comfortable. If he lies down, too much of him sprawls over the edge, and he can't stand or sit without being hunched over.

As you see in the picture, neither can Colby, but the difference is that Colby is (a) a little smaller than Thimble but not by much, but more importantly (b) he's used to crouching; he does it all the time.

So while Colby's been up there rather randomly ever since (the wand toy got moved to another section of the bookshelf, one he can't get to (I think)), Thimble hasn't been back up. He just wanted to prove he could.

Saturday, September 17, 2016

The New Fridge: A Dreadful Enemy

My refrigerator died. One day I came home to find it making horrendously annoying clicking and whirring noises, and no cold air coming from its vents inside. It had obviously been doing this for some time because nobody was alarmed at it (except me) and they were all in the kitchen, wanting to know what I was going to do about it.

I called my brother (who, I believe, is capable of fixing or at least diagnosing anything). At his suggestion I also googled the model of fridge to see what other people had had happen to it. It's a 9 year old fridge, and the chances were really good it was the compressor or the motherboard. One person had paid about $700 to get his fixed (motherboard replacement) and it took a week. I don't know what he did with his food, but I needed my fridge (and freezer) back, immediately. I had no other place to keep cold food in the house.

And since I'd started eating more meat and more produce, there was more in the fridge than, say, a year ago. 

So I researched online, found a fridge I liked, found it was on backorder for four weeks from everywhere, chose my second favorite, and ordered it for delivery on Friday (it was Tuesday). It was too late to do much of anything with the fridge as it was, so I went out and bought dry ice and put it on the top shelf of the fridge (it was a bottom freezer fridge/freezer combo).

This kept it cold for the opening and shutting of the door that had to happen for supper to occur (and don't think I wasn't tempted to simply skip supper between the difficulty involved in getting it and the stress of all the phone calls and research). It also kept it cold all the next day while I was at work.

After work I stopped in at my parents' house, borrowed their coolers and my dad and his Kia (holds more than my little car), went to my house, emptied my freezer and part of my fridge into the coolers, went back to their house and unloaded the contents of my freezer into one of their full-size freezers. Mom, meanwhile, had been consolidating and making room for my stuff.

Okay, we're set for Wednesday. But the dry ice was three-quarters gone, and I couldn't afford to keep buying it. So I asked around for fridges to borrow (the little sort, that you get for dorm rooms) but nobody had one. Eventually my brother offered to let me borrow his (didn't know he had one either) and it turned out he didn't, not actually. He didn't have one sitting around. He had one he used at work. So it was very nice of him to let me borrow it, considering it was in use!

Friday was the delivery date. The website had the time and was updating it like every ten minutes. It would come at 12:30. At 11:30 it said it would arrive at 12:29. Okay, so I need to leave work in case it backed up even closer to current time. I got home, checked again, and it said it wasn't going to deliver until Monday.

Wait, what???? I called in righteous indignation. Ma'am, I was told, we don't stock those in our warehouse to prevent damage and it has to come direct from the manufacturer and they don't have any in stock. 

Um ... you didn't even check until five minutes ago? How can you manage your inventory like that? And no, I can't wait till Monday. I already took today off (a half day) and I can't take mondays off. Not without a lot of pre-planning. 

They could offer me a specific 2 hour window for free (normally it's all day long and you don't know until the night before which 2 hour window you got). 

Um ... no, you're not understanding me. I have to have the new fridge this weekend. Well, they're terribly sorry, but they can't get it to me. I wouldn't have ordered it if I'd known that. 

They should have known they didn't have one in stock (I didn't actually say that because I was too irritated at this point and the woman talking to me didn't deserve quite that angry of a tone of voice. Wasn't her fault). Needless to say, I will not be buying any appliance from Sears again.

So I cancelled the order and started calling around town, trying to find someone who could deliver me a fridge next-day. One potential store went to voicemail. Nope, need it now. The sooner I can get one ordered, the more chance I have of getting my next-day delivery. So they didn't get my money simply because they were too busy to answer the phone. (The receptionist answered, just not the salesperson.)

HHGregg answered their phone. Said they'd be able to do that, special, but if I could come into the store (I was on their website, looking at choices) it would be better so they could push that through. So I did.

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate talking on the phone to strangers? Have I ever mentioned how much I hate going back out after I've come home? But here I was, doing things I hate because I needed food.

I ended up buying a different type of fridge than I wanted. This one has french doors on the top and a freezer drawer on the bottom and a fridge drawer in the middle. It has two compressors, one for the fridge and one for the freezer so you don't use as much energy cooling the fridge down (or the freezer) when you open it. I wanted the drawer concept, though, as I was tired of the pool of cold air falling out onto my toes when I opened the door on the freezer of the other fridge.

In actuality, I think I like the french doors better. I think I like this whole fridge better, even though it has a little less fridge space due to the icemaker in the corner of the fridge and the dent in the door (from the water dispenser).
'
Much suspicion on the part of the cats.
 The cats were not as impressed. They hated the drawers. It took them a whole week to stop leaving the room when I opened one. Thimble was initially okay with it since he could reach underneath and since the process of getting it produced several kitty toys that he had stuffed under the other fridge.

Oh, and the process of getting it was really nice. They showed up at 7 am the next morning, which was actually the perfect time for me on a Saturday. The one who spoke English was explaining that he was trying to avoid having to take my door off the hinges.

And my brain, for once, went into overdrive, thinking fast enough. That door didn't have doorstops on the hinges and had put a dent into my other fridge simply because you could open it too far. I'd purchased door stops for it. And then discovered the middle hinge was missing. I couldn't get the top hinge or the bottom hinge out on my own due to the torque resulting from the door trying to hang on one hinge. Perfect opportunity!

Would it be easier if you took the door off? I asked, all innocence. Well, yes, he admitted. Will you put these on the hinges when you put it back? I asked, holding up the pouch of door stops I'd had sitting on my kitchen table for years. Sure, no problem, he said.

Problem solved. For both of us.

Oh, and the cats, of course, were at the opposite end of the house for the move!
He can get a paw underneath!

Seriously not happy about the drawer concept

So, now I have a new fridge. I like it, the cats have gotten used to it and like it (it helped when I started keeping their pumpkin in the fridge drawer so that "good things" came out of it). 

Whew.

Friday, September 16, 2016

Apricot and the Nap

I've been really tired lately (thus the dearth of posts) but I took some time off and I'm writing some of what happened while I was "gone." And when I know when it occurred, I'm dating it that date, but just know I'm writing this in October.

Back in September, I was home after work, next to the bed, setting up my work clothes for the next morning. Apricot jumped up on the bed. Okay, technically he climbed the stairs onto the bed. I don't know if his legs actually are short or if it just seems that way due to the presence of Thimble and Colby distorting my idea of "normal" for cat leg length, but I do know he prefers not to jump "up" anywhere he can climb. Luckily, most of my house is set up for climbing.

Anyway. Apricot's on the bed, which is right next to me, and he stays on the other side of it but within reach if I lean over. And I do mean lean over, like bend at the waist and practically lie on the bed. He likes this; it makes me look smaller to him and thus, less scary. While he's not really scared of me anymore, he does prefer things to be "less scary" even though.

So I did; I reached over and petted him briefly and then stood back up and continued what I was doing.

I had the feeling of critical eyes upon me and I looked over and found Apricot giving me the evil eye. I had not petted him long enough. Briefly was not the normal procedure for him being there, and I had failed in my duties.

Oops. I was just so tired, I knew I had to keep going or I'd ... stop. I leaned over again for a second scritch and pet, and explained that I was sorry, but I was just so tired. And then I laughed deprecatingly (or that's what it was meant to be) and said, "I know, I'm tired a lot lately."

Apricot leaned into my hands and began purring. Loudly.

Phooey on this. The clothes can be stacked for work some other time. I wanted to spend time with Apricot.

So I climbed up carefully onto the bed (so as not to alarm him) and laid down next to him. He laid down too, still purring. He doesn't like his paws trapped so I put my hand under his paw instead of on top,

He used his other paw to gather my hand even closer to him so it rested against the top of his head. This way I could feel him purring as well as hear it. The peaceful rumble came up my arm bones and through my ears as Apricot, happy and content, closed his eyes.

I didn't have a chance, as tired as I was. I closed my eyes too, only for a minute.

An hour and a half later I woke up, no Apricot to be found, no cats at all. I felt quite indignant about it. Am I so bad at taking care of myself that I require being tricked into a nap and then abandoned so I don't wake up from anybody's movement on the bed?

Don't answer that.

Everybody (all three) were actually waiting either on the floor in the bedroom or right outside it, which is why I think they'd stayed off the bed (normally Thimble would have been up there with me) in order to make sure I stayed asleep.

Humph.