Out With the Old

Look who got a new scratching post! I thought a nice before & after shot would show just how much (and how hard) the cats love these things.  The new one (#4 since we moved here I believe) was only $8 at Ross.  You never know what sort of awesome crap you'll find on the shelves there!

I'll post a picture when it starts looking nasty and tattered like the one in the foreground, so we can see exactly how long it takes them to destroy one.

(and yes, the Christmas tree is still up. it's on today's agenda. Scott had a day of overtime last weekend so we didn't actually have a day off together.)

Self-Writing Posts

The problem with blog posts that write themselves is that they don't publish themselves. Below is an e-mail exchange between me and Janette, about an e-mail exchange between me and Scott. It's a week old. Sorry for holding out on you for so long!

Janette,

I thought you’d get a kick out of the e-mail exchange between Scott and me this morning…

ME: And did you notice the two clumps of Elph hair upstairs in the hallway? I can tell you they appeared between 6:05 and 6:30, and that when I saw Milo at 6:30 he had a clump hanging off his mouth like the “bad kitty” on the pajamas!

SCOTT: Yeah,I heard the ruckus when you had just gotten into the shower, but it didn't continue for more than five seconds. I figured it was the two boys, guess I was wrong!

ME: Well I guess Elphie wasn’t happy with him at all. When I was toweling off, she was “hiding” (really, I guess she thinks she’s invisible) behind the orange shower
curtain and TWICE Milo went to jump into the tub and she swiped at him mid-jump
and made him fall. It was kind of hilarious, but poor Milo missed out on his morning “fresh” drink.

SCOTT: awww! I feel bad for both of them! I've seen them both this morning, not sure about together though

ME: Nah, don’t feel bad. It’s what siblings do. Well, I assume it’s what siblings do. Didn’t you and Janette ever rip each other’s hair out? ;-)

SCOTT: nah, just hand to hand combat, and mind games. :)

* * * * *

Aww, poor kitties. Well, the drama is just part of being siblings.

We bickered a lot. Scott was a PEST, at least that's the way I felt when I was in my teens (remember the age difference). I kept my bedroom door locked from the time he learned to crawl until I moved out. I swear-to-gawd he learned to walk by pulling himself up on my bedroom door knob and letting himself in. LOL!

I only remember hitting Scott 'for real' once, though we did have the very typical sibling wrestling matches. We were arguing over something stupid and forgettable and he was clearly losing when he suddenly and very dramatically yelled 'OW!!! Whaaaaaa! Mom, Janette hit me!!!! Whaaaaa!' And I hadn't laid a hand on him, the little snot.

I knew I was going to be in a world of trouble so I did the only reasonable thing. I smacked the holy crap out of him. I figured if I was 'going to do the time, I may as well do the crime.' That was one of the very few times in my childhood when I remember getting into real trouble. But I'm certain that smacking him up front prevented years of resentment.

Ask him if he remembers it, he was only about 6 or 7 years old at the time. I can SEE it like it was yesterday, we were standing in the hallway just bickering away until he became a little drama queen. Let me tell you, that was the first and last time he ever tried that little trick!

Other than that the worst thing I ever did to him was pull the warranty to the refrigerator out of mom and dad's dresser and tell him that it was his adoption papers. Much drama ensued and it took mom forever to convince him otherwise. THAT was awesome!

Scratched Post

The living room scratching post has definitely seen better days. Of course, it's still serving us well - the furniture is still like new (except for the puke stains, but that's another story). We've had some lapses, but mostly the cats just get sprayed with the water bottle when they horseplay on the back of the couch or climb instead of jump.

I'm glad that we gave their claws a chance.

...and I'm knocking the end tables as I type this!

Lyrics and Music

I made up a song to sing to my cats today. Kilo seemed to really like it. Milo tolerated it. And Elphie won't have any part of it. Here are the lyrics:

Scratching your head
I am scratching your head
Scratching your head
I am scratching your head
Scratch your head

Now we can have a sing-along!

As Seen on TV

Guess what they're selling at Target now!

The Emery Cat!

So far, all of the cats like to kill the feather-and-bell-on-a-stick that attaches to the side, and they all enjoy licking the catnip off the board (I guess that means they don't have sharp tongues...). Elphie is the only one I've actually seen scratch on it more than once.

I'll keep adding catnip to get the interested. It would be really great if they'd actually use it. More on this story as it develops...

Surrounded!

I'm surrounded by cats right now. I've got Kilo on my lap sucking on his foot, Milo on the back of the couch, and Elphie was in front of Scott's couch, but now she has disappeared.

I guess that means I'm not actually surrounded...but still feeling smothered!

Death and Dismemberment

It's open hunting season here at Casa ParkHopper. As you can see, one of my little hunters is less into the swift and painless death than the Princess Bride "Pit of Despair" version.



Wait, no, that's the wrong Princess Bride reference:

Prince Humperdinck: First things first, to the death.
Westley: No. To the pain.
Prince Humperdinck: I don't think I'm quite familiar with that phrase.
Westley: I'll explain and I'll use small words so that you'll be sure to understand, you warthog faced buffoon.
Prince Humperdinck: That may be the first time in my life a man has dared insult me.
Westley: It won't be the last. To the pain means the first thing you will lose will be your feet below the ankles. Then your hands at the wrists. Next your nose.
Prince Humperdinck: And then my tongue I suppose, I killed you too quickly the last time. A mistake I don't mean to duplicate tonight.
Westley: I wasn't finished. The next thing you will lose will be your left eye followed by your right.
Prince Humperdinck: And then my ears, I understand let's get on with it.
Westley: WRONG. Your ears you keep and I'll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out, "Dear God! What is that thing," will echo in your perfect ears. That is what to the pain means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.

That just about sums it up. I've got a dismembered cricket - yes cricket, and don't anyone dare try to tell me otherwise - under my dining room table and I'm too grossed out to touch it. If only my little hunters killed for food instead of sport...

Forced Perspective?

No, no optical illusion here. The cat in the front really is that much bigger than the one in the back!

Actually, I took the picture because I thought it was rather freakish that these two were laying in nearly identical positions (aside from their tails). Meanwhile, Milo was laying on the back of the couch yelling at me for leaning over him to take the picture.

It's Beginning to Look...

It's beginning to look moderately like Christmas here at Casa ParkHopper. We put together our tree last night. We didn't decorate it (though allow me to say again how freaking awesome the pre-lit tree is!). We just assembled it and left it alone. This gives the cats - especially Elphie, who hasn't been around a Christmas tree before - a chance to get used to being squirt every time they touch it.

Falling Flat

The banana bread, though delicious, did not come out correctly. Mostly, it didn't rise. I don't know what went wrong - too much banana? too little flour? wrong cooking temp?

Like I said, it's delicious and we've already eaten more than half of it. But it's just not as pretty as it usually is.

Also, I don't have time to take a picture and upload it, etc. etc. etc., but right now Elphie and Milo are sitting on opposite sides of the desk. They're like perfect little bookends...or gargoyles! You'll just have to take my word for it when I say how cute they look!

Casa ParkHopper

A Tour by Scott*

Hi there! Welcome to our new home! Pardon me while I finish installing this incredibly frustrating ceiling fan. While I do this, please feel free to take a look around.

From where you are standing now, you can see our living room and dining room. During our tour you will also see all of the cats. Keep your eyes peeled! Also, please excuse the boxes and other displaced items. We're still unpacking.

Downstairs you will also find the kitchen, powder room, laundry room, and garage. Those aren't part of the current tour.

At the top of the steps, the first room you come to is the guest bathroom. This is where the orange shower curtain ended up. If you can't find a cat, this is usually a pretty good place to look. They find the area behind the toilet a quiet and comforting place to hide.Next up is the office/game room. The blue chair is where you could find Jamie and at least one cat in the dark days between move-in and furniture/cable install.The cats' room is basically empty, except for some fun toys. None of us really spends much time in here. Elphie brings out whichever toy she wants to play with and likes to leave them on the stairs for us to find!
The picture of the bedroom was taken right around 8 am. The light coming in through the CLOSED blinds should give you some idea why we were in such a hurry to buy curtains. They don't really match the quilt-of-many-colors, but I defy you to do better!!And here is the master bath. We're short one towel bar, so we're using a hook on the back of the door right now.

This concludes the tour. Please come back once the boxes are gone from the kitchen. There's still more to see as we continue to settle in and make our house our home. Thanks for visiting!

*not really by Scott, but I took some artistic license with the pictures. It's like historical fiction...or something like that!

Lazy Sunday, Feline Edition

I just spent the last hour sitting in this exact spot doing my normal blog-jog through the blogs on my side bar. Also for the last hour, I've been doing that strictly using my right hand and the mouse, because my left arm was pinned on my lap by Elphaba.

This cat has quirks that my boy cats just don't have. She ignores me for days, and then demands attention for hours on end. She's like a camel of love! And don't even try to walk through the bedroom door or the front door without dangling her rainbow string in front of her face. She'll either yell at you or just run through the door.

She also does that kneading-my-arm thing, which other cats of mine have done. Of course, Kilo has his "suckie toe." I know he got that because his mother was taken away from his litter when he was too young, and he had an older brother who let all the other cats suck on his toes. Then when Kilo came to live with me, Milo certainly wasn't going to let him play that game, so he started sucking on his own. Tiger, the first cat I ever loved, had a blanket that she'd suck on. Unfortunately for me, it was my blanket, and I never knew when I'd roll over and stick my foot in a wet spot. (hello, Google perverts!) At least Elphie just does the hand motions!

Alas, my bandy legged ginger cat (yes, I did blatantly steal that phrase from J.K. Rowling) has just jumped into the spot vacated by the kitten. He says hello, and also "pet me pet me pet me!" I think I'll go do that!

Night Terrors

Reading Between the Tweets

I sent a bunch of rapid-fire Twitter messages this morning, and there was so much more to share that I thought I would use them to add color to the story of my morning.

Scott woke up around 5:00 this morning, and was surprised that I was still asleep. I woke up about 5 seconds later. The cause? Sideways rain was pelting our bedroom windows. These windows are north-facing and don't usually get direct impact rain. The rain was pretty surreal due to the near-strobe-light effect of constant lightning. I couldn't believe how bad it was out there. Scott went to the living room to turn off the computer, and I turned off the cable box in the bedroom. But it was so bad (sounded like we were inside a tin can) that we (I) decided to check the weather for a tornado warning. There was no tornado warning - just one cell directly over our home that was red and pink on the radar, though you couldn't even see the color until they turned off the lightning strike display!

This was the worst nighttime thunderstorm I had seen since the week I spent in Casselberry with my Great Grandmother when I was in junior high. I was terrified. As the storm was winding down, I joked with Scott that I was going to get on the floor and sleep between the bed and a pile of laundry baskets, just in case the roof crashed in. We fell back to sleep right around 5:30, having survived the crazy storm.

6:20: flashBANG! I think the lightning actually woke me up a split second before the thunder shook the walls. "Holy shit!" It's not that I wanted to yell. It was involuntary (sort of). I was NOT going to be awake and terrified by myself. This storm was worse than the first one, and that lightning strike was CLOSE!

If you thought waking up to 5am t-storm was bad, try 6:30 lightning strike followed by bldg fire alarm going off!

At first, we didn't know it was our building. It was a funny alarm, beeping twice, then a feeble chirp, and then it would stop for a few seconds. Right away, we thought that it was another building, but that it was a shorted out alarm. We heard the fire truck come into the development and decided to get out of bed and investigate. Upon opening the door to the living room, I nearly jumped out of my skin to the sound of a loud CHIRP! coming from the alarm right above my head! "Oh...I guess it's our building."

Side note: firefighters in full gear stopped to say good morning when they passed us in the hall!

We decided to put on more clothes - an undershirt and pair of shorts for Scott, and a bra and change of pants into less pajama-like black lounge pants for me. We couldn't go out on the balcony due to the continued sideways rain (having lived through a few hurricanes, I can tell you the rain and wind was just as bad this morning) so we wandered out into the outside hallway. We were walking towards the back of the building when we heard very heavy footsteps on the stairs near our door. And lo, there were two firefighters in full gear stomping up our steps! As they passed us, I was waiting for them to "rescue" us or something. Instead they said good morning, and kept walking. Thank goodness. Not only had we wandered outside without shoes, cats, keys or wallets, I wasn't even wearing underwear! I imagine they were just as confused to see us.

Another side note: not sure who's more spooked, me or the cats. I'm not hiding under any furniture, but I think I'm also staying awake.

Even now, Elph and Milo are extra cuddly. When we came out during the second storm, there were no cats. Then Elphie came out from under the blue chair, and Milo appeared from wherever he had been hiding. Kilo came out when he was sure the danger had passed.

update: channel 9 a-hole weather man just said this storm wasn't severe. wtf???

The storm let up a little bit, so Scott turned on the TV in the living room while I was sending out my rapid-fire tweets. I wish I knew what the criteria was for "severe" thunderstorm. If not high winds or sideways rain or thousands of lightning strikes, then what?? I'm sorry that I called the smiling guy an a-hole, but he shouldn't have marginalized my terror. Had this storm hit downtown Orlando or Seminole County the way it hit us, they would've been running wall-to-wall weather all morning.

At 7:00, we went back to bed. I finished one book* and started another, and Scott fell right back to sleep. At 7:45 I stopped reading, and decided to try to fall back to sleep. At 8:00 on the dot, just as I finally sunk into my pillow, I woke up to a low rumble - the unmistakable sound of a riding lawn mower. That's right, the lawn guys were back, mowing our swamp! I managed to fall back to sleep, and barely flinched when the alarm went off at 10. I woke up for real at 11, but only because I have to leave for work by 12:45.

Speaking of work, I should really go blow dry my hair.

* Dave Barry's collection of columns, "Boogers Are My Beat." Even if you never liked his humor, I suggest you find this book at your local library and read the last two essays. They are, to the best of my knowledge, the only non-humor columns he's ever written. One was written the week after 9/11, and the other was written a year after. It made me realize that Dave Barry isn't a silly guy who lucked into a writing gig. He's a really gifted writer. And that last story should be required reading for high school kids.

1,000 Words

Further proof that my camera is designed for teenagers: fun borders you can add before taking a photo! Here's Milo and Elphie "playing" in their play zone, with an eerily familiar orange & black cats border!

Side note: we washed those towels yesterday, and now have the most fascinating orange & black lint ball ever!

Not Quite the Waltons

(umm...I'm referencing a pop culture reference from before my time, so I hope that's correct. Were the Waltons the ones who said good night to each other and there were like a dozen names?)

Anyway, I made myself laugh this morning when I came out and greeted my menagerie. Elphie was closest, so I started with her. As I scratched them each on top of the head I said, "good morning baby girl... good morning fat boy... good morning angry cat." And then I thought I should say "good morning John Boy," but I would have just confused the cats.

In retrospect, that might not have been a story worth telling. Sorry. Only other news around here is that our CD matures today and I have to move the money to our savings account. And now, the will power kicks in!

Fuzzy Vomit

A Domestic Post from your UN-Domestic Host!

All three of my cats have started hacking up hairballs. This might not sound strange, unless I mention that all three are vomiting the same hair. The culprit? Elphie, of course! Everyone likes to lick her, and everyone pays the cost.

Milo has always been a puker. He's bulimic, so as long as we don't let the food bowl get completely empty before feeding him again, he's fine. And cat food vomit is easy to deal with: you wait for it to dry (or at least cool) and grab it with a paper towel. And most of the time one of the cats will go back and eat it before I get back to it. Hairballs are a different beast. They are mostly liquid, and dry into a nasty splotch on the carpet that I haven't yet figured out how to clean easily.

But I digress. We decided that perhaps the solution to our problem was a new cat food. Milo and Kilo have been eating Indoor Cat Chow for their whole lives, but that was before we introduced Elph fur to their diet. So we're trying switching over to Purina One, which has an indoor formula for weight management *cough*Kilo*cough* and hairballs!

I bought a small bag tonight, in case the cats refused to eat it. I mixed some in to their bowl with their current food (because I'm a good mommy and read directions) and all three of them have been chowing down, possibly selectively eating the new bits. So I guess that makes today the start of the Purina One Challenge.

The Good Ship Elphaba

The blog has been dark and twisty recently. Know what might lighten things up? An illustrated pirate story!

Ahoy, mateys! This is the flag of the Good Ship Elphaba, a pirate ship captained by the Jolly Kitten herself.She steers her ship fearlessly though all the perils of the Living Room Sea.She once sailed from the Rainbow Tube of Slumber...

...all the way to the Cliffs of Entertainment Center!Sadly, the Good Ship Elphaba capsized off the Isle of Ottoman. As it turns out, kittens make lousy captains.

The End.

(This was the best $10 ever spent on an impulse buy at Publix, by the way!)

In other kitty-related news, Scott has taught Elphie how to fetch. Until we break out the video camera, there's nothing to show. Still photos just don't do it justice. But here's some pictures of Milo and Elphie showing how tall they are...

(Milo's got better balance... I consider Elphie's beaver tail an unfair advantage!)

And here's one more picture to leave you with. I call it "Not Milo's Best Side"

December 21

Guard Kitten: "Don't eff with these presents!"

December 20

"I want to wear this one. It matches my eyes."

December 19

"No! We're not allowed to open the presents until Christmas!"