Message for Meera...

...chocolate is for Mama C; chocolate wrappers are for Meera B.

Ghostly eyes

Bigfoot (aka "Kai")

Our friend Wicket! (while still at Aunt Jennie's)

Squeezed shut

Fully caffeinated

Death of a toy

Her favorite flavor yogurt lid: Strawberry Banana

Kai playing Statues

Bella, stopping to smell the (cat-friendly) flowers

Sunlit Kai

Time lapse photography

Flashback

Every now and then as a kid, I used to get what my sisters and I called 'Mexican jumping beans.' I have no idea what they really were, or where they came from, but I remember you could find them near the register of any corner drugstore.

Two beans came in every inch-square plastic case. I can't imagine why my mother thought this purchase worthwhile, except that maybe we'd done an exceptionally fine job pestering her, or maybe she too was secretly entranced by this alive but not-alive novelty.

At home my sisters and I would fight over who got to hold the case first. When it was my turn, I'd jealously cup my hand around the case, and then bring my face close to peer in. Pop! would go a bean, and I'd squeeeal!

Fast forward about twenty years. I'm grown, I live on my own, and I'm laughing on the phone to my mother, trying to describe the Mexican jumping bean that's made its way into my kitchen.

He's scrappy; he goes by the name of Kai. He puts both paws up against the wall, and leaps as high as he can, straight up. Once! twice! three times! And I squeeeeeal!

His zen gaze

Welcome to the jungle

A very loud, very disturbing thump outside the bathroom door. Silence, a low snarl, and then the sound of eight feet galloping into the next room.

When I open the door, there's Meera huddled in her customary spot. She's perfectly positioned to catch the wave of water-drenched air as I emerge post-shower. Kai is nowhere to be seen. Probably at the living room window, placidly watching birds.

"Noises? What noises?"

I envisage my kittens morphing into rhinoceri as soon as the door shuts. I'm just waiting to find rhino prints in the litter box to prove my hunch...

Totally intent, furrowed brow and all

Bright lights, and 69 degrees

Hmmm...

Up again clean

This morning I watched a little piece of carpet fluff that had attached itself to the end of Meera's nose. It snuffed in, it snuffed out, in, and out, in sync with her breath, until finally she bent down to nose a balled-up piece of tinfoil, and came up again clean.

Carnage! (they know what to do with junkmail)

Kai vs. the Spider

My (helpful?) little foghorn

Through jet black night en route from bathroom to bedroom, Kai's quiet, periodic whirr leads me in the right direction.

Lately though, he doesn't just lead the way. He leads the way and gets progressivly slower, til finally I have to give him a nudge with my foot. "Keep going!" my foot suggests. "The nest should still be warm!"

Absence makes the eyes grow...sharper?

This morning Bella Baby's stripes just popped. The darks were so dark, and her little round body was so appealingly cuddly and round.

Looked cuddly, but acted prickly. No snuggles this morning. I am snuggle-less!

Question

So how does a lampshade go askew, especially if said lamp is at least 7 feet tall, and nowhere near anything jump-offable??

Homecoming

I walked into the apartment today after being gone for three days. A lovely lady agreed to stop in on Saturday and Sunday to refill food and water, and empty the litter box.

I wondered if they would recognize my footsteps and come running. Ok, I knew that Meera wouldn't come running, but I hoped Kai would.

I walked through every room, giving everything the once over, giving the kitties under the bed (where else would they be?) a nice long opportunity to hear my feet and go all soft. The apartment looked in order. Slipcover torn from the baby chair, and lampshade askew, but nothing major.

Did either of them make an appearance? No. Not. A. Peep.

My reunion snuggle will have to wait til after work.

Letting down my guard

Companions are silent and have been for hours. Last I checked they were snuggling on the bed, so I potter about the kitchen totally lost in thought. I taste this, I salt that. I sing a little tune.

But Kai, that prankster, that predator, has been watching me. He lies crouched in the recesses of Under-the-Couch, giggling to himself and waiting for just the right moment. The right moment turns out to be as I'm walking from the sink to the stove with a (very (very)) full pan of water.

"Now!" he thinks. And before my brain can even register the clickety-clickety of approach, Kai races in, launches himself at my knees, zips around the kitchen and out again. The echoes of my shriek fade away as I'm left gasping and teetering on my tippy toes, trying to soothe the sloshing waves of water in the pan.

Later I'm paper-towelling the floor and he reappears looking quiet and surprised. "So this is what you do in your spare time?"

Fine dining

Still worth it

I think now there's no going back. The bedroom door has been left open for the past three nights, and they are such a comfort when I wake in the middle of the night. Kai's face looms in the darkness, his warm clear eyes shine, he sniffs my forehead to say hello and then he's gone, off on pressing kitten business.

Just before I slipped into sleep, Meera draped herself across my ankles, as if to remind my almost-unconscious self that moving my legs would have serious and immediate consequences. But at some point during the night I forgot this, and woke to Kai nipping--quite ferociously--at the edge of my foot. I swept him off the bed with the foot not under attack, and said No! as forcefully as I could to him, in the dark, in the night, with people sleeping below me. I heard the thump of his soft paws hit the carpeting, and then the thump of his soft paws as he jumped back up. And now he thinks it's a game. Oh dear, oh dear.

Keeping me company

Basking (while semi-distracted)

A nose of our own

Graceful when they want to be

All morning I tried to get one of the two to cuddle with me. Occasionally Kai would stand still long enough for me to kind of rub his cheek, and then he'd twist around and head off in the opposite direction. Meera was nowhere to be found. Of course.

Then I took out a deck of cards. I shuffled. I set up a little solitaire action. And magically they both appeared, snuggly and affectionate and mewly, scattering my cards with their eager little feet and being totally distracting.

These are the same feet that regularly navigate an end table loaded with precarious piles of books, full water glasses, random collections of pens, and various e-paraphernalia (cellphone, camera, etc.), without moving a single object. But bring out the cards, and suddenly they're clumsy as anything.

I could get used to this

Pure sweetness last night. For once, the kittens didn't attack my feet when I climbed into bed. Toe-attacks really freak me out. Instead of slowly sliding under the covers like I usually do, last night I just hopped in, pulled the covers up, and lay still. And miracle of all miracles, they remained curled up in little furry packets o' stripe. Meera raised her head and winked at me, then went back to sleep. No fangs, no claws, no dilated pupils. Later in the middle of the night, Kai ducked under the covers and curled into the corner of me. Brat used to do that.

Cooperative grooming

Taking a peek

Sleeping beauty and my cross-eyed beauty

O thank heaven for red ribbon and bell

Kai's latest thing is to anticipate where I'm going to walk, and then zip speedy crazy ahead, missing my feet by barely an inch. Last night he miscalculated, threw in a poorly aimed dive, and knocked into the edge of my open dresser drawer. A terribly hard corner! I dropped everything and fell to the floor, the better to soothe him huddled under the bed. He didn't seem to be in pain, but enjoyed the being-talked-to bit, and finally agreed to come out and play with our fabulous red ribbon & bell combo. We had a great playtime together, and it soooo beat out anything else I might have had planned.

Of course Bella joined in!

Tea cart

Reacquaintance

For a good hour now, Bella has been carefully sniffing and snoofing every surface of the apartment. Is everything as it should be, and right where she left it? She'd be the one to know. Giant beanbag mountains? Check. Green ribbon dangling from tea cart? Check. Invisible spot on tattered rug? Check. Edge of easy chair footrest? Check.

In the spirit of reconciliation

I left my bedroom door open last night. Meerakai spent a good twenty minutes gnawing on my poor (heavily blanketed) toes while I, still guilty, suffered in silence and sleeplessness, and then finally they snuggled in behind my knees. It was very hard to leave them for the weekend, but so wonderful to come home to them.

All's well

In the end, I had to don a thick winter glove and just grab at her beneath the couch. Very harsh words were exchanged, and for awhile I didn't think our relationship would weather the storm. But we have since apologized to each other, and this morning, in the comfort of her own home, she came to me for some loving.

Precious cargo

"It's okay, little ones, it's okay. We're almost there."

"Mew! Mew! Mew! Meeeew!"

"Just another mile or two, and we'll be safe and sound back home. Hang in there, munchkins."

Crunch of pothole; the car shudders. "MEW! Mew mew mew mew."

"It's aallright, aalllright, my bebbies."

My palms are sweating and my body is tense. What a mad, gruesome machine this car must seem.

A dark hour

Tuna lured them into their carriers in the first place. Tuna wasn't gonna work the second time around.

As my first act during "capture hour" at my mom's house last night, I opened a can of the good stuff and immediately Bella headed for the hills. My second act involved calling for backup and waiting for my mom to appear with a broom.

Bella had done some excellent reconnaissance work while I'd been gone, and found all the darkest tricksiest hiding places at my mom's house. The dark forest of chair legs beneath the table in the basement. The nasty, moist, cobwebby space between the wall and the washer/dryer. Underneath the living room couch.

Forty minutes later, with Kai curled quietly in the corner of his carrier, and Bella only the gods knew where, I collapsed on the couch and felt like crying. My mom was crying--with laughter. In between gasps for breath she tried to give me encouragement. I vowed to have my catsitter come to me next time, instead of taking the cats to her...

I was fresh from the airport, which meant I felt anything but fresh. I was dehydrated, headachy, jetlagged, recovering from elevation sickness, and hungry. Why oh why wouldn't she cooperate?? Please, Bella, COOPERATE!

Tuna treat

The lure of the mouse

Trash toys

I walked through the library stacks this evening and my right foot set a stray wad of paper scuffling across the floor. And again before I realized it, my left foot hit it even farther. Do you know what I thought to myself? I thought, ooh, Meera would love this bit of paper. I should take it home to her!

Then I came to my senses and laughed.

Psycho Kitty

Last night I was eating my dinner at the kitchen table when out of the corner of my eye, I see one of my cats scrabbling sideways across the linoleum. Yes, sideways. It was Meera, high on something, I thought, or else going crazy from the gas coming from the oven. I was baking cookies, and maybe the gas was especially strong. Maybe it was affecting her brain. She bunched her body up, turned her front half so it was at a right-angle to her back half, and then kind of shuffled all four paws in a crazed dance. It sort of seemed like she was stalking Kai. She had her eyes fixed on him, and her pupils were dilated. But he was in the litter box at the time, and they never bother each other when they're doing their thing... So I don't know what to think. It also occurred to me that she'd split open her catnip mouse and sniffed a little too much, but just on the off chance that it was the oven, I opened one window in the front and one in the back of the apartment to get a little cross-ventilation going. Later that evening she was still acting crazy, jumping at walls (which truthfully isn't a new behavior), and pouncing around with a bushed tail. I made a mental note to keep an eye on her, and to keep my toes out of reach. She seemed fine this morning.

Sight unseen: a large truck goes rumbling by

Our seventeenth belly rub of the day...he's insatiable!

Strange eyes, fringe in motion, purple and warm amber lights

Found

Each morning I find a new offering carefully and lovingly placed next to the water bowl. Is this Kai's way of giving thanks to the water gods? Or does he just like piling all of his favorite things in one place...water, catnip mouse, stray rubber bands...?

This morning it was the pull-top to my new case of soymilk, the pull-top I thought I'd discarded. Yesterday it was the jingle bell. And tomorrow...??

In a universe where cats rule the earth, build the bridges, and write the books, these would be the strange pieces found and displayed as art. Art created by Kai: unintentional, wonderful, random.

http://www.foundmagazine.com/

One down, one to go

Last night my sister took a firm hold on Kai while I clipped his nails. Snip, snip, snip, and we were done. He struggled at first, but by the third nail, he had gone limp and was purring loudly. The experience was much more traumatic for my sister, who can't stand the sight or the sound of clippers. Plus, she used to own a dog whose nails were black, so there was no way to tell where the quick began. As she grimaced and distracted herself with meaningless chatter, I reassured her that Kai's nails are practically translucent. I know exactly how much to clip off...don't know that she felt any less squeamish, but thanks to her, the job is done! (Or half of it anyway...Meera stayed under the bed the whole time, surprise, surprise...)

A sideways glance from Miz Crafty

Herself the mole

Herself the mole 2

Like a mole

Last night little Meera burrowed under the bubble wrap I left in the living room, and this morning she burrowed under the top blanket of my bed. I knelt by the bed and lifted the edge of the blanket to see what I knew would be there: her tiny cunning face, her wildly dilated pupils. She mewed a hello and shot a predatory glance at the tips of my fingers. I withdrew.

Bubble, blanket, bed, burrow...methinks her nickname Bella Baby is just perfect.

New rug!

New, fairly expensive (for a grad student) rug! New, fairly expensive, thick rug for living room floor...

...is proving irresistable to kitten claws, despite the water bottle placed in plain sight, despite the centrally located (as in: smack in the middle of new rug) scratching post.

What to do, what to do?

What's he got that I don't got?!

This morning Meera let me snuggle her! She didn't purr for me, but she didn't struggle either! I just picked her up, and scratched her around her cheeks. She squeezed her eyes shut...

Then later, she and Kai were lying on the big blue chair, grooming each other for long minutes, and snuggling to beat the band.

G-R-O-S-S

Note to self: run the disposal after throwing the ends of pickles into the sink drain. It took me a good ten minutes of crouched staring, and poking with paper towel, before I could identify the rubbery pale green thing left outside my bedroom door.

Kai must have reached into the drain and snagged it with his claws. How did he know it was down there??

Visitor

Last night, returning from a visit to my sister's place (oh, to be a real adult with a fireplace!), I climbed the porch and walked toward my back door. A streak of fuzzy black lightning flew past my feet, down the steps, and vanished into the alley behind the old carriage house.

Meerakai are always terribly interested in sniffing my shoes when I come home. I guess it's their window to the outside world. What do they smell? Maybe where I work, the sidewalks outside the house, the gas pedal of my car...the scent of neighborhood kitties??

The blue light

Singing a song of Saturday morning

This morning has been a steady string of quiet, simple joys. I woke early, made the bed and took care of the kitties. Put away the breakfast dishes and started a pot of coffee. Kicked the thermostat up a degree or two. Last night I'd cleaned the flat...giving the bathroom a thorough going-over, washing three days' worth of dishes, and sweeping the kitchen floor. It was so pleasant to wake up to a clean house. Time was, I resented the connection between my sense of well-being and the cleanliness of my surroundings, but now I accept it and do what I must.

With fresh coffee perking and two cats twisting themselves around my ankles, I made and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast...toast, coffee, water, and some vegetable soup. Vegetable soup?! Not the most orthodox of early morning meals, but that's what happens when Mother Hubbard's cupboards go bare!

So then I brought a second cup of coffee over to the armchair in the living room, where I alternated reading with gazing through the window just to my left. Lately it seems as though the sky over Hamtramck is always grey and overcast, though not oppressively so. I don't mind it. I find something very appealing in the combination of old crooked houses, black bare-branched trees, and low sky. It makes me feel like I'm a character inside one of the wonderfully-illustrated books I read as a girl (Edward Gorey? Royal Tenenbaums? Madeleine?).

Just now Kai and Meera, perched atop the low bookcase in front of the window, began making 'yik yikking' sounds. I stood up to see what might be causing the fuss. Both their tails were swishing wildly back and forth; their bodies were tense, and their ears pointed forward. Just outside the window grows a tree, bare of course, bare except for the extremely fat squirrel running back and forth on a branch at about our eye level. Kai stood on his hind legs to paw at the window. The squirrel must have heard the scritching because all of a sudden he stopped mid-stride, and stared for a good three seconds at our window (what a sight that must have been! two eager-eyed kittens and their lady, scrunched together on the other side of the glass!). Kai pawed again at the window, and the squirrel ran up and over to a higher, safer part of the tree. He stared again for a few seconds, and then decided the kittens were no threat, trapped as they were in their domestic prison. He leaped to the branch closest to our window, balanced his substantial weight on his back legs, and proceeded to take a leisurely bath. First he licked his front paws, then washed his nose, his ears, groomed his belly (not unlike a cat, I'd like to point out). He went over his entire bushy tail, and finally gave a good scratch to each ear before bounding off in search of nuts. I thought the kittens were going to go insane...

I feel content and relaxed right now, fully caffeinated, kittenated, and ready for the day. If only every day began with such simple satisfaction, with such little rush. Before I leave for my last Saturday class, I'll finish a load of laundry, pack an overnight bag to take to my grandmother's, and find my waitressing outfit for work tonight.

Artsy bed-shot

Sit like a lady! (my mother would say)

Ah, but this wee one has just woken up and didn't know there was a camera about...give her a moment to adjust herself...

Meera breaks her own personal-space rule

This paper is NOT being co-authored

I finished my dinner a few minutes ago and just sat back down at my laptop. My goal is to finish this research proposal by 2 am. It's 8 pm now. This is the very last ever-ever project I'll have to do before they hand me my degree, and I'm so sick of it I could cry. Luckily the bulk of it is done. I need to make a few revisions, rearrange some sections, and then make it all flow.

But I've just glanced at the laptop screen, and my stomach dropped. Nothing I saw looked familiar. There was an entire paragraph containing a single letter: 's'. There were dots and dashes, there were nonsensical words.

Oh, shit, I though. I forgot the first rule of working on a laptop: never leave it unattended and unprotected while there are catses around. The blinking cursor must have caught Kai's eye, so he stepped on the keyboard to do a little investigative sniffing. And that explains the scratch marks on the display, too.

I started clicking the Undo button repeatedly. 125 Undo's later, as my finger was starting to tire, I discovered a handy-dandy Word feature that lets me Undo several things at once (about 500 things at once, to be exact).

I was able to delete all of Kai's editorial comments, and retrieved entire paragraphs that he'd erased. Then I saved the proposal three times.

Haven't seen the little bugger in awhile. Meera is in the room with me now, jumping straight up the wall at absolutely nothing. Looks like she can clear about two feet of air...

Squirt, squirt

I went and bought a squirt bottle from the supermarket just down the street. It was definitely a premeditated decision, and they know it. I wrote it on my shopping list. I remembered to go down the cleaning/storage aisle. I found one that lets me spray a soft befuddling mist and a long-range hard-hitting kerpow.

So yes, I can eat my breakfast without having to push Bella (aka "Greedy") away from my plate twenty million times, and now Kai (aka "Slurpy") actually jumps out of the kitchen sink when I say "get down!"

But is it worth the guilt??

I'm going to be one of those parents whose kids are miserable brats because I don't have the heart to discipline them...sigh...

Tempting fate

Meerakai were both sitting peaceful and sedate in the living room window as I locked up this morning. But I bet Kai found the pan soaking in the kitchen sink within seconds of my shutting the door.

Bobblehead

This morning, I walked from the fluorescent brightness of the kitchen into the barely lamp-lit darkness of the living room. Meera, sitting on the long end table and craning her neck to see out the window, suddenly stood stock-still and got ready to run--normal procedure for her when I enter the room.

So, obligingly, I slowed way down, and channeled soft, non-threatening, fluid thoughts towards this tiny wildchild. She remained on the coffee table. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her do something strange as I passed through to the bedroom. She kept her body stiff and her eyes on my face, but her head bobbed up and down and all around as I went by, tiny little bird-like movements.

I've noticed her doing this before, but never really consciously until this morning. Why the bobblehead?

Leap to balance

Prey! (near-headless, ratty, germed-up prey)

Hungry for the sea

Why were they crying so loudly? Neither are especially vocal, but this afternoon they cried and cried and swam among my legs, and beseeched me for...something!

I gave each a rub on the head, and went back to stirring my New England Clam Chowder.

What's so cool about sheets?

My bedroom door doesn't latch properly; the pokey-outey thing is permanently stuck inside the door, so it won't grab the hole-thing on the jamb. ("Jamb"? Is that a word??). Thus at night when I want to sleep a sleep free of stealth toe attacks, I prop the door shut with a shoebox full of books.

Normally I use the shoebox during morning bed-make as well. But this morning I could hear both kittens munching loudly on kitten chow, waaay on the other side of the flat, and thought to myself, "It takes, what? less than a minute to make the bed? I'll just rearrange the sheets and blankets real quick."

I threw back the top blanket. I threw back the comforter. I picked up the sheet. I tossed it high into the air and let it billow slowly, slowly, slowly down. In its settling, two cat-shaped humps revealed themselves. How in the...?!?! Weren't they just...?!?! But...?!?!

I gave up on the bed-make, and instead Kai and Bella and I had crazy insane playtime. Pupils black and dilated, they stalked each other among the mountains and valleys of the Sheet Monster.

My Bella knows she's bella

One of the many, many wonderful features of my new flat is that both of the walk-in closets have full-length mirrors for doors. At the old place, I had to crane my neck to see my whole ensemble in the tiny bathroom mirror, or I'd try to catch my reflection in the glass of the back door as I locked up for the day.

This morning before I left the flat I called for the kitties. Only soft Kai came running, so after giving him a little belly rub I went in search of Meera. Not in the kitchen, not in the office/library/yet-to-be-unpacked room, not in the living room or in any of the windows. Finally I found her parked in front of the closet mirror in my bedroom. Sitting on her hind legs, front paws positioned daintily just-so, admiring her own reflection. And what a beautiful reflection it is...

Kittens already feel at home; 154 boxes unpacked, 3 to go