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

Zipping up

In particular, I miss the way they hear the first creak as I start up the stairs, and go bounding past me to arrive at the top first. As they zip by, I think: "...there's one!...and there's two!..."

From Albuquerque...

From hundreds of miles away, I hear that one of the two has been sick, and that Meera has come out of hiding and wants to be pet...

I miss their company.

2 glorious hours...

...in which to slowly wake up, sipping my tea and reading my book...

...were not to be.

Spills in the foster room, a water dish that desperately needed cleaning, unpotted dirt all over the living room floor. Turns out tin foil around the base of a plant isn't as effective as a kitten mistress could hope. At least, not with these two.

Kittens say, wake up earlier, fool!

She's dreaming jungly stripéd dreams

Use #345,607 for a kitty webcam

Mornings, I find holes in the ultra-thick, ultra-ugly brown living room curtains. Tiny pinprick holes, the size of, hmmmm, kitten claws...

But I never see them attack the curtains. Innocent until proven guilty, they say.

Infrequent guest

Our Buddy-like buddy hasn't been back in awhile, and we think maybe four cats is too much for him to handle. Two he could talk to, three was a bit much, but four? Well, now that's just going too far.

KP

Breakfast time. Defense time. Scan the counters, scan the floor, great distraction needed, gotta protect the food. String? Old. Dead leaf? Wouldn't last a minute. Aha! Bottlecap! Will this work?

I toss it.

Meerakai go bounding off, two tails and eight legs, 36 whiskers and who-knows-how-many stripes, I'm left alone in the kitchen.

Success is sweet; breakfast is mine, all MINE!

Linen impressions

Limp as a ragdoll