Meera grokking our new toy

Alternative to suction cups

Stainless steel tension rods!

No more accidentally driving over defenseless bird feeders! (Lizzzzziiiiiee.....)

Must consult with the munchkins to see if this would be a worthwhile purchase. (I hear Meera telepathicking: "Yes! Yes!")

More than you ever wanted to know: http://www.bestnest.com/bestnest/lc/lc_window_bird_feeder_faq.asp

Cats on film (in bits 'n' bytes?)

The spankin' new Canon is sitting on Someone's dining room table in Dearborn, even as I write, so painfully out of reach... My kingdom for Go-go Gadget arms.

Cuteness ceases to exist til I can get my finger on that shutter button. Kai's silly belly flops on the kitchen floor. His finger nips, fishbreath and all. Brat's sweet nose rub, the way he reaches out with his face to touch mine. Meera's absolute genius on the basketball court...

I refuse to look til tomorrow morning, and then...oh hoho, then!!

This morning's recipe

One horrendous bee's nest of tri-cattal hissing, two loud dull thumps, and a pinch of tiny nails against glass. Cats! fighting for living room window space, from which precious real estate they crane their necks up to spy on little birdies hanging over the gutter. Or, as in Meera's case, throw their bodies against the glass in a birdblood lustful frenzy of want...

Grumpsy

Found out the camera is just now shipping out of PA. Estimated arrival date: June 12. Don't the powers that be realize that I'm missing achingly cute poses?? Art that will forever remain trapped in my head...

It's the little things in life

This new litter is going to revolutionize our lives. I can feel it. And look at the cute little clumps!...

An invasion of his personal space

It happens again and again, just at feeding time.

Brat plants himself in the middle of the kitchen floor, solid, patient, & all-knowing. "The food comes out of that cupboard, she's the one who gets it for me, and when she starts downstairs to fill my bowl, that's when I'll move from this spot."

The kittens...so young! so naive! so wasteful of good energy!...race up and down the stairs, mewing piteously, curling around my legs, stretching way high up against the cupboards to see whether I've taken out the correct number of FF cans...

...and then, inevitably, Kai loses his head in the excitement of dinner time, and instead of curling against my legs, he curls himself right under Brat's nose. It shocks Brat every time, as if it had never happened before. He kind of half-snorts, and jerks his head back. If Kai is smart enough to keep moving and leave the room, Brat quickly recovers and resumes his dignified waiting. If Kai continues to use Brat as his personal rubbing post, Brat lets loose a half-strangled hiss, part threat and part hairball. It's pathetic to hear, and it must shame Brat to have it escape his lips because he always leaves the room right after. A few minutes later, he joins us in the basement, and quietly begins eating (inches away from Kai's face...no problem now).

Repairs

Big loud man clomps through house early-early. Ceramic sink hulks sideways, oddly, on bathroom floor. Water drips everywhere!

Bathroom door left open for four hours this morning (oh joy!)...tiny mud prints on stairs, in kitchen, on windowsills, in bed, shout "Us catz wuz here!" and the lady is not pleased.

Milk it, Meera, ye queen of flights down flights

"If you don't stop fussing over me," she warns, writhing in ecstasy, "I'm going to run away and hide in my favorite corner of the basement."

I'm kneading her back, checking for soreness. "If you run away," I whisper into her ear, "I will run after you, for I would miss you like fire."

"If you run after me," she whispers back, "I will join the circus and become their Fantastical Fire-Eating Feline."

"If you join the circus, I will become a tight-rope walker, with Kai in front of me and Brat behind. We'll grip with our toes and cross the rope to gather you up and take you home."

I run my hands down her legs. No bumps. I rest my hands in my lap for a moment and smile at the sparse warm skin in front of her ears--where my favorite cat smell resides. I lean in. But she's not one for patience, tiny toothed Meerabel. The teeth unsheath.

"You haven't checked my tail yet! Nor my neck!" (This, as she twists into all sorts of unnatural positions, creating unbroken curves within curves within curves (did she just say "nor"??))

"Launch yourself once down the stairs," my stern voice says, "and you win yourself extra special loving attention. Launch yourself a second time, and you're permanently barred from the upstairs. Capice?"

"Capice." Meow.

Our new arrival! (well, in 3-5 days...)

WHO'S EXCITED??

Badly shaken, but unharmed

Little Girl seems ok, judging by the leaps she's making, the food she's eating, and the strength with which she rolls her head along the entire length of my arm.

To be continued...

Heartache

I write to recover...

This morning there was a terrible crash outside the bathroom door. It started from a great height, and rolled its heartrending way downward, downward, down the stairs and past the bathroom door, amidst a horrible rustling sound. It seemed to last forever! And then silence.

I rushed out to find a grocery bag on the floor, and no sign of cats anywhere. I think I know what happened: when last I left MeeraKai they were wrestling at the top of the stairs, grocery bag a few feet away. One of them must have gotten tangled up and slipped...

In the kitchen, the Elder. Ok. In the living room, no one. Book room, no one, basement, no one! Panic rising, I ran up the stairs to find Kai sitting forlornly in the middle of the floor. (Ok, two down, where's Meera??)

She had tucked herself into the farthest corner underneath my bed, and scootched away when I reached for her. Even the loving, come-hither voice had no effect, and she is a sucker for the knead. But her eyes were clear and alert, and she stared at the toy I dangled...she moved her head quickly when her brother made a sudden jump to the bed...she seemed to have no trouble walking (in her attempt to move further away from my hand).

In the end I had to leave, but will check on her soon. I fear--I don't know what to fear.

Surrounded!

We are so enamored of the 922 cats, kittens, and kittens out there in biblio.blog.land that we haven't been making time to shout of our own exploits. Sometimes we despair of ever rising to dailypost-hood...

This early afternoon we took a nap on the sofa. The newly slipcovered, dark blue denim sofa, soooo comfortable. I was alone when I lay down; I woke to find Kai on the back of the sofa, Brat on the cushion by my feet, and Meera curled into my chest.

6 fosterlings from BiblioIsle

Today I needed a good snuggle, and...

when I need a good snuggle I call for Kai. He comes running around the corner, tail up and purrbox at the ready. I can hear him vibrating before I've even picked him up. We're good for twenty seconds (thirty, tops); then he looks askance at the fingers rubbing his ears, and he cranes his neck to get good nip-angle. He shifts his weight and braces his hind legs against my chest, and that's when I know to put him down...

Now, Meera on the other hand, doesn't know what it means to be biddable. She comes when she's ready, and that's usually when I'm climbing into bed. I'll keep my eyes open for another few minutes while I give her a deep-muscle backrub. Tiny as she is, she loves to have her whole body kneaded like bread, with vigor, with both hands. She's a loaf of pumpernickel, with streaks of rye.

When I'm done, and when she's done, and when I'm scootching farther under the covers, she drops the purr like yesterday's FancyFeast, and becomes a snarly junglecat. I've learned to lie completely still until she's flounced off the bed. Then and only then do I feel safe enough to rearrange my legs, and bring my arms out from under the covers. I'm at her mercy, this baby no longer than my shin, no heavier than a book.

Least like violets

Ode to Meera! My little skunk cabbage, my pungent gym shoe, my sweet compost pile sweltering in thick July sun. Whence cometh such stench? In which olfactory factory was this odor brewed, and how did your tiny perfect body ever mother that offensive effluvium?

Never mind all that. Some things are better left unknown. More to the point: how did you know that we're having overnight guests, and that I had just cleaned the litter box?

Electrical wet grumblings

This place looks so empty as I return this evening. I'm muscle-sore and throat-sore and just plain weary. The thought of bed can be an unparalleled joy.

More boxes made the trip north today, more books & more clothes. This time I spent a good fifteen minutes, alone, on the porch in the light rain and sunshine, after everyone else had driven off down the street. I looked at the grass and the new buds on my little tree, and I understood green. I soaked up the feel of my cool concrete porch, legs outstretched, arms easeled out behind me. Afterwards I took a close look at the pebbled pale skin of my palms, feeling like a kid fascinated again with minutiae, with textures.

I know this mood, and I know it to be rare. So I write about it. It had to do with the sunshine & the lateness of the day. It had to do with being alone & independent & the streetpeace & the remnants of the love of my family lingering in all my corners: in the mail scattered across my living room floor (Ethan), in the fresh roll of paper towels on the kitchen counter (Karen), in the neat stacks of homeless books in the back room (Lauri).

There is much to be done before it feels completely like home. I'm thinking rugs on the hardwood, and strategically placed lamps & photos. I'll need to clean the bathroom before I feel like the place is mine; I'll need to share a few meals with my cousin, my housemate. But soon, soon, I'll close the door of this condo, home for a year and a half, and begin a new phase. Everything will be different.

These cds will have to go north tomorrow. These dishes. These knicknacks, those that make the cut. And hey, my little munchkins, most important of all, you're coming too! They lounge in this near-empty echoey space and poke their heads through the lacy curtains to peer outside. Lightening illuminates the tree outside every few seconds; they seem unconcerned.

Pah! Tame beasts! I've heard tell of kitties gone mad during electrical wet grumblings, gone bushy-tailed and wild-eyed. Scare me a little, push me to the edge, make me think I should keep my feet on the couch, out of claw and out of teeth. We have so little time.

Dreams of summer; dreams of socks

I have turned the heat off in my apartment, and I'm determined to keep it that way. There's too much sunshine and promise of warmth outside to justify keeping windows shut and breathing dry recycled air.

BUT. This does not mean that my toes understand "promise of heat." They are freezing; they are recalcitrant icicles. The rest of me is warm, why not those ten?

Luckily I keep two obliging kittens handy, and these kittens are laptop lovers. I push open my laptop's lid and press the 'on' button...the gentle whir of the processor brings MeeraKai running. Meera will linger at the opposite end of the cushions; Kai will hover behind my head on the back of the couch. The next moment they're both crowding close. Then we'll suffer together through ten minutes of "nooooo, sweetie, don't put your paw on the keyboard," and "noooo, purrball, don't scrape your claws along the screen."

This is especially hard for Meera, my technophile. She sees everything. She sees the shifting logo in the browser's upper-right corner...she sees words as they're typed on screen...she sees pictures as they download (sooo slooowly...damn dial-up!)...she sees this tiny blinking cursor!! And she wants it all. She keeps her tiny front paws delicately balanced on the edge of the keyboard, and tries to contain herself, really she does, but even so, I find myself removing her paw from one spot or another. Sometimes we'll wind up in an uncomfortable compromise. Her back paws will balance on the cushion next to me. Her front elbows will be cradled in my hand, about level with the screen. She can't paw at anything that way, so she settles in and just watches. I type one-handed.

But eventually they get tired of me pushing them off and pushing them away, and they cozy in close, carefully turning their heads away so as not to be tempted. So here is...well, from this angle I can't tell which is which. I think this is Meera on my right, warming my thighs. And I think this is Kai on my left, draped across my toes.

My newly warm, snuggled, toasty toes...

Feline vs. Fruit, round one

Kai is still learning how to retract his claws.

I'll find him sprawled on the floor by the giant windows, so relaxed and content, one claw caught in the lacy curtains and hanging awkwardly six inches off the floor. (What? he asks, with attitude. I sleep best like this. You look ridiculous, I say, and that can't be good for your circulation. Put your arm down. No, he says.)

This morning I put a bowl on the floor, a bowl that held one tiny baby grape. (I don't eat tiny baby grapes. I put them in the same category as the very tail ends of pickles, broccoli in my Chinese take-out, and the dark spots on a banana; all end up in the garbage disposal.)

I wanted to let Kai drink the water that pooled in the bottom of the bowl; I thought I was being extra nice. But now I know: even H2O pales in comparison to tiny baby grape. He looked perkily at it. He sniffed it for awhile. He experimented with different paw techniques: the spread-toe swat, the curled-paw swat, the slow roll, the quick jab. The ignore, then pounce maneuver.

And then the tiny baby grape got snagged on a claw and wouldn't come off. Kai lifted his paw out of the bowl and gave it a sharp shake. It clung tenaciously. He lifted his paw higher and higher, til finally he was sitting back on his hind paws, shaking that front foot.

Perplexion! In a last-ditch effort before succumbing to his fabulous, permanent, new toe bauble, Kai limped around the living room. Mid-stride he gave it another go. This time the tiny baby grape went flying into a corner of the dining area. It hasn't been seen since, and I notice Kai didn't go chasing after it...

(Was he surprised by the grape's stubborn grip? Cowed, perhaps?)

Spontaneous ablution

The four of us are sitting/lying on the couch, in various stages of wakefulness. I'm the most alert, having just downed a deelish mug of homemade cafe mocha.

Brat's probably least conscious. He's out cold, not even dreaming, lying on his right side, and cradling his own head with his right paw. It curls around his cheek in the sweetest way.

MeeraKai are both on the back of the couch behind my head. Purring, but eyes shut. All of a sudden, all three open their eyes and start washing themselves.

You guys trying to put me to shame? Is that what this is? Two days is not that long to go without showering...geez...