Ronin almost never gets on my desk to pester me, but I’ve posted photos of the other two undergoing corporal cuddling for being pests, and fair is fair. He needed to have his photo posted too! So I grabbed him and snapped one. He was not happy.

Myu will not leave me alone for a minute! ARGH!

Tora has been pestering me non-stop for 30 minutes, so the last time she decided to stand between my monitor and my face, I decided she needed to have her picture taken. Notice she doesn’t look pleased? She’s ceased pestering me, so I guess my cat annoyance tactic has worked!

The cats are all being entirely too cute and adorable this morning. I suspect there is an evil cat plan afoot. They are never this pleasant first thing in the morning, and they certainly don’t tend to be totally adorable so early in the day when the food and water bowls are full and the litter box has been scooped. I mean … they don’t require my services at the moment, so why all the kitty love being directed at me? I wonder what they have planned?

There are also no cats sitting in the open kitchen window this morning. None of them even want to go near the kitchen window. I imagine they are concerned there will be another large dog jumping at the window, and I’m sure they would rather not repeat that experience. It sort of sad, because all three of them love sitting in that window and watching the world outside. They even get grumpy if I don’t open the window in the morning when I get up, no matter the weather. I hope they get over it soon and get back to sitting in the window in the morning. I missed watching them tussle over who gets the prime windowsill location while I was making the morning coffee.

I didn’t get much, if any, real sleep last night, but I have something of a busy day ahead. I have to run to the store for fire ant poison, milk, and some sort of insta-food (in case I don’t feel like cooking one night), and then I’ll be killing fire ants while simultaneously making bread with that new flour. I keep putting it off for fear of total bread failure, but we are now out of bread, so I have to make some. If I don’t use the new flour, Lin will give me grief about it, and I don’t need any more grief in my life.

Before any of that happens, I have to call Mom. She hasn’t called with any news about the biopsy they did on her silly little dog on Monday, and I want to know why I haven’t heard anything yet. How long does it take her vet to get testing done on stuff? Seems like a long time, and I am sure Mom hasn’t called them to ask, because I know she doesn’t want to hear any bad news. Still, if it’s cancer, it’s best to move quickly, so if they haven’t called her, she needs to call them and find out what’s up.

But first, a nice steaming cup of coffee. I suspect it won’t be the last one of the day either.

Today has begun with some excitement. As per the standard daily routine, I stumbled blurry-eyed to the kitchen to make coffee, and while the first cup was hissing its way to morning caffeine perfection, I opened the kitchen window for the cats who all eagerly jumped up onto the window sill and nearby stool to gaze into the darkness of the back yard.

Once all the necessary coffee was brewed, I turned on the morning weather reports and made my way to the den to fire up the computer to read the news. So far, so good. The day was proceeding in the usual slow way mornings usually do.

But then … a loud ruckus from the kitchen! Hissing, spitting and cats scattering in all directions at full speed!

I rush to the kitchen, cursing the cats as I go, and flip on the kitchen light. Nothing seems amiss, other than the complete absence of cats in the kitchen and a snuffling sound coming from the other side of the open kitchen window. I stick my nose to the screen, but not being in possession of in-the-dark-seeing cat eyes, I see nothing. I do continue to hear snuffling, sniffing, and the sounds of something larger stomping around near the window. Whatever it is, it’s bigger than a possum and noisier too.

Slipping on some nearby shoes, I step out into the dark laundry room and flip the switch for the outdoor light. I flip it a few times, but no light comes forth. Naturally, the first time in ages I have needed the outdoor light to function, and the bulb has apparently burnt out. I bravely open the back door a crack, and in the dim beginnings of sunrise, I can clearly see the outline of a large black dog. It’s one of the Latino’s dogs. I very quickly close the door.

I retrieve a new light bulb from beneath the kitchen sink and return to the den. I pull the cord for the laundry room light, and once again, no light comes forth. This is no surprise, because the laundry room is cursed, and as far as I am concerned is the portal to hell. Once again, I bravely open the back door a crack and attempt to change the light bulb on the back door light.

Nothing is ever easy in my life, so of course I have trouble getting the new bulb to screw in properly. Meanwhile, I notice the large black dog’s counterpart –a large orange and white dog– is also in my back yard. I notice this because both of them are licking my bare legs. At least they weren’t eating me … only tasting me. I eventually get the bulb into the socket, flip the switch so I can see the two tail-wagging pit bulls more clearly, and step back into the laundry room. The dogs stare at me from the other side of the glass window in the door, seemingly sad I didn’t stick around for more leg licking.

The household cat collective, as you may well imagine, is not happy. The only dog experience they have is with a dog small enough for any one of them to eat for breakfast, so a large dog jumping at them as they sit in the kitchen window waiting for sunrise was a bit of a jolt to their delicate sensibilities.

Myu is glued to me and well within what we call Momma’s Smacking Perimeter, which is the distance I can smack other cats on the butt when they are harassing the poor dear. Whenever she feels threatened or scared, she can be found somewhere within that safe zone. She’s also mewing loudly and demanding belly rubs, which she is receiving aplenty.

Big, strong, and overly aggressive Ronin is doing exactly what bullies do when they get frightened by something that could kick their butts. He’s slinking from dark corner to dark corner with his ears back, his tail between his legs, and his eyes bugging out of his head. I imagine he’ll find some cozy and safe location for a nap soon, and I won’t be seeing him until his tummy rumbles for lunch.

I have no idea where Tora is. If I had to guess, she’s cowering in the deep recesses of the bedroom closet or under Lin’s workbench in the den. Or maybe she’s found a new hiding place. I do know it’s very likely she was the one sitting directly in the window when the large black dog made his appearance, and therefore, she’s probably the most freaked out. If I haven’t seen or heard from her in another few minutes, I will go on a cat-finding expedition. If I fail to locate her, I’ll just open the door to the Box Room. Nothing attracts the collective of cats like the creak of the Box Room door … the only room in the house into which they are not allowed.

Thus has this Thursday begun with a bit of excitement! As soon as there’s enough light outside, I will be tromping through the muddy yard to the garden to check for dog damage. There better not be any. While I am not 100% thrilled about the neighbor’s pitbulls being in my yard, the ones they have now don’t seem to be as mean and aggressive as the ones they had when we moved in 6 years ago, and there really isn’t anything any of us can do about the dogs getting over the fence. They have two large dogs (and a collective of chihuahuas) and we have a 3 foot tall fence that’s really more of a token property line marker than a security feature. The only thing it successfully keeps out of the yard are the aforementioned chihuahuas. Neither they nor I have the money to replace the fence, so we’re all just going to have to get along with what we have.

Unless there’s dog damage in the garden, in which case something will have to be done. One of the things that would have to be done is having a talk with the Latinos. They are sweet people, but all the same, if I need to have a conversation with them about their dogs jumping the fence and digging in my garden, I will be pushing that task off on Lin. They are very Latino in culture, so it won’t be odd from their point of view for him to be doing the talking for me, and well, his Spanish is better than mine as well. Hopefully, there won’t be any need to do any talking about damaged gardens, and we can all go back to ignoring the wimpy little fence until the next time the dogs jump over it.

If this starts to become a regular habit though, something will have to be done … something more than just talking about it. Dogs generally don’t make me nervous, but when we first moved into the house, we had aggressive pit bulls on one side of us and aggressive and deaf pit bulls on the other side of us, and I’ve gotten a wee bit jumpy about large aggressive dogs that are capable of jumping 3 foot tall fences. Sure, they were both wagging their tails and licking me this morning, but I don’t know those dogs, and so they do make me a little skittish (which is the worst thing to be when around unknown dogs).

The sun is almost up. I think I’ll slam what’s left of my free trade, single source, Tierra del Sol coffee with Parisian almond creamer and go check my poor waterlogged and sunshine-starved plants for dog damage. Then I’ll go find Tora. I suspect she may need some belly rubs and loving attention after this very exciting morning. I know I do!

Last night, while Lin and I were slumped in the living room doing our best couch potato impersonations, a fight broke out in the den between Ronin and Myu. Nothing too terribly new about that. There are the rare and occasional bouts of spitting, hissing, and tussling. They tend to break up and quickly as they start, and if it gets loud enough and angry-sounding enough, a human shouting “WTF?” usually ends the battle.

I’m never quite sure who starts it. They do, at least, know better than to break out into an actual fight in the same room with a human witness. By the time I get to the scene of the crime, all I ever see is cats running in opposite directions. Ronin is a big bully, and he does like to throw his expansive weight around, though Myu does seem to try to annoy him on purpose. Of course, you wouldn’t let your husky son beat up your more petite daughter just because she was touching him (or licking his head, as the case may be), so I’ve tried to impart to Ronin that beating up his sister –no matter what– is not acceptable. Though things are better now than they were last year when this started, he apparently still hasn’t clued in to just how unacceptable it is.

Last night, the first thing I heard was Myu hissing. Then the sounds of a tussle. As expected, next came the usual cat shriek from Myu. This is the point at which at least one human screams “WTF?” and things simmer down. Well, last night, it didn’t. The cat shrieking and tussling only got louder until it was evident there was a full-blown cat fight going on in the den. This lead to both available humans entering the den from opposite sides, but no cats were to be seen.

Myu was found hiding under Lin’s workbench, and she would NOT come out. Ronin was found under the kitchen table, and he was not coming out. I was mostly concerned about Myu, because she’s smaller and not at all a fighter. So I turned on the overhead light in the den to make an effort to get her out from under the workbench so I could check for physical damage. That’s what I noticed tufts of black fur wafting around the den floor.

Tufts … of … fur.

Likely needless to say, I removed Ronin from under the kitchen table and tossed him into the bedroom. He was grouchy enough about that he hissed at me and gave me a scratch on my arm for my trouble. After I closed the bedroom door, I could still hear him being grumpy behind it.

Too bad.

I then spent 15 minutes coaxing Myu out so I could check her over for bleeding or injuries. She was less than cooperative while I felt her down and looked her over, but I didn’t find any readily apparent damage. I also couldn’t find where the tufts of fur had previously resided, but there was a spot on her chest area that looked a little scruffier than usual. After I was done with her, she returned to her hiding spot.

I let Ronin stew for a few more minutes, and then I went to check on him. He wasn’t damaged either, but boy was he turning on the charm. Oh … he LOVED me and used every trick in the book to make me forget I was angry with him. Might have worked as it always does had there not been TUFTS OF MYU’S FUR on the den floor. I left him in the bedroom to stew a little longer and went back to watching TV. It was about an hour before he started scratching on the door.

The rest of the night was peaceful enough, but even though these fights are rare and occasional, they do seem to be escalating in intensity, and I am not having it. I’ve tried loud noises, time-outs, and the Water Bottle of Doom, and none of these things have had any lasting effect on the fighting. I don’t promote any sort of violence or angry actions while training animals, but I think I am going to have to escalate things myself. I used to keep the Water Bottle of Doom near me at all times when they were younger for long-distance training action. Now I guess I’ll be keeping a rolled-up grocery store sales circular handy at all times, because I even so much as see anything that looks like it’s about to become an actual fight between those two, and someone is going to get smacked on the butt.

I hate to do that, but Ronin is a very heavy, very muscular cat, and he could do some serious damage to either Myu or Tora (who he doesn’t fight with for some reason). Yanking out tufts of fur is bad enough. I do not want to have to take a cat to an emergency vet late at night, because Ronin got bent out of shape about whatever it is he gets bent out of shape about (and I’ve seen him get upset about completely stupid things, like who gets to sleep on Lin’s amp). He better get a clue, because tufts of fur on the den floor is so far beyond acceptable, he’s lucky he didn’t find himself spending the night in the carrier … or outside.

Not having it.

There’s already been hissing this morning. Hopefully, everyone will just get over themselves, because I have things to do today, and my list does not include chasing cats around the house breaking up fights.

And Tora continues to be the most wonderful, adorable, cutest, sweetest cat on the planet.

After the many thousands of words I posted earlier ranting today about health care (and this whole week), I thought perhaps it would be wise to post something a wee bit more fun and light … like a photo of our sweet and adorable Tora.

Cat photos are always good to post, right?

I laid down to take a little nap at 5:30 pm yesterday. My alarm went off an hour later. I hit the snooze button for another hour, then I turned off the alarm. Lin tried to wake me up at some point. All I remember is telling him I didn’t want to get up and “sleeping feels good.” I slept until 5 am this morning.

I might have slept even longer, were it not for the cats. One cat in particular successefully managed to take me from completely asleep to wide awake in a matter of a second. How did little Tora succeed at rousing me so quickly? No, not a cat fart in the face this time.

There is a very large and very heavy antique mirror on my chest of drawers. It’s the sort that would normally be hung on the wall, but I have had it sitting on the chest of drawers and leaned against the wall since we moved into the house 6 years ago. It has never once budged … until this morning when, cat-assisted, it fell forward and hit the edge of the bed with a very loud WHUMP.

Now it’s a damn good thing my hands, arms, legs, feet, or head wasn’t anywhere near the edge of the bed when that happened, because I am 100% certain that heavy and large mirror with the heavy and large wooden frame would have broken any bone it came into contact with after falling as far as it did. I suppose it’s also lucky no cats were in its path as well, but at the moment, I wasn’t especially concerned about any murderous cats who might get injured in the course of trying to off me. So, good thing Lin fell asleep on the couch last night, which means I was pleasantly sprawled out in the middle of the bed and not draped over the side as I usually am. Still gave me quite a start to my morning though.

Amazingly, the mirror itself didn’t break. I’ve had a couple of large modern mirrors break, and they did so easily, with only a little bump or slight pressure. Antique mirrors? Apparently tough enough to survive a long fall and wake the sleeping dead.

And how did I know it was Tora that did the evil deed? There were no sounds of other cats scurrying away, and she was sitting beside the previous upright location of the mirror frame staring at me. Not running away like cats do when they do something bad either. Just sitting there … staring. When Tora first came to live with us, I posted a photo of her, and one of my LJ friends noted that she looked like the sort of cat that would kill a person while they slept. At the time, I didn’t want to believe it, but now? Yup, she’s pure evil!

Project one for today after breakfast will be to secure the mirror to the wall.

The cats successfully woke me up and forced me out of bed at 5:30 am. My plan to get up at 7 am, make coffee, and return to bed was foiled. Once my body was awake at the usual weekday waking up time, it wanted to stay awake, and it wanted some coffee and a bite to eat.

Damn cats!

The cats’ techniques for forcing me from slumber are routine. I’ve learned to ignore them, individually. I have even learned to ignore them while making a combined attack for a limited amount of time. I have no idea what time they started trying to get me out of bed, but at 4:45 am, they joined forces, and there’s no ignoring them. There’s certainly no sleeping through it.

Ronin begins his Human Waking Technique by jumping back and forth between the tall chest of drawers and the bed. Twenty pounds of cat bouncing back and forth over the distance of a few feet is, to say the very least, annoying. I imagine the equivalent would be a small child jumping on the bed repeatedly, except that a small child might make an attempt to not land on the sleeping human. Ronin? Not so much. When the bed-bouncing fails to get a rise out of any nearby sleeping humans, he then moves on to running from one end of the house to the other at full-steam and bounding onto the bed. During this stage, I occasionally find myself dreaming about earthquakes, but I have adapted, and as long as I don’t hear anything being destroyed in the house, I manage to ignore it rather well. It’s his third and final method that forces the human brain to fully engage. He tries to climb the door frame –something he could successfully do on occasion, before he was a huge lard-butt– which leads to the teeth-shattering sound of cat claws scraping on enamel paint.

Myu’s Human Waking Technique is all about the love. First, she lies as close to or on top of the human, who is already hidden mostly under the covers trying to avoid the bouncing Ronin, and purrs loudly. This has the combined effect of overheating said human and making them dream about circling helicopters. All in all, it’s pretty easy to ignore. When this doesn’t bring immediate results, she then begins to softly mew. Well, it’s really more of a sigh, like “Sigh … won’t you get up, please?” This generally elicits a head scratch or two, something I have learned to perform in my sleep. Alas, the head scratch is all the proof she needs that the human is nearing wakefulness, and she proceeds to step three … the face patting. She’s particularly fond of patting noses and eyes, but a mouth will do in a pinch. Repeated, insistent, face patting, which becomes more forceful in five-minute increments, eventually leading to the extension of claw tips. Hide under the covers? More claws. Hide under a pillow? She’ll go digging for that face!

Tora’s implementation of the Human Waking Technique is by far the easiest to ignore, up to a point. She’s young. She hasn’t learned to be overly cruel and obnoxious yet. She begins by moving from point to point in the bedroom and squeaking. Not loudly, but often. When this doesn’t bring any noticed, she lightly hops onto the bed and pads back and forth over the sleeping forms of the nearest human. Since she’s still a kitten and doesn’t weight much, this rarely causes anyone much grief, though it does tend to lead to some sleepy head scratches which she adores. It’s her final method that is the real eye-opener, and, quite frankly, appears to be fast becoming the linchpin of the Three-Way Combined Cat Attack. Sure, it’s possible, if one is really intent on sleeping, to mostly ignore all the other measures being collectively employed by the cats and wrest a few more minutes of sleep from the night, but it is utterly and completely impossible to ignore a cat walking across your head, settling onto a window sill, aiming its posterior at said head a mere few inches away, and releasing a totally silent but utterly deadly cat fart. I challenge you to try ignoring that.

Those are the insidious methods by which the household’s collective of cats successfully rouses me from slumber on any morning, when I do not appear to be waking up on my own at the cat-appointed, cat-expected time. And what happens after I crawl out of bed? I give them fresh water, put food in their bowls, open the kitchen bird-watching window, and each of them eats exactly three bites of food before beginning the morning Running of the Cats … which generally lasts for one hour and ends with a lengthy period of boisterous bird-watching in the kitchen window … as seen in this photo.

You will notice Ronin is sitting on a stool. A stool placed there solely for the use of bird watching cats. Yes, they are spoiled, but at least there’s no bickering about who gets to sit in the window. I enjoy having a peaceful household.

Since I have now been wide awake for hours, and Lin is off to work, I suppose I shall now pretend today is just another weekday and go do something constructive … until it’s time to close the kitchen window, turn on the air conditioning, and hopefully, take a nap with the then ready-to-nap cats. Well, they better be ready to nap eventually, because I know I will be.

They are so lucky all three of them are adorable in their own unique ways, or I would have made them into hats and gloves ages ago.

45 shutter snaps and one licked lens, and I finally got a single photo of Tora this morning worthy of keeping. This cat just never sits still!

Before the cats were allowed breakfast, we had a cat weigh-in. They’ve been eating the low fat cat food for a few hours short of a week, and I wanted to see if there was any progress in lowering the collective cat weight in the household. The last time I weighed them all was two weeks ago. I should have weighed them the day I changed the food, but I forgot. I doubt any of them had changed weight in a downward trend that week anyway.

Ronin
Two weeks ago: 24 pounds
Today: 19 pounds

Myu
Two weeks ago: 14 pounds
Today: 12 pounds

Tora
Two weeks ago: 10 pounds
Today: 10 pounds

Seven collective cat pounds lost! Myu didn’t really need to lose weight, because pudgy kitties are OK, but she’s looking really sleek now. Tora maintained weight, which is what I wanted. Ronin lost a LOT of weight, which really needed to happen. I haven’t even been draconian about watching them eat or making sure no one is being a hog and eating everyone’s food. The low fat cat food seems to be a grand success!

But how do the cats feel about it? After an initial day of outrage and temper tantrums involving much hissing, spitting and running around trying to kill each other and destroy things, they adapted. I know these cats, and when they feel an actual hunger pang, they eat whatever is in the bowls^†. Now they seem to look forward to feeding times just as they always did. In fact, they may even be looking forward to them more than usual.

There have also been two additional benefits I have noticed. All three have been significantly more affectionate to their lowly human slaves, and Ronin is getting more active again. This morning he even took part in the daily Running of the Cats with the other two^††. Right now, he’s actually playing with a toy in the living room all by himself. I haven’t seen him do that in months.

End result of trying the Innova low fat cat food? Nothing but win, so far! Thanks, Jen, for passing that bag on to me. You may have solved Ronin’s obesity problem!

1. † Except wet food of any sort. You can chase these cats with wet food, which I think is a little odd. They just won’t eat it though. [↩]
2. †† Ronin running at full steam was kind of hilarious. He lost five pounds, and all of it must have been in the belly area. He now has a huge sagging non-fat belly that swings wildly when he runs. I’m hoping that eventually goes away too, but it is quite silly to see. [↩]

Not that I am implying that all Ronin ever does is snooze on the den floor. He does occasionally get up to eat, pee, poo, or move to the bedroom for further napping, though I do seem to have far more photos of him snoozing on the den floor than doing anything else.

I’m feeling awful today. My allergies are kicking my butt, which has lead to having to take medication and therefore much sleeping. Sleeping is good though. Can’t complain about getting some really deep sleep.

Today is all three cats’ birthdays. I usually get them some new toys and spoil them rotten on their birthday. Don’t much feel like it today, and since they don’t know any better, I’ll do it tomorrow (or later). Tora is 1 year old, and Ronin and Myu are 3 years old. I can’t believe how fast time flies.

I’m going to go make some meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner, and then more allergy drugs and more sleeping. I want to feel better tomorrow!