Around 10 am this morning, I decided I needed to wash my hair, so I locked myself in the bathroom, got it all nice and steamy, and began to enjoy my shower. At the very moment when my entire head was covered in shampoo lather, I heard a strange rattling coming from somewhere in the house. I try to ignore it. Then it started to sound a little too loud for it to be the crazy cats running around like the hellions they have been today and became more of a banging sound and less of a rattling sound … a loud banging sound coming from some unknown somewhere in the house.

I began to work quickly to get the soap off my head. Standing naked in a shower with soap in my eyes while hearing something like a bull or human moving clumsily through my house was, to say the least, uncomfortable. As soon as I was soap-free enough to do so, I hopped out of the shower and threw on some clothing, not even bothering to use a towel first. I left the shower running, because, well, if it was a person, I wanted them to think I hadn’t noticed the noise yet.

I stood at the bathroom door and slowly opened it a crack. The sound was quite clearly coming from the kitchen end of the house. I opened the door further, lifting up on it the way I have to in order to keep it from squeaking obnoxiously. As soon as it was open enough for me to slip through, I squeezed out of the bathroom and into the hall. I stood there a moment and listened. It sounded as though someone were trying to come in through a window. To say the least, my adrenalin was pumping. The sound was getting even louder!

Mustering my bravery, I dashed into the kitchen!

What did I find? A cat stuck to a window screen.

Since it was such a lovely day today, I had opened the kitchen window to let some fresh air into the house. Apparently, Ronin had spied some birds sitting on a stack of construction supplies right in front of said window, and he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to get those birds! Unfortunately for the poor dear, there’s this thing called a screen between the indoors and the outdoors, and he had managed to get himself completely stuck. There he was with his front legs stretched out as far as they could go and his claws stuck in the screen. He couldn’t stretch his legs further out, and due to the mechanics of claw retraction with outstretched legs, he couldn’t retract his claws. Therefore, he had been pulling on the screen for all he was worth, and considering his size, he’s worth a lot.

I should have grabbed the camera and snapped a photo, but I didn’t feel like either having to replace the window screen or taking a cat to the vet because he’d ripped a claw out of his paw, so I quickly removed him from his predicament, for which he was not at all grateful. Hell, he wasn’t even helpful. No, he was clearly panicking.

What did he do as soon as he was free and back on the floor? Jumped right back at the birds on the other side of the screen and got himself stuck again. Right in front of me! Just jumped right up and SPLAT … stuck again!

I closed the window to spare him both the aggravation of doing it a third time and the tittering snickers of the birds sitting on the pile of lumber. Those birds weren’t at all concerned about the big, stupid cat might getting them. They were apparently smart enough to know that window screens work … and they just had to be laughing at Ronin for being so silly. I know I was.

My husband is the cats’ tool. While they are not capable of getting me up and out of bed as early in the morning as they would like, generally being easy enough to ignore and small enough to toss out of the bedroom, the cats are very adept at getting Lin in on the “wake Momma up” action. He is not as easily ignored, and I can’t throw him out of the bedroom.

Scene: Orb, lying on her left side … one cat balanced precariously on her right arm staring intently at her nose and one cat chewing on her fingers while simultaneously jumping up and down.

“The cats were pestering you.”

“Yes. I know. Now you’re pestering me too.”

“Are you ready to get up?”

“No, but I’ll go make coffee anyway.”

I understand why Lin wants me up when he’s awake. He wants his coffee and snacks. The cats on the other hand seemingly only want me awake and out of bed so I can witness their morning routine of running around the house like the little hellions they are, knocking over things and being generally destructive^†. There seems to be no other reason for their absolute insistence that I not be in bed after sunrise. This morning, with Lin’s assistance, they finally got their wish.

It’s good to have life back to normal today, even if it was annoying to be pestered awake far earlier than I intended to be conscious. At least we are having pizza for lunch, which somewhat makes up for it. Somewhat.

1. † Seriously, all week long when I’ve been tossing them out of the bedroom when I wanted to sleep past sunrise, they haven’t run around at all. My witnessing of the event is apparently necessary for the Hellion Racing to take place. [↩]

The cats aren’t clinging to me today. No, they are clinging to each other. I haven’t seen them act this way since they were little things. I think a combination of the usual order of things in their universe being thrown askew this week and the significantly cooler temperatures have reminded them they actually love each other.

An their little universe has been thrown askew this week too! Lin isn’t here to roughhouse with Ronin, and I won’t do it, because I like my skin where it is. I’m not getting up before the sun anymore, and I have, in fact, been tossing them out of the bedroom and closing the door when they get rambunctious in the bedroom before I am ready to get up. Why, they have even had to remind me they need to be fed! The horror of having to actually meow instead of just mutely sitting by the bowl and having food magically appear! Poor dears.

The great thing is they aren’t trying to kill each other or destroy everything in the house. That’s been really pleasant for a change.

No, not the new ones running around the neighborhood. Mine. I have had two cats glued to me all day today. They’ve followed me around the house all day, and if there was any way at all they can get into my lap or onto my person, they did so. They are doing it right now. Myu is in my lap staring up at me and pawing at my face. Ronin is sitting half on the arm of my chair and half on the desk and trying to lick my face. This is completely bizarre behavior when it happens once a week, but to have them acting like this all day? Well, that’s just strange!

It has been one very strange day today all around. The minutes are ticking by so slowly, and all I want to do is make dinner, eat it, and go to bed … where I will undoubtedly be set upon by two cats who are being extremely needy today.

I have to get up and walk around. The cats — THE CATS — are driving me crazy!

Or … The Tale of the Hydra Heads: Of Cats and Humans.

Late one hot and steamy night, a familiar yet all too annoying sound was heard in the airspace above Casa de Orb.

fwap, fwap, fwap, fwap, fwap, fwap, fwap, fwap, fwap.
fwap, fwap, fwap, fwap, fwap, fwap, fwap, fwap, fwap.

Ah, yes. The sounds of a police helicopter circling and circling and circling and disturbing my noisy peace.

At the very same instant my annoyance meter was pegged enough to make resisting the urge to stomp out to the front porch to glare angrily at the ever circling flying machine, I heard an unusual sound. Above the din of Olympic sports being played and cats running about like maniacs, the exact nature of the sound was impossible for me to discern, but it was what I would call a highly unusual sound and the sort of unrecognizable sound that sends the adrenal glands into a heightened state. In fact, the first comparable sound that popped into my head was that of someone screaming bloody murder … nearby.

I sat up straight in my desk chair, where I had been consuming time breeding fractals. Lin, who never goes to the front door to check on any unusual sounds, jumped up from the couch and made haste to the door. As I arrived, hot on his heels, I asked him what that sound had been, hoping he’d gotten a better earful.

“The cops were driving down the street with their PA system on.”

We stood shoulder to shoulder in the doorway, and as we stare out into the dark street, we saw movement. There were cops walking down our street. This ranks very highly on the Unusual Event Scale. In fact, it’s so unusual I have never experienced cops walking down any street I have ever lived on. Ever.

As they slowly made their way down the middle of the street, we continued to stand in the doorway, both of us craning our necks out into the world in different directions to listen, look, and sniff for any other unusual activities. That’s when a silly thought popped into my head, and I began to giggle uncontrollably. Lin asked what was so funny.

“We really are just animals after all.”

Have you ever watched cats in unfamiliar surroundings or when something unusual is going on? Cats are exceedingly curious but also very timid — at least the smart ones are. The best example of the Hydra Head Phenomenon can be seen when multiple cats are in a single carrier sitting on a vet’s examining table with the door open. Cats owners may be aware of the phenomenon, but for the catless, let me explain.

When two cats are in a single cat carrier sitting on a vet’s examining table with the door open, one cat will eventually get brave enough to move to the door of the carrier and stick his head out cautiously. He will stretch his neck out as far as it will go, and his head will move slowly from side to side and up and down in an attempt to see every square inch of the area outside the door of the carrier. Eventually, the second cat will move to the open door and do the same, and all that can be seen of the cats are two necks stretched as long as possible and two heads bobbing and swerving around each other in all directions, as if they were being controlled by one entity. Thus … Hydra Heads, as it’s very reminiscent of a hydra standing at the mouth of a cave surveying it’s surroundings — at least to us it is.

“What do you mean, we are all animals after all?”

“We are acting just like the cats. Hydra heads!”

And so I passed my giggles onto Lin, because he knew immediately exactly what making me giggle: memories of every one of the cats’ trips to the vet and how we were behaving exactly like they do. Yes, we are also exceedingly curious and very timid, and we too are capable of stretching our necks as far out into the interesting but scary world and working as a single unit to gather information about it.

Unable to contain our giggling, and thinking that standing in a lit doorway laughing like crazy people probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do when there was obviously something highly unusual and potentially dangerous going on somewhere on our street, we both took a step backwards to close the door. Still chuckling to ourselves about how we had perfectly mimicked the Hydra Head Phenomenon as often displayed by our cats during vet visits, we turned around to find two necks stretched out as far as they possibly could be, with two bobbing and swerving heads on the ends of them, poking out from behind the room divider. More hydra heads! We both fell onto our respective couches and laughed at the seemingly unnerved cats … and ourselves. Indeed, we are all curious and timid animals, aren’t we?

The truly funny thing is that I know had we stood in the door slightly longer, the cats would have eventually joined us in the doorway, and there would have been four bobbing and swerving heads poking out into the dark and scary night. We only need three more heads for a full-on proper hydra. I vote for more cats. They don’t take up as much room, and our doorway isn’t nearly large enough for any more humans. Though I doubt Lin would see needing three more heads to complete our doorway hydra as a valid argument for acquiring more cats, I will be keeping that argument in mind for later giggling pleasure.

Never did hear, see, or sniff anything else strange going on in the neighborhood. I even ventured out onto the dark porch and sat a while, until I heard a noise coming from the direction of the big truck and my imagination got the best of me. Was someone hiding in the bed of Lin’s truck? I did what any smart cat would do in that circumstance. I hustled myself inside as quickly as possible. Unlike the cats though, I did not hide under the desk or in a closet, I turned on the porch light, triple locked the door, and put my cell phone in my pocket.

I’d call the local substation to find out what the hoo-ha was about, but either they were doing a good job keeping us safe or they were using our neighborhood for training grounds (again — they have admitted to doing this). In the first case, I’d rather not know the particulars, since it obviously wasn’t big enough to make the news, and in the second case, I would rather not know because it would annoy the hell out of me to hear they had been driving, flying, and walking down our street in the middle of the night being strange and noisy for no reason at all. I’d much rather remember the entire incident as The Night of the Hydra Heads … and laugh every time I think of it.

The cats decided to become rambunctious at 3 am last night. It started with running up and down the hall. The thumping woke me up, but once I realized it was cats and not a herd of small elephants, I drifted back to sleep … for all of then minutes.

First there was a very loud thump, which I recognized as Ronin jumping off the kitchen table. Then the standard series of thumps as he ran down the hall with a full head of steam behind him. Finally, Ronin smashed into the mostly closed bedroom door with an impressively loud thud, it flew open, bounce off the box behind the door, and swung back again just in time for Myu, hot on the heels of her brother, to smash into the door with yet another impressively loud thud … followed by the door hitting the box behind it and bouncing back and almost closing completely. Naturally, this led to cats clawing at the door to get out before the suction of the air conditioner closed it all the way, which means they clawed and clawed and the door finally squeaked noisily open.

I hissed at them, and they scuttled down the hall and were quiet … for all of ten minutes.

They repeated the entire escapade again, this time with Myu in the lead, and as soon as they were in the bedroom, both of them set to clawing at the closet door like mad things. I tried hissing at them. I tried pounding my hand on the bed. They would not be dissuaded from clawing at the closet door. I finally had to sit up in bed and shriek “What are you cats doing?!” They may not know the meaning of the words, but they do know that particular series of human sounds means they have gone too far and are in trouble.

Myu immediately jumped on the bed, rubbed up against my arm, and threw herself down for belly rubs. As though a cat I just had to scream at was deserving of belly rubs. Well, she got them. What can I say? I am weak-willed where kitty bellies are concerned, and she can be very, very cute even when getting into trouble. Ronin, on the other hand made as much noise leaving the closet area as he possibly could, intentionally opened the bedroom door farther than it was already open and made the door squeak as slowly as he could, and then ambled down the hall squawking loudly and repeatedly. I could still hear his expressing his displeasure when he arrived at the opposite end of the house, where I also heard him dumping out the water bowl.

It took me forever to get back to sleep, mostly thanks to Myu insisting on lying right beside my head while licking every square inch of her body. I kept moving her away, and she just came right back, as though that were the only place on the planet where she could possibly bath herself.

Tonight, in order to avoid a repeat of last night’s unauthorized cat activities, I will be wearing them out with their favorite feather toy right before I go to bed … though I am so tired today, I could probably sleep through any amount of noise they could possibly make.

Got to love them though. Got to! They are my babies, and after all, nothing got destroyed except my ability to get a good night’s sleep.

Not the best birthday portrait ever, but until you have tried grabbing 32 pounds of multiple cats, getting across the room to a seated position, and getting everyone to look at the camera before the ten second timer goes off, you have NO IDEA just how much fun that can be. This was the fifth and final attempt. I value my flesh too much to try again. The children were getting grumpy, something I think is quite obvious from the expression on their grouchy little faces.

But … our kitties are two years old today! They don’t realize that means they are adult cats, of course. They are both thoroughly convinced they are still little kittens, and let me tell you, they have been acting like little baby brats all day, but they have been excessively adorable while doing so, which means they have been getting away with all their mayhem and craziness. They are so spoiled!

As much insanity as these two have brought to my life over the last two years, I love them so much. They may be little monsters, but they are MY monsters, and they have me firmly wrapped around their pointy little claws.

This weekend, when there is another able-bodied human in the house to help with the cat herding, I’ll try to get a better family photo. This one will do for now, but there’s only one creature in the photo that looks happy, and that’s the human. Because I am … I am so happy to have two such cute and adorable monsters in my life!

The post meant to appear in this space was to have been about how very easily distracted Ronin is, but then I was myself distracted by my graduation rings sitting on the shelf behind me, having a broken conversation with Lin in Spanish, and playing fetch with my easily distracted cat. OK, so we are both easily distracted.

Myu is the exact opposite of easily distracted. She is capable of focusing on a microscopic bug crawling on the wall in a dark room for hours on end, and even starting a chainsaw behind her would only illicit a twitching of the ears. That cat has focus.

The brats are turning two in a couple of days. Since their behavior over the last year has continued to improve, I suppose we’ll let them live for another year.

Actually, when I sat down and opened the post page, I meant to complain about the fact my cell phone won’t allow me to turn off audible alerts for voicemail while leaving audible alerts for text messages turned on. I guess if that’s the most interesting thing I have to write about, I don’t really have anything to write about at all.

Well, there then … another pointless post made. I think I’ll go take a shower. Maybe something interesting will happen, though I wouldn’t bet on it.

The people ask, and the people shall receive one photo of Myu to compare her in size to her monstrous brother.

She’s not nearly as large as he is, and she’s about 8 pound lighter, which means I can still pick her up without breaking my back. She also isn’t nearly as keen on having her photo taken, especially when it’s supposed to be playtime!

Also, I do seem to be having some server issues at Just Orb today, in case things don’t load right (or at all).