It's war!

Well, since they constantly seem to fart when they are around me, I found a way to retaliate: when they misbehave, I belch at them. Confused the hell out of little Benjy this morning...

Jumping Cat Flash

Oh no! More than one day since the last post. Oh, so much to do, so little time...

Well, not much happened anyway. I still have to trickfeed them their dry food, I think whenever I grow soft and open another pack of juice stuff for them, they decide to ignore the dry food completely. How do I make it clear to them that sometimes dry stuff is all they get?

Yesterday they looked extremely thin when I came home. Hadn't touched their food bowl at all. Had to hand-feed them and then realized that they actually eat the dry food off the carpet. Creepy.

Today they even ignored the new dry food from my colleague which they had happily wolved down yesterday. So I put out some food on the carpet again and placed they bowl in the middle, that worked. They ate something. Then they wanted milk again, just water is not good enough. Sometimes I seriously ponder the advantages of tube-feeding...




This morning we played chase-the-cat-toy again. As usual. Now I have to admit that running around with the toy, tapping it here and there and alway trying to find a long clear path for them to run get tiring once in a while. So? The longest possible path within a confined space like my apartment is obviously a circle, even of half a meter in diameter, and they can run it forever. So I managed to have Franky chase the toy for about 10 or 15 rounds and then I lead him away in a straight line. He ran after it and after a step and a half he just fell over. No graceful toppling down (that's more business for tall people like me) but went smack down on his side. Nice try Franky. I almost fell over myself laughing.

You may have noticed by the pics: they learned to jump to reach something.




And they learned something else: the boxes that I put between the kitchen cupboard and the washing machine is not only an annoying obstacle that keeps them from getting behind the machine, but it's also a stepping stone to get on top of the machine and from there onto the kitchen counter. Had to throw them off a couple of times in the morning and if they have been up there in the meantime, they were smart enough not to leave tracks.

A New Career Path

I think Franky is unhappy with his life as a playful dryfood-resistant dung-producer. I think he feels the call to higher work. I'm pretty sure he wants to become a journalist when he grows up. Today he has shown all the inquisitiveness needed to get to the bottom of something (like the gap behind my desk which is filled with cables) and the expertise in his use of a computer keyboard, where he produced worldshaking lyrical outbursts like

eeeeeg,

and

,

My chat partners, with whom I was discussing the future of our EVE corporation, were duly impressed.

Anything else? Benjy peed on his scratching post last night. Just a little bit and I washed it off (not before a solid dunking of course), but he still smells it and tries to avoid lying in the area. So while Franky is stretched out over the top platform, Benjy is cowering below on the left half of the available space. Maybe I should just leave his puddles until he has nowhere to lie down anymore...


The Sleeping Tower

Peemachine does it again

Well, after almost two weeks of exemplary litter box usage, Benjy has done it again last night. We were all sitting or crawling on the couch, I was trying to share my attention between both of them, he move a step or two away from me and instead of lying down again just outside my reach he starts to pee. I got him before he could do too much harm and locked him in the bathroom for 10 minutes until he started to complain. Then I opened the door and waited until he stepped into the litter box to empty his bladder before I let him out.

Tried to wash out the blanket as good as I could, but they still could smell it, because whenever they went on the couch they started scratching. Not in a claw-sharpening way, but more of the It-Smells-Like-A-Loo-So-I-Have-To-Move-My-Feet-In-A-Scrabbling-Manner sort of way. So today I put the blanket in the washing-machine and drenched the couch in vinegar, hope it'll work.

Franky has managed to explore the computer desk. He tried until I got tired of shoving him down.

And I lured them into the bathtub. Was empty of course. But they were crawling along the rim until they fell in. Took them a while to figure out that they have to jump instead of climbing the white, slippery surface. But they managed.

Oh, and by the way: I listened to all the complainers who said you couldn't feed cats on dry food alone. Gave them another one of the cans yesterday. Today Frankys diarrhea is back. Great. And he already stepped right into it, of course AFTER I cleaned the entire floor.

Is it a loo? Is i a bed?

Just cleaned up the litter box and as usual, it was the signal for Franky and Benjy to take a close look at what I was doing. A very close look. So I'm digging in the sandbox and they are walking on top of it, oblivious to the shovel under their feet. Franky took the opportunity to leave an extra present to clean up and Benjy, always the more placid cat, just lay down in the sand for a little nap.

So far they haven't offered to buy my brain yet (that's an insider joke...). Might be because they are still to clumsy to handle the knives to cut it into little slices. Or, on second thought, maybe they are just trying to rip it out through my skin.

I'm afraid their favorite toy, the stick with the feathers, is loosing it's appeal. I dread the day when they become bored with it, because so far I haven't seen anything that captivated their interest in a similar way. Except, of course, each others butt, which seems to be a great thing to sink teeth into.

An hour of playing calls for two hours of resting...

Little Hunter

Growing up

Just looked at the pictures of the little devils. And OMFG, they grow fast. If they increase in volume at the current rate, my apartment will blow up on May 25th 2006...

Little sleepyheads

Nice quiet weekend

Spent a nice weekend at home. We finally collected all the paperwork for last years tax declaration and I didn't pee in any inapproriate places.

I started the second round off the worm treatment yesterday. Went quite well, they were trying to fight me off, but it seems I'm getting the hang of it. I also tried to weigh Franky and Benjy by placing them in a big bowl on the kitchen scale. They were both around 1200 grams, although Benjy wouldn't sit still, so the measurement might be a bit off there. He certainly looks heavier than Franky.

My cousin Jenny, her husband Fiaz and their kids were here Saturday. After the initial hideaway, both, even Benjy came out to play for a while. But they quite soon had enough and then always went somewhere where the least people were. Much to Nirmals, my cousins son, dismay.

By now they have fully included my couch in their playground. Probably because their new scratching post stands next to it. So they race and jump all over it when they are playing. Quite a sight. I don't mind with the old couch, but what do I do if I ever want to get a new one?

I listened to the advice in my cat owners manual and put up a second water bowl in the living room. Quite a success, I think they just doubled their daily water intake. Which verifies my theory that they don't do something out of free will, but more on a "Oh, look - water. Lets drink"-basis.

Tried to play soccer with their toy ball today. Kicked it from the kitchen in the general direction of the living room, but it hit a wall in between. I could make that out from the loud *THUD* before the ball rebounced back to me. And I think Franky was sitting quite close the balls trajectory. Could make that out from the shocked look on his face. Well, I just hope that the *THUD* sound really came from the wall...



Benjy found a nice new toy


Oh, and scratch that "nice and quiet" headline. It's race time now. Nowhere near quiet...

New games

Bought them a new scratch and climb tree. Put it up between window and couch. Took them a while to figure it out, but now they climb it up to the top.

Franky tried to explore my desk today. In alignment with the no-paws-on-my-tables-policy I threw him down. 10 times. Then I had enough, grabbed him by the fur in the neck and explained again in no uncertain terms that he's not allowed up here. After that, he left.

They picked up playing with the computer. While I'm up here navigaing spacecraft around, they play with the keys in the front lock of the computer. Makes a helluva lot of noise, too.

We had another first today: group-tv-ing. I ordered a pizza from a delivery service, when it came, I had dinner on the couch, watching an X-Files rerun. Franky and Benjy were sitting under the glass table and also looking at the TV. At least until they fell asleep.

Home alone - again

Well, they better get used to me not being there. Spent the whole day at work today, no noon break to feed them like yesterday. I had to stretch the remaining chicken and rice with dry food, they ate it all. Must have been really hungry. When I came home I gave them a handful of dry food, other than the one I fed them before. They wolved it down. Must have been extremely hungry. Now I cooked another bowl of chicken with rice, will keep adding dry food until they never ever want to have canned cat food ever again. Great plan!

I still find it strange that they only lie down on flat surfaces. Not on blankets or carpets, usually, but wood seems to be very inviting. Like my shelfs. Also the glass from my TV table seems to be comfortable enough. I've given up putting blankets wherever they lay down. It's futile work.

Frankys intestines keep getting better. He almost produced solid byproducts, and the stench around the litter box has become bearable when he's in there. Also there's a lot less to clean out. Phew.

Benjy proves his excellent taste in literature.

Franky likes his toys too.

Getting adventurous

Benjy is developing into Explore-O-Cat. Found him in the bookshelf and in the hifi-rack next to the VCR. They also still try to get behind the TV table, where there's lots of cabling lying around. I don't like it, but I hope they grow out of that before they figure out how to squat and pee back there.

Tried to make more pictures of them playing, but I'm reaching the limits of my digital camera. It's always half a second too late.

Vet trip

Went to the vet in the morning. He examinded Franky, gave him a shot and put him on a chicken and rice diet. Starting in the evening. So they had to starve all day and then only got a little, self-cooked meal of which they only ate the rice.

Lets hope they diarrhea goes away. So far I haven't found any smelly puddles...

Schroedinger Revisited

Imagine a box. A little black box, containing two lively kittens and some other, valuable things, made up from rather stable atoms. Image a thin vial of cyniade within the box.

Now imagine further that at any point in time, either or both of the cats can implode spontaneously, flooding the whole box and everything in it, in cat shit. They can also climb and jump everywhere and shred everything to little pieces.

You can easily find out if the cats have imploded or not, if your belongings in the box have been covered in saucy stuff you don't want to think about, if any feline quadruped has been wreaking havoc upon your belongings, by opening the box. But as long as you keep the box closed, all possibilities exist inside it. Every variation from well-grown kitties playing peacefully on their blanket to drenched couches over shredded wallpapers upto shattered hitech equipment is in that moment inside the closed box. All imaginable possibilities.


I come home from work and open the box, in this world represented by a smallish 66 square meter apartment...

Discovery

Hmm. Don't know what more important: Watching Franky explore his surroundings and try to get into the smallest possible crawlspace? Or protecting the inside of my sofa from his claws (and, even more importantly, from his rear end ejections)?

It's been a quiet day today. They played, I played, we played together. Not always the same game, as they still don't have the best paw-eye coordination for controlling EVE Online.

Although they quite readily moved to the litter box when they had to, I'm not prepared yet to let them loose in the living room on their own. At least not, until Frankys diarrhea goes away. It's been worse over the last two days. Maybe a trip to the vet is in order.

Crap-O-Mat strikes back

Oh great. One of them left me a nice big soft and squishy heap on the couch. Little bastards. And I realized it too late, so I coudln't really scold any of them. I guess they need to grow up a bit before they can be allowed to move freely and unsupervised in the livingroom.

Benjy playing

Places to go to

Had to rescue Franky three times from peeing on some blankets that are lying around for them. One of the blankets is on my couch ;( Seems they don't like the litter box inthe bathroom, so I moved it back into the little hallway between the rooms. They seem to accept that.

Since they realized that the kitchen is also home of The Frightening Vacuum and The Incredibly Loud Washing Machine, they relocated to the living room area. I placed their basket there, along with a blanket on the floor so they don't have to always run on the slippery wood. Funny thing is, while they get a pretty good hold on the blanket, the blanket slides pretty good on the laminate, and watching them run around the moving blanket is rather funny...

Their favorite spot to rest is now underneath the glass top of the living room table, a roughly 40 cm high contraption of a wooden box on wheels with a glass top. Which I like very much (at least after I removed my spare keyboard from there, so they wouldn't lie on top of it and drain the batteries), cause I can see them.


The new favorite place

More training for Franky

When I came home, I immediately moved the litter box into the bathroom. After feeding Franky and Benjy went looking for it, but since it was around a corner now, they couldn't see it. Had to lure them into the bathroom with their toy. Franky, as usual, was easy, and as soon as he spotted the box he jumped right in. Benjy was a little bit harder, since he didn't want to get too near to me. But in the end, he too got the message. So far so good. Only problem was that Franky, right after having dumped an extremely potent stinkbomb, decided that he didn't like the smell in there any more, so he went out and peed on my bathroom carpet. Good thing I caught him in the act, right. So he got a wet nose and confined to the box, where, after unsuccessfully trying to get out, he dutifully squeezed out a few drops so I'd let him out. Good boy.

Now I have to clean up a bit. And that means big scary vacuum. So they get their chance to retire to the living room and find a safe spot there and I'll go on cleaning.

Game time

Now I know why I blog on blogger. Seamless integration with my image repository at home. Uploading an image to this diary takes about 4 mouse clicks. Neat.

Franky and Benjy playing

looking good

Got up somewhat anxious, because of the left open living room. So far it looks ok. No obvious destructions... But then it was night and they are only starting to wake up now, clearly detectable by the constant patpatpat of little feet ;)

Gotta give new names

Just cleaned out the litter box. It was almost empty when I was done, so much to remove in there. I think about renaming the little buggers. Peemachine and Crap-O-Mat sound rather fitting...

Maybe I should start to cover other things than feline waste processing once in a while.

Have opened the living room for them again. Had to remove the plants, because they were walking all over them and then carrying the dirt across the room. So now my bedroom became the arboretum until they become a bit more conscious about what's underneath their little paws. So now there's only stuff to break left in here, but not much dirt that could be - eh - relocated.

Maybe I should turn off the power supply of the paper shredder. Otherwise I might come home one day to a rather unpleasant surprise.

I'll leave them in the living room now when I go to bed *knocks on wood*. Wish me luck.

worries

Did I close my bedroom door? I ahte to think what they can do to my
waterbed...

another way out

Hmm. One of them learned how to puke. Yummy. I just hope that wasn't his way of telling me he doesn't like dry food...

My desk smells of cat shit. Couldn't find anything, so I hope it's just the smell drifting in from the outside.

Doctors Visit

Second day all alone at home today. Went out well, and as far as I could see they didn't get into the living room. But somehow they managed to fetch a bag out of my kitchen cupboard, which is roughly a meter high. Not bad. Have to keep my eyes open for more of their little tricks.

In the evening I had a doctors appointment for them for their first vaccinations. Nicole, the former owner, helped me catch them (easy) and then keep them in their basket. Same basket we used to pick them up with last Friday, and I think they still fit through the cage bars. So I was driving and she was shooing them back into the basket. At the doctor the examinations were surprisingly quick and painless. They let the doc handle them without much fuss. And they didn't even blink when they got the vaccination shots. Only Benjy became restless when he had to wait while Franky was examined. Next appointment is in 4 weeks, and then hopefully not for another year.

Back here it was business as usual. I opened up the living room for them while I was here, so I could keep an eye on them. They behaved quite well. And they don't dare to go underneath the shelf anymore. Maybe they grew just the final bit and are now to big.

I already broke my self-imposed rule of cleaning their litter box only once a day. Benjy seems to have a light case of diarrhoea and makes soft and squishy heaps. Nothing serious, I hope. Anyway, the box was so full that I wonder that the cats actually gain weight. I guess I feed them too much. Reminded me of that one time when I came to my car and thought that a flock of birds had just imploded over it. Seriously, there was so much birdshit, if that was a single animal then there couln't have been anything left.

Nothing important happened today

No really. Franky and Benjy behaved, we played, I went to bed early. Right as rain. Sometimes we are thankful for the little things.

Home Alone

Today was Franky and Benjys first day alone. Well, not the whole day, because I came back at noon to check on them, but everything was alright. I had put back the litter box cover in the morning and was wondering... ok, actually I was quite worrying whether Benjy would set foot in there, the box being closed again and all. But, no unpleasant surprises. Toilet training seems to have effects.

In the evening, when I came back from work, they started following me to the living room again. We played around for a while, then I let them go exploring again. Didn't take Benjy long to find that cozy little spot in the hot air stream of my linux server box. Perfect spot for a little pee, quite obviously. How could I have missed that... When I took a closer look what he was doing there, I couldn't help noticing the puddle spreading underneath Benjy. So I did what other cat owners have told me: grabbed Benjy, dunked his nose in his own mess and stuck him into the litter box. CITA Maneuver, you remember? Told him in no uncertain words what I think of that kind of behaviour. Not too much later, the effects of my wrath obviously being forgotten, I catch him again, this time behind my subwoofer. Again I pick him up, and this time he screams his little heart out ("ohshitohshitohshitohnononoohnonopleasedont*dunk*sluuurrp") and off to the litter box he goes again.

I don't have the slightest clue what made him do that. We were playing, I was sharing my attention quite equally between the two, they had eaten, everything seemed to be right. My theory is that he either suddenly decided that he had to go now or never, or maybe he just couldn't sniff out the toilet because it was so clean and unsmelly. Who knows?

Home improvements

Another day at home. No puddles, no heaps anywhere. But still I haven't seen Benjy in the litter box. Strange.

In the afternoon Britta came by, again a friend gifted with cat experience. She told me that her cat wouldn't go into the litter box if a cover was on, because she wanted to look around while doing her thing (I just assume it was a she-cat, no proof...). So I removed the cover from my litter box, placed Benjy in front of it and guess what? He jumped straight in. So I guess he was just afraid of the closed room before. Not really surprising, after having spent an eternity in the transport box, I guess.

Apart from that, no big issues today. We played, I got nothing done except for a bit of vacuuming, which scared the shit of of the little devils so they hid underneath my living room cupboard. Since I don't want them crawling around in places where I can't reach them (and where a lot of cabling from my audio equipment lies around), I decided to adjust the feet of that cupboard so that there is less space below it. Took me a while to fix all the feet, and when I was done I realized that it was obviously not enough, because they still crawled underneath it. Luckily it's a really close call for them and they can hardly move under there, so I guess when they grow bigger the problem will solve itself.

Wet and squishy things

Well, that second day worked out - erm - somewhat ok... In the morning I found a little present in a corner. Couldn't identify the culprit, so I just picked it up and dumped it. Washed off the place with vinegar to keep the cats out of there. A little bit later I spotted Franky in the same place, squatting and getting ready to... well, you know. Picked him up by the neck, dumped him in the litter pan. Lesson learned. That much may be told, Franky is a fast learner.

The I found Benjy. Same corner, but enhanced by a little puddle. Same procedure - pick up, dump him in the box, scold, wipe, vinegar. I call that the Caught-In-The-Act-Maneuver. When I'm finished, I see Benjy, having raced out of the box ("meeeoowwwww - don't lock me in here, I have to go soooo bad!") squatting in the next corner and flooding the laminate floor. Same maneuver, and again, he just sits in the box and looks terribly afraid but makes no move to accept that as a loo. That one might be a little bit more difficult.

On the plus side, we're having a lot of fun with the cat toys, they just love the long straw with the attached feathers. They also seem to love the scratching post. I lured them there with the feathery toy and they have accepted it for scratching and climbing as well. Yay!

Benjy still doesn't like me petting him. He runs.

Oh, and we had the second installment of the worm treatment in the evening. I called my friend Elke, a seasoned can opener, to get instructions how to hold the cat and get it to open it's mouth. First part of the lesson: don't give in. When the cat want to get away from the vicelike grip around the head - well, tough luck for the cat, right? Medicine goes in the mouth first. So I lured Frankie close, grabbed him by the head and tried to make him open his mouth. He didn't want to. But after a while of silent struggling he just had to voice his anger and disappointment and went meow. Had the tip of the nozzle between his teeth before he could get to the E and the OW was drowned in white paste. Yesterday he had accepted that with surprised swallowing, but this time I let him go too early. I heard that young cats cannot spit something out. Well, that might be true, but they sure as hell can throw stuff from their tongue by rapid head movement. And this is how it all ended up on my carpet...

In the end I went through the whole procedure with both of them, locked into the bathroom where they couldn't run away and hide, and they more or less got all the stuff. Of course my status went from 'accepted playpal' to 'most despicable person ever' in the blink of an eye, but we'll work on that tomorrow.

Oh, almost forgot one thing: I sneezed a couple of times and got a runny nose once while playing with the cats. Hope it's not an allergic reaction...

They're here! THEY'RE HEEERRRREEEEE!

Well. I did it. I got myself two cats. So there. Now that I clarified what this journal is about, lets get to the juice details. Nothing squishy yet, but I haven't checked behind the washing machine ;)

Why? Well, there was this friend (or colleague, if we're being picky here) who found a litter of six kittens on her doorstep. There were a lot of her friends (or, again, colleagues) who didn't want any of them kittens. And there was me. Go figure.

I had two weeks to decide on some names. My first try was Merry and Pippin. Everyone's first reaction was "why do you name one of your tomcats Mary?". Except for those of course who watched the Lord Of The Rings with open eyes and ears, but they were definitely in the minority. Since I wanted the names from some movie or story that meant anything to me, it was quite clear that it had to be either The Lord Of The Rings, Discworld characters, something from Hitchhikers Guide Through The Galaxy or the Matrix. Well, Frodo and Sam are really trite (dict.leo.org tells me this is the english word I'm looking for, so don't you come complaining to me about it!), Neo and Morpheus, Ford and Arthur or Tank and Dozer don't sound too well. And Slartibartfast and Zarniwoop (not a character couple, but the names match nicely) were too cruel even for my twisted taste... And then I had this idea. Two short and snappy names, both with two syllables and ending in -i, just the way cats love to be called - well, ok, at least that's what the internet says. And the best part: both names are short versions of something that passes as real names, that can be written down in any official document. So now my two cats are names Franklin and Benjamin. Or Frankie and Benjy. Now I wonder if anyone will find out from which book or movie I took these...

So I picked up Frankie and Benjy in the afternoon at said colleagues house. We also tried to catch two other cats who were relocated on this same trip. I got my ones pretty fast, but in the half hour it took us to chase the last kitten around the garden and into the carrying box, Benjy managed to escape twice from his case by squeezing between the bars of the cage door. Amazing little bugger.

And now they are here. Have looked around a bit, but stayed mostly in the kitchen area. I hope the remember where the litter pan is. I dumped each of them in there twice, so I hope they got the message. Will leave some lights on in the bathroom, even though I know perfectly well that they will see where they're going with the lights off. So far they are mostly hiding in some corners at the windows and try not to be caught and petted, I guess they're still a bit traumatized. After all, it was not only the long wait in the transport box, but also me trying to inject worm-medicine into their teethy little mouths. Frankie took it all quite well, he's playful and purrs away as soon as I reach out my hand, but Benjy is rather afraid of me. Can't imagine why. Will sort it out tomorrow.