Bathing time

I took a bath. Again. This time it was Benjy who fell into the water. Once while the trub was filling up, don't know how, just heard this tumbling sound and when I went to look into the bathroom I saw a wet and unhappy cat. And then later, while I was in the tub, he got startled and dropped in for the second time. Don't know if he learned anything from that, but honestly? I doubt it.

Looking at the picture of Benjy pleasuring himself with his raspy tongue, the little devil, I wonder if the vet really did do such a great job. His plumbing seems to work fine...

After the vet visit

Well, it took the doc about an hour to rip the manliness out of my cats and sew them shut again. I brought them home and then spent an hour watching them lurchin across the floor and stumbling over their own little paws. Now I know why we humans get our own wakeup room for coming out of surgery. At least they still knew where to find the litter box.

Frankie emptied his stomach over my old carpet and the tilings, but since he hadn't had anything to eat for 12 hours, there was just some white wetness which was easy to clean up. No other aftereffects. Apart from that empty feeling where one would expect a solid chunk of ... uhm... cat mojo, of course.

A promise kept

Well, a promise as grave as the one made this morning must be kept, otherwise my reputation as a big and mean canopener will be shot. So I stuffed them into their transport cage and dropped them off at the vet...

C-Day!

Caught them both on the kitchen table today. Grabbed them and told them in no uncertain words that they get no food today and I'll have their balls cut off.

That'll teach them.

Cat for sale on ebay!?!

No, of course not. But see for yourself:

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5835594207

Apart from writing ebay offers and prepping insurance applications (I finally finished them all) I watched a lot of Firefly on the weekend. Got the DVD box Thursday and I have to admit there's only two episodes left to watch of the 15. So now I'm ready to go to the movies and watch Serenity. Shame the show is only so short.

We went out to the balcony today. Played a bit in the snow. I had put them on a leash, so they wouldn't try to escape by jumping off my balcony. They actually didn't complain too much once I had removed the bells from their harnesses.

The emperors new clothes

Frankie tried to dress up as a canopener today. I think he has to grow into my fleeceshirt a bit more...

Did you ever...

...wonder how it might feel to have a cat sitting on your head and licking your hair? Well, I for my part stopped wondering.

Letting the cat into the bag

I swear, my bag was standing on the couch for about 2 seconds before Frankie was on top and halfway into into it. With only his butt sticking out I figured it's gotta be really interesting in there, so I gave him a good push and closed the bag behind him. After a few minutes he managed to stick his head out, and Benjy immediately took the advantage...

Some like it wet

As usual, Benjy climbed up to the washbasin when I was brushing my teeth, and I think I finally found out why they alway hang aroung there when I'm in the bathroom: they want to offer their services as my towel. So I used him.

Hide and seek

I thought hopping into the bathtub would be the perfect excuse for staying home tonight and skipping training. Already spotted my mistake? Yep, right, tried to think again. Should get rid of that stupid habit. So I flushed out the bathtub - needs to get rid of all the cat hair every three hours or so, otherwise it piles up over the rim - turned on the hot water, put the plug in --- wait, where's the plug? Not in the bathtub. Not in the bathroom either. Not anywhere else either. I crawled into every conceivable where a cat might hide a bathtub plug with a meter and a half of chain attached to it, but, much to my dismay, nothing. Nowhere. They know where to hide their toys...

So I settled for filling in a couple of insurance applications and then crashing on the couch and petting Frankie and Benjy through two shows of 24 (almost through the fourth season).

Curiosity bathed the cat

We played in the bathtub today. I filled in a few centimeters of water and then waved the cat toy above it until both Frankie and Benjy had fallen in once. They took it quite well I must say...

Frankie don't want Triple-B alone at the computer

Frankie got bored looking at me playing computer games. So he took a giant leap onto my chairs backrest (which is about a meter and a half high), purred noisily into my ear and started cleaning my fur. Which incidentally is what I call hair.

Cuddletime

So this is what we do a lot of the time now. I sit on the couch, Frankie hops onto my lap, occasionally reaching up to nibble on my chin, and Benjy lies close on the couch. And we all watch TV. Or a video.

Higher Ground

This morning was not the first time that Frankie tried to get on top of one of my cupboards in the living room. The black one, about 1 and a half meter tall, had a model of Deep Space Nine on top of it, for those of you who have been to my place. A while ago Frankie climbed up there and crawled beneath the model and I couldn't get him out without breaking one of the docking pylons off (watch Star Trek - DS9 if you have no clue what I'm talking about. It's a great show).

Next time he first climbed up another shelf and jumped over to the black cupboard, crashing with the momentum of the jump into the space station again. That was when I decided that I needed to find a new place for DS9 before more major damage occured. I put it on the high shelf in the living room (next to the remaining cacti) and it's safe there for the moment.

This morning I found Frankie on the cupboard again. Nothing dangerous up there I thought, so I let him be. After the usual sniffing around, he dove head first into the small space between cupboard and wall with his butt up high and rear paws holding on. He actually managed to climb out, I grabbed him, told him "no, not a good idea to go there, you'll never get out once you fall in there" and threw him down. Which of course only encouraged Frankie to run straight back to the top of the cupboard and stick his head down the wall again. Too bad my camera's broken, otherwise I'd have shot some nice pictures of him scrabbling around before he finally lost his grip and disappeared head first behind the cupboard. The room behind there is triangular shaped, the widest part being about the width of a cat's head, and the only way out is going up. Plus the space is filled with rolls of wrapping paper, on top of which little Frankie was now sitting.

I let him sit in there for a bit before dragging him out by the fur. Honestly, they must by now think this is the normal way for humans to pick up cats. I wonder why they still come to me. Must be the food thing.

It took Frankie about two seconds to recover. Then it was run-jump-stickheaddown again. This time I got a little bit mad at this display of learning resistance and I... well, let's not get into details. Suffice it to say that when we were done, Frankie was quietly sitting underneath my TV looking out.

But I'm sure as soon as I go out, he'll be up and behind the cupboard again. Then he'll be stuck there all day long and piss and shit on my collection of wrapping paper and I have to clean it all up in the evening. But I tell you, then it'll be bathing time!

Watersports

Had some more fun in the bathtub. I stayed out of it, but left some water running fro Frankie and Benjy to play with. Which they did rather hesitantly. So I raised the excitement level a bit by plugging the bathtub so the water level slowly rose. They tried to run. But somehow they alway managed to - err - jump onto my hand and from there into the water again. Very funny sight, they scrabbling around in the water and getting all their little paws wet. And their bellies a bit. So when they were finally done in the bathtub I stepped in to take a shower, and they stepped out to sit on the toilet and lick themselves dry again.

But it was a good thing they washed their feet, because they left shitty little footprints in the bathroom again. And I had to show Frankie again how to cover his heaps in the litter box with the sand. I don't think he really wants to know, he just keeps trying to get away from the stinky stuff as fast as possible.

On the plus side, I bought an air purifying thingy yesterday. Just a piece of steel that should be left lying half immersed in water and which magically removes all the smell from the air. Sounds stupid, right? I'm not usual the type who buys such scientifically unproven stuff, but, well, I was desperate. So I placed that thing in the bathroom, and guess what? I actually think it works. I didn't smell as bad this morning. Lets wait until they next use the litter box...

Bathing time

Almost had them in the bathtub today. After a whole day outside in the wind and rain today during a safety driving course, l didn't feel to well, so I decided to take a bath.
Frankie and Benjy spent the whole time wallking around the bathtvb edge and dipping their paws into the water, but they actually managed not to fall in. Even though I made the surface wet and slippery...

Did I mention I got my wireless LAN working? I can now surf the web and blog on my Palm in bed. Ain't technology great?

Out of here

Last night Frankie found out that the half-open window could be a way out of my apartment. I took him out to the balcony once, and ever since then he's been buggering me to let him out again. I should have known that before... Anyway yesterday he realized that opening of the tilted window is much bigger higher up that at floor level, so he just climbed up the window frame. Quite an amazing sight, too. Too bad I was to busy ripping him off my window so I couldn't take a picture. We repeated that little play a few times (Frankie: "Meow" - jump - climbclimbclimb --- Me: grab, "NO!", throw), then I got the water spraying bottle and sat next to the window and whenever Frankie would try to climb up the window frame, I'd hit him with a spray of water. After the first time, it didn't even bother him anymore, so I had to resort to closing the window. So no more fresh air for us, we have to live in the stench of the litter box nox.

By the way, my camera went on strike this morning after I switched batteries. The power light blinks once when I try to turn it on and that's all. Don't expect any pictures soon (or come by and take some!).

And I always thought cats don't like water... Doesn't seem to bother him too much, though. Benjy played with running water in the bathtub as well. They are definitely not afraid it seems.

Is that normal cat behaviour? I mean, I know they are bothers and all, and care for each other, but doesn't that go a little bit too far?

Cars are nice...