Caturday: the FOG (F*****g Old Guy)

Titan

Even sitting by the window, he gazes inward. He pays no attention to traffic or birds in flight, he just appears absorbed in thought.

Titan 2

Maybe about his new life, maybe about the younger cats still trying to figure him out… Like kids throwing rocks through the windows of a dilapidated house, they pursue him to shove their nose under his nub.

“It is the nature of youth to play, with their foolish lack of purpose, but to suffer their nose up my tuchus? If two swats do not suffice, a quick bite on the neck shall have them running to their mother’s lap with a yowl.”

Of course, Jenny yelps more from surprise than pain: Titanescu doesn’t bite so much as push on you with his teeth. No, the real protest comes from catching a whiff of halitosis from Grumps. Irony for you, coming from the blue eyed little ball of gas.

Jenny

But even if he knew his fetid breath for what it actually is, there’s no sign this mild indignity would bother the old hero. He lives each day, each hour as a separate life, spending many hours in contemplation.

He’s a cat who’ll go round and round (slowly) over a spot like a dog before settling down, resting his head against an arm or a leg. We’ve not heard him growl or purr, although he’s inflicted the occasional breathy hiss. We’ve learned his ears tell the story: it is time to stop messing him about when they start twitching. Next will be either a push of the teeth or a punch. I’ll take the teeth thing over the paws, at least they don’t bruise, and I can wipe off the excess spit…

Titanescu is I think the only cat I’ve ever known who would not recoil after hissing or hitting a human. He sits very calmly with a stoic look, not even a hint of feeling, ready to hit again if pushed. No sign of fear whatsoever.

Tito

In our defense, I think we’re getting trained faster than either Tito or Jenny, although the giddy temptation to “throw rocks” remains.

stoic


Increase your website traffic with Attracta.com

Share

Caturday: Quirky habits edition

ALL cats have quirks. Many seem to have the same quirks. We don’t mind. It’s a part of what makes them fascinating and endearing. For example, Tito’s favorite toys are crumpled bits of paper. The crisper, the better. He not only plays fetch like a dog, he will take them and store them in the bathtub for safekeeping. If he can’t find a paper ball, he’ll grab a receipt, jump on papa, drop it on his chest and wait. He has other quirks too. 🙂

Tito tries to pretend that he's made of glass. Many cats do this. It can be creepy at times.
Tito tries to pretend that he’s made of glass. Many cats do this. It can be creepy at times.

Miss Jenny and Titanescu have their quirks as well. Jenny imitates the Predator (movie monster) while watching birds. This is common to many of the pointy eared people.

Miss Jenny
Miss Jenny does her chittering at birds from my old baby doll bed.

Titanescu prefers to play King of the Mountain. That is my hip. It’s also where he perches and sleeps. He manages to stay on when I roll over too. Logrolling competition? Weird

Я буду править с лапой железа и ледяным взглядом!
Я буду править с лапой железа и ледяным взглядом!

drinking problem

For those who want to know, the dvds next to Tito are:

The Red Balloon (1956)
The Ladykillers (1955)
The Count of Monte Cristo (1998) This French TV series is the only film version worth watching.
Amélie (2001)
The Campaign (2012)
The Exorcist (1973)


Increase your website traffic with Attracta.com

Share

Caturday: Plotting the Catapocalypse

It’s a well known fact that the pointy eared people are plotting world domination. Training us humans is their first mission. May the Flying Spaghetti Monster take pity on you if you miss feeding time by more than 10 minutes because kitty sure won’t. That’s only one example of the training they enforce. We also learn the danger of leaving the litterbox cleaning for a few minutes too long. I think you get my point. Failure is not an option.

Titanescu
Titanescu aka Grumpy Butt watches over his domain. He will begin his harassment of us a good two hours before feeding time, lest we forget. We do not forget. His stink eye is as terrifying as his lightning fast paws.
Tito and Jenny
Tito (left): Pssst, Jenny! Hahahahaha !They can’t see us. You go steal more pens. I’ll go knock the books off the shelf and then we’ll ….ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz

This is what they want us to see.

This is what is really coming.
Catapocalypse


Increase your website traffic with Attracta.com

Share

Caturday: OMG WTF Izzat? Kill it!

Most of our friends living with nervous pointy eared people will be familiar with the sentiment above. Change (ANY change) is met with fear and loathing. In our case it was a new lamp. Yep, we brought home a simple torchier style floor lamp and the world almost ended…for Tito and Jenny (mostly Tito) at any rate.

I decided to assemble the lamp in the kitchen. Tito and Jenny took one look at what appeared to be a headless tentacled monster and scrambled into their bolt-hole (kitchen cupboard). I could see their eyes glow, but that was all.

I had it put together in no time and tucked into place on Lastech’s side of the bed. We turned it on and then ignored it. It took a while. Miss Jenny emerged first. She glared at it for a while. Once she figured out that it wasn’t going to attack or fall on her, she hopped in the basket for a nap.

What izzat thing?
What izzat thing?

Tito was a different story. He crept in on his belly. He glared. He paced a bit like the cavemen around the monolith in “2001: a space odissey“, then bolted back to the cupboard. After about three rounds of this, he finally decided that it wouldn’t kill him. He went off to nap. It will take a while before he gets brave enough to approach the bed. If not for the fact that the monster loomed over him, he would have slapped the crap out of it a few times and gotten over it faster.

I don't like it! I would slap it, but it might eat me!
I don’t like it! I would slap it, but it might eat me!

Where was Titanescu through all this? Did he care? Was he upset?

Titan
ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

On the serious side… Yes, we can laugh at Tito and Jenny and their nervousness. However, we do try to make changes as easy on them as possible. Once they went into hiding, we left them alone to come out when they were ready. After all, it may only be a lamp to us, but to them it’s like their entire world was rearranged. We wouldn’t react well to that either.

Back to the funny side and more scaredy cats for you to enjoy.


Increase your website traffic with Attracta.com

Share

Caturday: Peace at last. Er…what?

Titanescu has continued to settle in. He rarely yells at the other two to get off his lawn. However he still has a most powerful stink eye and a lightning fast paw strike. He still plays with Miss Jenny every day and plays a bit with Tito. This week brought us this.

Tito and Titan
Awwwwww

It looked so sweet. Titanescu was quite contented. Peace at last. Then he noticed and … Что за черт? Он трогает меня! followed by slappity slappity. Tito was unfazed.

Here is Miss Jenny trying to disguise herself as a prissy little kitty. It’s a fake out. She’s anything but a girly girl. She’s rough and tough and all girl, but she refuses to conform to anyone’s notion of what’s proper.

Miss Jenny
My, what lovely…poot…jellybeans I have.

My Facebook friend Henry shared this LOL with me. I thought it might be one of Titanescu’s followers. Thank you Henry!

969492_389868094452579_2082919550_n


Increase your website traffic with Attracta.com

Share

Caturday: ridiculous faces of madness

Because it’s a usually fleeting thing, catching a glimpse of a cat about to go on its mad-hour romp can be difficult. One second they may be licking themselves, then the very next they dash off to explode out of corners at a dead run and jump on and off furniture.

This took a while to document, not just for one of the kittoons, but all three. The head rears back a bit, the eyes bug out, and there may even be a bit of a Marty Feldman look there.

Marty Feldman
Marty Feldman

The body goes from limp sack of cooked noodles to taut piano wire and boom, it’s on like Donkey Kong, claws out and losing traction as if in a ’70s car chase.

Naturally, Titanescu will do about three minutes before losing steam and plopping somewhere, while the others keep going and going.

This is the moment. On the cusp of lunacy. And it’s just goofy.

Tito
Tito
Miss Jenny
Miss Jenny
Titan
Titanescu


Increase your website traffic with Attracta.com

Share

Caturday: Titan knows best

You know that old grandpa or scary uncle kids like to sneak dangerously close to when he takes a nap, giggling at the hair growing wild out of his nose and ears? Running away when he wakes up mad?

That’s Titan.

The other day he seemed to nap, at least I thought he was, on Rudha-an’s lap. I pretended to pet him, bringing my hand to a couple inches from his back when “whap!!!” he slapped it lightning quick and hard. His expression didn’t even change and he barely moved. Giggling is tricky too: he doesn’t like when she has a fit of the giggles and makes him shake, and he lets it be known by letting out an almost asthmatic, silent hiss.

Life with the ole tyrant.

It’s not that he knows best, he just knows. And don’t you dare question him you damn kids…

Come little bit closer
Come a little bit closer
Closer! Closer!
Closer! Closer!
Don't even think about it
Даже не думайте об этом!


Increase your website traffic with Attracta.com

Share

Caturday: Nipheads

What is it with cats and nip? They go nuts on the stuff. In the case of Titanescu and Miss Jenny it resulted in some awful singing. It also caused us to make a rather interesting discovery about Titanescu.

Titan
It was heavily accented, but it was English. The moment he caught me looking, he reverted back to his native tongue.

Miss Jenny has found her theme song. Never mind that she was named after Pirate Jenny from the Three Penny Opera. THIS is her song.

Jenny
Miss Jenny discovered Cheryl Wheeler and the goofiest song ever. We’re doomed.

As for Tito, no singing for him. He’s too mellow.
Yell Tito a

Here’s another cat getting the goofiness going.

In case you wanted to know what Titanescu and Jenny were singing, here they are.

Miss Jenny’s strange obsession with potatoes began here.


Increase your website traffic with Attracta.com

Share

Caturday: a world of pain…

Illuminated by the flash of white-ish fangs…

New item: the old coot, I mean the Marshal, has developed a fondness for sleeping in the crook of my arm. He’ll rest a paw on my forearm, lay his chin on top of it and go to sleep. That seems to be comfortable for him because his breathing quickly becomes deep and regular, his eyes are fully closed and he’ll twitch slightly from dreaming. As he either goes to sleep or slowly awakens I can even feel his very low purr in my arm.

I tried putting an ear against him, but can’t hear it, so low it is.

Hmmm. Looks like...
Hmmm. Looks like…
Caturday Sam Eagle
… Sam Eagle!

When you look at his eyes, they seem ‘set’, as if his brow were almost furrowed, in anticipation of something bad to happen. I joked that he looks like the eagle from the Muppet Show, but that’s a look I’ve seen on people as well. Rarely does he open them wider, and he only does that when looking at the other two cats.

He does a lot of watching, more than anything else, and I suspect it’s because pain limits what he can do. When he does romp it usually doesn’t last more than three minutes at most. Better than nothing, but hopefully Tito and Jenny will continue to draw him out further, because things won’t get easier as he gets older and lacks energy to exercise.

While his pain is physical, I’ve wondered about the psychological effects. He is safe to pet until about the shoulder blades. Below that, you’re dancing with the Devil. Thankfully there are some rays of hope now and then.

Wide eyed and nubby tailed
Wide eyed and nubby tailed

One positive thing I noticed was that he does not fear us at all: when he slaps or ‘fake’ bites our hand, he doesn’t recoil in fear of being hit or worse. He just sits there staring as if saying ” has the whole world gone CRAZY?”

Jenny has taken to chasing him up the tower and Tito chases him from room to room. It’s not much, but the Marshal likes it and benefits from the exercise: yesterday, he rolled on his back in the ‘dead bug’ position. I wasn’t sure he could even do it, and while we don’t have photo evidence I’m sure we will soon.

Well, three minutes of romping at a time is a start. He does have to save his strength. Just like the Boober moved with more and more economy the sicker he became. And still he continues to last.

Un pont too far
Un pont too far

Thinking about these older cats this week, and the Klingon (not Vulcan!) kind of love the furry brutes have, makes it easier to understand why pain is both universal and private. Marshal Titanescu has trained me to remain very still when he graces my lap with his presence…


Increase your website traffic with Attracta.com

Share

Caturday: the towering inferno

The cat tower is one place where the kittoons play with such abandon, things verge on disaster.
We’ve had to anchor the thing to the book case with tethers after they managed to topple it a few times, and since then they can race up and jump down the damn thing as hard as they please. And boy oh boy, do they play hard.
Which always begs the question, exactly what is going through their fevered brain..? Judging by the way they slam that thing against the wall, you’d think they’re re-enacting “Earthquake“. Or perhaps “the towering inferno“…

"It's out of control, and it's coming your way. You got about fifteen minutes."
“It’s out of control, and it’s coming your way. You got about fifteen minutes.”

Titan: “Ain’t nobody got time for that!
Tito: “Sigh… That’s not the line…”

The fire claims its first elderly victim
Gasp! It’s so hot in here!

The fire claims its first elderly victim…

Titan: “пожилых людей? Я раздавить тебя!

Okay, break everyone… The director of photography needs to point out that in order to get the “performers” in position, a laser pointer had to be used for their mark, and that even then, they would get distracted by the caw of a bird or the ludic possibilities of a speck of dust, because they have the attention span of a herd of gnats

I’m just saying, it’s frustrating…

"The sprinkler valve's stuck!"
“The sprinkler valve’s stuck!”
How are they gonna get explosives up there?
How are they gonna get explosives up there?

Tito: “Oh they’ll find some dumb son of a bitch to bring it up.”
Jenny: “Hey..!
Titan: “гогот! гогот! гогот!

That, unfortunately, is about as much thespian dedication the director could muster from all three, so let’s cut to the obligatory love scene at the end…

"Well, I always wanted to die in bed..."
“Well, I always wanted to die in bed…Purr… Purr…”

….Annnnd, CUT.


Increase your website traffic with Attracta.com

Share