While Mazuzu continues his recovery, Jenny shows signs of boredom. Add to that the oh-so attractive scent of freshly laundered socks and she’ll leap into action, ‘sploding the contents of the laundry bag all over the kitchen floor.
She spent so much time rolling in it, biting and clawing, that we actually noticed two colored spots on her gut: a solitary dab of orange and a light blue one where she was, erm…- fixed.
And she fought us for them, too...
Weird, I know, but there you go. Getting the socks all over the place was just the “apéritif”, and she moved on to paper towel shredding on the bed, attacking our toes and my calves, throwing one of her stuffed toys in the air repeatedly (we had to cover our coffee mugs just in case).
The nurse is now bigger than the patient
Hours later, the little Hellion’s crashed on the cat tower recharging her batteries while Tito’s out chasing some flying thing, perhaps imaginary.
"Don't make me get up there!"
… What Nurse Jenny does most of the time: keep Maz the Schnazz warm:
The night of Thursday into Friday the 13th, a night of celestial mayhem, turned out to bring Tito and I ever closer…
Storm re-enactment
A storm was moving through the Bay Area, with lightning strikes precise enough to hit not only the Bay bridge but a plane in flight. The plane had to dump fuel and returned safely to the airport.
THUNDERCATS ARE NO GO!!!
At home, as we turned off the computer and prepared to do the same with the TV, I caught something strange from the corner of my eye: a rug shimmying straight for the kitchen. A second look showed Tito hugging the floor and running for a kitchen cupboard to hide in.
Maz, while none too pleased, was comfortably wrapped in a heavy blanket on the bed and didn’t budge. Jenny herself was sitting on the bed with a bit more nervous discomfort than he and watched Tito darting away.
Nightingale Jenny will make it all better...
While I don’t particularly fear that the sky will ever fall, like my ancestors the Gauls, Tito seems to be afraid of it for the both of us. The only spot he considers a refuge is the lower cupboard in the kitchen next to the stove top and behind a crock pot.
This storm kept on moving through, fortunately, and Jenny helped Tito recover with tender grooming and copious amounts of catnip she shared… Tito the Gaul. Wow. We are kin!
This just happened. Oh, in the last 40 minutes or so.
Maz: “- Mmmmraw…. Meeeeewe….
Rudha-an: – Unnnh.nnuh. Nno baby, wut time is it..?
Me: – Hrrumph… I’ts… Four thirty. Jesus.
Maz: – Hmmraow. Rrrweee. MRAOW.
Rudha-an: – Not now baby, it’s too – (another body landed on the bed)
Me: – T-Tito what the @#$%? [He takes off]
Rudha-an (as a result of being trampled by Maz): – Would you stop..? Christ almighty. No I’m not going in there. ‘Course I love you too but Jeesus.
Me: – [BONK] Sh*t, who did I kick off the bed..?
Rudha-an: – Musta been Tito.
Me: – No it felt lighter than – [cats are heard romping through the apartment: TROMP-TROMP-TROMP-MMMMMREEEWEEEE!-TAGADA-TAGADA-TAGADA-TSOIN-TSOIN! I dunno… Suddenly one lands next to my feet before taking off at warp speed, claws raking my ankles] AAAGH!!! @#$#^%&!!!!! F*****G $%&*&##@@!!!!!!
Rudha-an: – Told you to cover your feet….
Me: – [for the umpteenth time] THEY GET WARM… Joder!!! [Yeah, ’cause I cuss in other languages too…] Bastards!
Maz: – Rrrrrewweee!!! MmROW!
Me: – Hey f***k you pal. [I grab him and wrap him in the blanket against me. As I grab him his legs stiffen out, kicking every which way, like hypnic jerking, one claw nailing Rudha-an in the arm]
Rudha-an: – DAMMIT!!!! $#@^%&*!!!!
I’m holding on tight to Maz, petting him as he tries to burrow an escape tunnel. He turns and MMMRAOWS in my face. I gotta come up for air: I just smelled the entire Seattle fish market fill my nose. Blech.
Jenny, I can tell from the weight before she even utters a chirrup, leaps on my shoulder, slides and rakes my neck with a claw. The Deguello echoes loud in my head. Flesh wound. I’ll live.
Fierce creature…
From a corner of the room, not sure which, I feel Tito either orchestrating the mayhem or perhaps waiting to come in and save us… Who knows, both things have happened in the past.
Someday these fangs will come for blood…
YES! He jumps next to me and grabs at Jenny who suddenly takes off!
NO! he climbs on my gut and takes a flying leap from there.
We’ve seen worse, but recent days have seen the thermometer dip to about 40 at night and it takes longer for the sun to warm everything up in the morning.
I took this picture a few weeks ago at about 7 a.m.
Looks cold..? It is.
That means more cuddling time for Miss Jenny, Marshal Tito and the f****g fascist depicted in the banner, pardon my French…. It also means more noms for calories and Maz has now taught Jenny to wake mommy up for them. Lots of pawing, standing on hips, face-licks with hellish breath, etc…
Tito is the only one not begging for food anymore…
Weather looks cloudy with a heart of gold
Every so often, I do forget and leave food unattended. Maz never forgets.
Pizza? Why not, s'long as there's no peppers...
Wonder what they dream of… The cat version of “the King and I”? Complete with coo’s and chirrups?
He is mine and I wuvs him and I shall call him my Lake Titicaca
Or maybe they dream of centipede bunnies crapping skittles. Who knows?
Mmmmh... Skittles.
Naturally in the real world, cats would devour the bunnies, resulting in… Well, just watch.
I have a thing for feral cats, and Rudha-an has one for kittens. Feral kittens, therefore, are our favorites. We’ll never know exactly where they came from, what they went through, why they are so scared of shoes, think of nothing but murder, and yet are so hungry for affection.
Each one has a story but they’ll never tell even if they could, we just wonder as they teach us to live in the moment.
This week, here are some of my favorite photos of our pointy eared people, followed by a clip of very funny story telling. About a sloth. Enjoy.
Maz and Jenny in a tender momentTito MagnificoMazuzu: art deco or fascist icon?The Queen of Cool
And now, enjoy this very funny sloth story from Kristen Bell on the “Ellen” show.
Tito likes:
The space between drape and window
The magic fluffy blanket sent by Flumptytail
Playing fetch
Bach at low volume
Light playing on the ceiling
People’s feets
Being carried around
Dislikes:
Wind
Shoes with feets in ’em
Tito the Class Act
Mazuzu likes:
Food. Preferably stolen
Heat
Wearing light fabric shirts loose at the pits
Laying turds astride the edge of the box
Chasing red dots
Roughhousing
Gut rubs
Being clean
Hamming it up for pics
Soaking up photons
Dislikes:
Wind
Being Cold
Baths
Hiss of the soda bottle when the cap is popped
kitsy aka Maz Whang starring in “To Catch a Nom”
Miss Jenny likes:
The boyz!
Farting on Daddy
Chasing the boyz
Grooming the boyz
Chin rubs from Daddy
Chewing on shoes
Shredding paper
Daddy talking gibberish
Snuggling with Daddy
Dislikes:
Wind
Shoes with feets in ’em
Being picked up
Litterbox “accidents”
Daddy going to work
It’s not that Maz Whang is selfish, exactly… Or even that Tito is an enabler, but… Let’s again face the fact that Maz, a bit like Bad Santa, is an eating, drinking, sh*tting machine, who zeroes in on food with purpose and violence.
He does burn through calories like a three alarm fire and prefers 80 degrees weather.
Tito would even sit on a kitchen chair, looking at us with eyes half-closed, a signal that he wants canned food, only to leave it to Maz once he showed up: in other words tricking us into feeding Maz even more.
I watch and see all
But that’s just Tito being the Big Brother, the Paraclete. Three in the morning, Maz digs at my wife, standing on her for effect. Claws are always out, by the way: he always has that sense of urgency about him, like Indiana Jones pressing his face in the wall as he is about to get crushed: “we-are-going-to-die!”
The rule is, though: no canned food until six a.m.
Which means that for Rudha-an, the window from 3 to 6 a.m. is a preview of purgatory, pummeled by this mace wrapped in leather while I (mostly) sleep soundly and justly. The way of the world is the way of the cat, perhaps especially one that looks like David Bowie in “the man who fell to Earth”.
Keeps food in the fleshy folds of his visage...
Okay, in truth, Maz is more Richard Widmark than Bowie, but he is a star.
Good thing, then, that Maz’ naked ambitions are checked by the crème brulee that is Miss Jenny. We used to joke that Maz was nuclear powered, watching him streak through the apartment, up and down the furniture and hanging from the cat tower like a monkey. But she matches him step by step and then some. And that’s no small feat.
She is so nommable
So while the Whang does his thang, the blue-eyed she-devil chases after him to steal… Well, kisses, actually.
I wuvs him
That’s right, she nuzzles both boys and grooms them to the point that we thankfully no longer need to use Q-tips on Maz’ flappers.
Maybe she can be enticed in tackling Maz when he starts his food dance at three in the morning…? No.
Nope, she’ll stand right next to him waiting for noms, maybe even egging him on. She dances to her own tune, that one: if noms aren’t forthcoming, she’ll just force Maz into a high-speed chase or chew on his leg while Tito watches from the shadows in the hallway, always waiting.
Looks like a Disney movie...
So… “Jules and Jim“, or might a “Pact of Steel” be in the works? All I know is even I often wake up from being hit by a high-speed feline cannonball, making me yell “F****G FASCIST!!!” like Jeff Lebowski…
After 40 days and nights of Jenny and Maz farting through the wilderness, which is still ongoing, and being relentlessly tempted to misbehave, Tito finally gives in…
Moi?
Sure, sure, the other two are so much fun to romp and wrestle with, and so… Nommable.
In here with us
Sure, Maz steals food and likes to plant his arse and naughty bits in our faces when we sleep (I found an egg roll on the kitchen floor this very morning), while Jenny attacks anything that moves or she thinks is moving, farting up a storm as I lean to pet her.
Chicka chicka bow wow
Tito started by playing alone behind the drapes, as he likes to do. once in a while stopping to see if the others were enticed to come and check him out. This took some time, as Maz was busy looking for something to steal, or “liberate” as he calls it, in the kitchen and Jenny herself was stalking him, fascinated as she is by his spectacular nakedness ( she often looks back at us with a WTF is that look on her face).
Suddenly the noises from the window became a racket and we both turned to see that Tito had climbed up the drapes all the way to the ceiling, his head rotating almost 180 degrees, “exorcist” like. This was a first… The climbing, I mean. I’ve seen him do the head thing before when he’s tripping on catnip.
… Los Bastardos, those high priests of malevolence, Maz “the mace” Whang and Miss Pirate Jenny, continue their re-enactment of “children of Dune” on an 18 by 24 inch stage…
No spice and no worms (thank Ceiling Cat), only disastrous leavings draped or laid in odd places like the edge of the litter box or the floor. I’ve actually watched Maz back up in the box and drop a load on the floor…
I wonder whether Salvador Dali had cats… That could explain this:
Like soft cat leavings. Thanks guys...
Cleaning up these messes is no fun and brings Rudha-an close to horking. Sigh… So I’ll do my best to try and keep my cookies down as I pick up the horrid turds.
