Your Bed?? But It's Warrrrrrm!

I just so happen to have one of those mattress covers which has dual heat controls.  This allows me to have warmth when I'm cold.  My husband's side has never worked which is fine with him since he never gets cold.  Last night I felt the need to turn on a wee bit of heat.  "Ooooooooh", said Mister Kitten, "This is even better than a leg!!"  I didn't have a 16.5 pound 'kitten' on my leg.  Oh no!!  Instead, I woke up in the middle of the night to find myself about to fall off of the bed!!  Mister Kitten was trying to shove me off the bed so as to better lay down on the warm mattress cover.  [Oh look!  There's the culprit now!]

Now, you were wondering how Mister Kitten went from being a cute, sweet little girl kitten called Miette to a hefty little boy kitten with an identity crisis eventually named Mister Kitten.  Ah, like so many itty bitty girl kitties, when she hit about six months, pewh!  The scent of a Tom!!  The Tims in the house went nuts!  Suddenly all of the cats in the house were spraying.  Ack!!  We'd already been planning on spaying Miette, having kept her in the house, but now we had to get 'her' into the vet quick quick for a neuter operation!!

Miette wasn't happy about this.  The other Tims in the house kept spraying.  ::head:desk::  Fortunately, I keep my favorite product Simple Solutions Cat Spray & Urine Stain & Odor Remover.  I can use it everywhere, even in the washer.  Yay!  It helps some.  Eventually the spraying stopped... and came back... and started again... and came back again.  A lot of it has to do whenever we have dominance problems, such as right now.  Thomas is noticing another cat in the neighborhood who comes to 'visit'.  ::sigh::

Anyway, at first we kept calling Mister Kitten "Miette".  But Miette didn't like that anymore.  Duh!  So along came the search to find Mister Kitten's name.  Now Mister Kitten shares a birthday with Harry Potter.  He is now three years old and will be turning four this summer.  But he still behaves like a kitten.  After he became a boy, his mom Sarah moved out of the house.  Eventually she found her own permanent home and took Tanis the Dragon Slayer to live with her.  Because I had trained Tanis to be sociable and he loved her more than any other person, it only made sense for him to be with his mom.  She told us that rather than keeping Mister Kitten's name as Vicious Miette Pumpkin Thunderblaster Knives Pterodactyl (which she had named her/him as a kitten), we could rename him.

Thus became the Search for a New Name!!  We called him Kitten most of the time.  We tried Trouble (because he is!).  We tried Oberon (my children's choice). We also called him the Cat with the Identity Crisis (pretty obvious!!).  But eventually he let us know that his name is Mister Kitten.  He hangs out with me and my son.  I'm having to work with him right now because he's picked up biting and not wanting to be touched.  Because I've had so many rescue cats I've worked a lot with training cats to hang out with humans.

Right now I'm teaching my son to learn to read cats' body language.  This is the most important step in training cats.  The second most important part is being patient and talking softly to them.  Learning to do this is also helping him to be calm and to interact well with others.  Corwyn has trouble reading human body language and by learning the body language of cats, it will make it easier for him to begin learning human body language and to interact with humans.  I love having my cats and they make my life so much better.  I'm constantly trying to encourage others to rescue cats and helping people who are allergic figure out how to have cats in their homes.  I've had cats since I was a baby, can you tell??  ::grin::

 published with the 'help' of Zaphy

My Legs! My Legs!

I woke up last night unable to feel my legs.  There was a perfectly plausible reason for this.  You see, Mister Kitten (formally known as Vicious Miette Pumpkin Thunderblaster Knives Pterodactyl aka Kitten aka Trouble aka Oberon aka the Cat with the Identity Crisis) was laying across my legs.  Mister Kitten is the largest of our cats, weighing in at a good 16.5 pounds (or 7.5 kg).  Thus, you can understand my reasoning for going, "Ack!  My legs!  My legs!"; although, I must admit that I said this silently since the love of my life was still asleep.  However, I did get up and make Mister Kitten get off of my legs.

[pause to love on Zaphy who just came in from outside... we really really need to find his brush!!]

Mister Kitten is a yellow tabby who is extremely muscular (yes, that 16.5 pounds is not fat!!).  He loves to play chase with Star up and down the hallway just as he has done since he was a kitten.  Mister Kitten first came to use via the Eldest Daughter, Sarah.  She wanted a kitten since the only kitten she'd ever had was an Abyssinian mix rescue who was 9 months old when he came to be a forever companion.  So she went to a feline rescue group and found a cute female kitten whom she named Vicious Miette Pumpkin Thunderblaster Knives Pterodactyl.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Kitty Horde at that point also included Tanis the Dragon Slayer (the Abyssinian mix) and Quigley the Demon Dust Bunny Hunter, who were the Eldest Cats in the household and also known as The Cranky Old Men.  Tanis had integrated into the Horde and become sociable (he is rather autistic and I worked hard with him once we were in the same household).  Then Miette came to live with us.  Oh dear!  Oh no!!  Horror of horrors!!  Tanis fell apart.  The other boys welcomed the baby, since they'd had other babies introduced to the Horde before (crazy cat lady?  moi?  noooOOOooo, that invisible neon sign that says "Cat Family Lives Here, Feeds the Good Stuff, Come on In" does not exist!!)

Oh.  You want to know more about Mister Kitten and how she became a he??  Well, that's a story for another time... mayhap... tomorrow.

Why Don't We All Just Nap Now

I spent half the day in Nashville (major city half an hour to forty-five minutes away from us) going to see my orthopedist.  Okay, I'll admit it, we also stopped off to see my mother, but that wasn't as long of a visit.  It did give us a chance to see Miss Kitty (in case you might be wondering, yes, this is where Mister Kitten's name came from).  Miss Kitty is my brother David's cat.  But she can't live with my brother David because there is a ::shudder:: dog at his house (there have been other reasons before that... college, roommate's cats... and so on).  Miss Kitty is a Delicate Kitty of the South ::paw to forehead:: who is now about 15-16 years old (don't quote me!!).

Miss Kitty was rescued from underneath a local school building (our parents are both retired teachers) at the instigation of my brother David.  She was quite skittish and quickly became David's Cat.  Over the years she has deigned to permit feeding by my mother and dad, and now she has mellowed to the point of even allowing some petting from people other than David (read primarily my mother & dad, although other members of the family have been granted permission as well).  Miss Kitty is a delicate black & white long-hair.  She is absolutely gorgeous, assuming that you get a chance to see her. 

This has become a wee bit easier in the past year since she began sleeping in front of the living room heater.  It sits beside the couch and there is a comfy chair in front of it, making a neat corner.   Mother has put down a soft soft pillow and Miss Kitty lays herself down like a Victorian lady on a fainting couch.  It's sad for me in one way, to see her fading away, but on the other, so nice to see a cat who could have been left alone have such a wonderful loving home (and having been spayed!!  sorry... whole family are sticklers about that!).

Once I got home, I had a phone call to make, and then one last therapist to see (discharge day!  whoot!).  But it was sooooo exhausting that Mister Kitten and Star put me to sleep.  No!  Really!!  I didn't want to go to sleep.  Nah-uh.  They made me take that nap!!  I woke up when my husband got home to see Zaphoid laying on top of me, which never happens, so I know it was a catspiracy!!