telophase: (Default)
So we had several guests over yesterday for an RPG* (two of them spending the night. much to Sora's dismay). One of them was in the guest bathroom, which is a jack-and-jill type with two doors. We had forgotten to warn people that Sora might be hiding in the bathtub.

As our guest was standing there occupied, Sora leaps out from the tub and stares at him. Then Sora runs for one door to escape this horrifying person. It's, naturally, closed. He runs for the other door. It's, naturally, closed. Sora then proceeds to run laps around our guest's feet in mortal terror until he's finished and can open a door, whereupon Sora escapes into the master bedroom and crams himself as far as he can under our bed, not to poke out a whisker until midnight or so.




* yes, one of those old-fashioned tabletop games, as I find that every time I mention this nowadays everyone online assumes I mean an online one, while everyone offline assumed I mean a video game. :/
telophase: (Cat - I EET YOU!)
Yay, Toby has me set up on his laptop until I get a new computer so I am not totally incommunicado but as I don't have any of my data and programs on it, it's half-assed.

However! Nefer has expanded her culinary horizons! This is the cat who, in her eight years of life on this earth, has recognized almost nothing as food except for dry kibble, taco chips, saltine crackers, and the usual assortment of dry crusty whatsits found on the floor.* (Well, pork products and milk, which make her throw up so she can't have it.)

Every time I offered here gooshyfud, she sniffed it and turned up her nose. We switched Sora to part-gooshyfud for his pee issues, and she still turned her nose up at it. Until just a couple of days ago, when I was in the living room and Toby was making coffee and called to me that Nefer was going to town on the gooshyfud left out for Sora.

Well. So she was. We started putting out two plates and now they're both empty. Nefer is a convert!

She also decided that she liked peanut butter** and Lemonade Girl Scout cookies. Maybe she'll actually try some chicken next!



* All cats love this.

** Interesting aside on feline cognition: she knows that spoons are not food, and when I present her with a spoon that has some small treat she actually likes on it (ice cream, mostly - a couple of licks won't make her puke), she'll lick it but not bite. She doesn't know the same for knives - when she asked to sniff the peanut butter, I held the knife out to her and she kept trying to delicately bite it! I just wiped some up with my finger and offered that to her, which she licked off because she knows for damn sure that my finger is not food!

Poor Sora!

Sep. 21st, 2011 10:00 am
telophase: My cat Sora, alert and somewhat nervous. (Cat - Sora alert)
Sora spent the morning as Toby and I were getting ready trying to persuade us to feed him. I think the only reason he doesn't wake us up in the mornings* is that we don't feed the cats immediately, but wait for a bit before doing so. (I highly recommend this course of action to prevent your cat from waking you up an hour before the alarm!)

Anyway, this morning, as I was opening the bag of birdseed to refill the feeder, Sora apparently thought it might be his food, so came running over, which made Toby laugh. Toby's laugh scared Sora, who turned and ran towards the coffee table.

Toby reports this next bit, as it happened behind my back. Sora was apparently undecided as to whether he wanted to jump up on top of the coffee table and run away that way, or to run under the table and hide. So he jumped directly into the table, smacking into it with his chest, so his front paws were on top of the table, and sending coasters flying.

This caused Toby to fall down laughing. At which Sora took offense, and he spent the rest of the morning slinking off until he finally found a hiding place and wouldn't be cajoled from it -- wherever it was -- by food or by us calling to him gently.

I envision him hiding behind the dryer or something, sniffing plaintively, and mumbling "You're not my real parents!" to himself.




* Usually. Although Toby is the one who feeds him, he wakes me up if Toby forgets to feed him at night. Or if he's lonely and wants to snuggle.
telophase: (cat - Sora smug in box)
And a further note...in reference to the video in this post, I can now confidently say that one thing Sora is not scared of is me walking around with a book on my head.
telophase: (Default)
We bought a Food Maze for the cats. Their reactions can be summed up thusly:

Sora: What...? Mama, feed me! Mama feed me! MAMA FEED ME!! *I leave the room* Oh, look, here's some food! I can paw it out and eat it! Yum! *I enter the room* MAMA FEED ME I'M STAAAAARVING AND THERE'S NO FOOD HERE!

Nefer: WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN *stares mournfully at us*
telophase: (cat - Sora smug in box)
So I posted a video a few days ago of Sora playing fetch with his recently-uncovered feathers-onna-stick toy.

We have created a monster.

Now that he's rediscovered the toy, and how much fun it is to play with it, playing with that toy is ALL HE WANTS TO DO. [livejournal.com profile] myrialux reported that during the day yesterday, Sora dragged the stick over to him at his desk, asking to play with it, several times. I got home from work and sat on the couch, here comes Sora with the stick. We go to Jason's Deli and get dinner to go and as we're sitting down and eating, Sora drags the stick over. I'm watching Top Chef bundled up on the couch with Nefer sitting on my feet, and Sora keeps picking the stick up and dropping it, hoping I'll get the message.

Last night, at some point in the middle of the night, I woke up to hear the strange almost metallic sound the stick makes as the end not in his mouth drags against the hardwood floor, all the way down the hall to the master bedroom. God help me, I pretended to be asleep to fool A CAT.
telophase: (Cat - :3)
I love the faraway look Nefer gets in her eyes when she's sitting on the router and warming her butt.
telophase: (Cat/Box OTP)
A short, unscientific survey of my received comments on LJ over the past three months shows that you guys have stronger opinions about food and duvets than just about anything else.

Also, Nefer had a BIG ADVENTURE last night, which consisted of getting locked in the garage for four hours. Apparently she snuck out of the kitchen into the garage while [livejournal.com profile] myrialux was getting his laundry out of the washing machine and I was cooking Brussels sprouts (and the rest of dinner). I didn't notice a lack of Nefer for a couple of hours, and checked the bed where she'd been nesting for the past couple of days in my clean laundry*, and didn't see her. I thought it was a bit odd, but as she'd disappeared before into various hidey-holes around the house for several hours at a time, I didn't bother to look for her.

Two hours later, after I'd watched Top Chef and two episodes of House Hunters International, I noticed that she still hadn't shown up, and mentioned it to [livejournal.com profile] myrialux, who poked about the house for a while, then opened the garage door. In came Nefer.

She seems to be none the worse for wear after her experience - her fur wasn't even cold, which leads me to think she nestled up against the washing machine or something - but she did snuggle up to my leg as we were falling asleep, which she usually doesn't do, preferring to sit on the warm heating pad thing I heat up for her on cold nights. (Ans also threw up in her food bowl. God only know what she ate out there.) And when we tested her by opening the door to the garage, she looked at it with interest and started walking over before we shut it.

I, however, am a TOTAL WRECK when I think about it. Which I know is overreacting a wee, tiny bit, as she's fine, no harm, no foul. It's just that I'm oversensitive on the subject of my cats. Hell, if I take a shower and afterwards find one of them sitting outside the bathroom door, I feel all guilty that I couldn't hear them meowing and let them in. So, y'know, four hours in the garage, no water, no food but for bugs, at some point of which she must have meowed next to the door, unheard... WAAAAARRGGGHHHH!!!! I mean, she was TRAPPED OUT THERE IN THE GARAGE WHILE I WAS TYPING OUT A POST ABOUT BRUSSELS SPROUTS! THE HORROR!

I am, however, wondering if another aspect of her behavior will change now that she's fully familiar with the garage smells. [livejournal.com profile] myrialux reports that he's seen it several times when I'm gone all day for work, and I've seen it once when [livejournal.com profile] myrialux has left to go game for the day: she picks her stuffed hamster** up in her mouth, trots over to the garage door, drops it on the mat, and meows at the door. She often takes the hamster around the house, drops it, and meows, but we didn't know if it was a sort of instinct, calling for kittens to come so she can teach them to hunt, or if she's doing it for attention, or both. The garage-door thing means that she's made the connection with us leaving the house through the garage, and may be calling for us to return.***

Or we may, perhaps, be witnessing the birth of a religion.




* I dump it on the bed in the morning, so that I will have to put it away before I go to bed. What happens is (a) I dump it back into the laundry basket right before I go to bed instead of putting it away and (b) Nefer makes a nest and sleeps in it.

** A Hamtaro which is, alas, not much longer for this world. I'm in the market for a small stuffed animal no larger than my fist, about 4" on the longest axis. We found a stuffed quail, but it's a bit too big and she doesn't pay any attention to it. Any leads?

*** EVEN MORE HEART-RENDING, I TELL YOU
telophase: (cat - Sora smug in box)
1. Migraine still here. Home from work for the morning, at least. If it goes away, I'll stagger in for the afternoon.

2. Last night Sora was sitting on my chest at the computer while I was cuddling him. Something - I have no idea what - spooked him, and he took the shortest, fastest route out of there, all claws out to provide traction. Unfortunately, directly across the bare flesh of my throat. I now look like a werewolf has tried to slash my jugular with four claws, and there's a couple of deep slashes on my chest as well.

3. This is a sign of the modern world: there's an author I loved in my childhood, and today I have received an email containing a link to malware from her.*

4. I've forgotten what the fourth thing was. Hm. How about: in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Ezio is just as much of a badass with a pitchfork as he is with a broom.



* There were enough people on the CC list that somebody else will have informed her that she's got a virus by now.

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