Expanding Territory

Okay, we're really back this time. And I promised photos, so here you go...

Not terribly long ago, The Amazing Husbandini decided to move his home office out of one of the spare bedrooms and down into the basement. Much shuffling of stuff ensued, and we ended up with an empty room upstairs. This room has a very large west-facing window and the doorway faces the hall with a good view of the master bedroom door and the top of the stairs. Little Grey Kitteh loved it and immediately adopted the room as part of "his" territory.

Now, I had plans for this room. All my sewing stuff had been gathering dust (and occasionally, kitty pee) down in the basement since we moved in, and I decided that this newly-vacant space would be perfect for a sewing room. But the more we worked on cleaning and painting and sprucing up what had been a pretty shabby space (seriously, I don't think it had been painted in about 30 years and it had some horrible drywall patching going on), LGK was making himself more and more at home in there. After a few afternoons of sunbeam-basking, it was obvious that whatever we did with the room was going to have to be cat-friendly.

First came the spare Drinkwell fountain. Then came a new kitty tree. Then came the cushy kitty bed. And is there really any point in mentioning the assortment of toys?

Melted Kitteh

LGK, surrounded by tribute (note the empty fishy pudding plates)

There were some additions that weren't so readily taken to:

I'm not sure about this. So I think I'll lurk behind it for a while. And is pink really my best color?

There were some that needed no instruction or getting used to:

"Zzzzzzzz .... huh? Oh, it's you."

And then, there were additions that had nothing whatsoever to do with LGK. Additions that were, in fact, solely for my benefit. But, in the spirit of compromise, LGK jumped right in and let it be known that he was willing to accept anything else that I might put in the room:

Photo taken .08 seconds after I put that freshly-laundered pair of jeans on the sewing table. Anything cushy, sitting in a sunbeam, must belong to a cat.

So, as you can see, LGK has adapted very nicely to being an upstairs-only cat.

Remember Us?

My apologies for the holiday break turning into a mini-sabbatical. We're all still here - the 2 humans and 4 cats, and things have settled into a mostly peaceful arrangement. Give me just a couple more days to catch up on some things and then I'll be back with updates and photos - lots and lots of photos!

Quick Updates, Then Vacation.

Yes, I suppose you could say I've been on vacation from this blog for quite a while now, but now I'm just making it official - No more updates between now and the New Year unless something really spectacular happens.

The screen door has been a great success, even though Little Grey Kitteh did figure out how to jump up on the screen section after about a week. A couple of shots from the squirt bottle seemed to clear that up, though. He's been enjoying having the run of the upstairs - whenever Big Acoustic Kitty is either behind closed doors or downstairs - and has reclaimed the guest room. He's always looked on that room as "his" room (it was the sanctuary room when we first brought LGK and Monster home) and hasn't ever been thrilled at being moved out of it.

LGK also had his yearly checkup a few days ago, and passed with flying colors. Well, there were a couple of comments about kitty pudge, but that was to be expected. The vet also commented on what an expressive face LGK has ... especially his "worried" look. She said if he kept that up, he'd be a kitty botox candidate pretty soon.

Big Yellow Hallway Monster and Electric Mayhem continue to get along pretty well, and they seem to have adjusted to BAK's increased presence downstairs. The sunroom continues to be neutral territory (knock wood) and the Christmas decorations have been met with some minor nibbling, but no peeing.

That about sums things up ... we'll hope things continue on this well.

So from all the kitties here, best wishes for a very Merry Christmas, and we'll be back with you in 2011!

The Door

Oh, the door. The wonderful, wonderful door.

The screen door has been installed at the top of the stairs for almost a full 48 hours now, and the improvement is noticeable. (Okay, so, aesthetically it's not an improvement at all ...) Since it's all screen with only some lightweight bracing at the bottom, we were a little concerned with how we would prevent kittehs from trying to climb the screen. After much discussion, we ended up pulling some 12 mil clear vinyl across the bottom and stapling it in place. So far, that half-assed solution seems to be working. ("Remember, this solution is only temporary - unless it works." --Red Green)

Our other concern was the roughly one-foot high gap between the top of the door/frame and the ceiling. However, so far nobody has seemed interested in scaling the screen door from either side. We're keeping our fingers crossed.

The Amazing Husbandini gets all the credit for managing the project and installing the door. I was next to no help at all. (I did carry the door through Lowe's, out into the parking lot and into the house, however. Just call me Schleppel.**)

Except for a couple of hours when I had to re-locate everyone while I was out of the house this morning, Little Grey Kitteh has been enjoying his increased territory and spending a lot of time sleeping on the foot of our bed. He seems considerably calmer as well. Big Yellow Hallway Monster has been very vocal in his confusion over why he can't let himself upstairs any more, but other than that, things have been going pretty well.

I have photos, but no USB cable for the camera. I think somebody ate it. As soon as I get my hands on another one, I'll share our newest home project.

**That's a Terry Pratchett/Discworld joke. If you're not a fan, you'll have to go look it up.

Ow.

We had another escape today. It was my fault ... Little Grey Kitty had been wandering around upstairs for a little while and hadn't tried to jump the gate, so I took my eyes off of him for about 4.5 seconds.

By the time I got downstairs, LGK and Electric Mayhem were in full fur-puff and exchanging war growls and Big Yellow Hallway Monster was heading in from the sunroom* to see what was going on. Against my better judgement, but with no real alternative, I scooped LGK up and tried to take him upstairs. There was much wiggling and yelling, but no real damage other than a minor scratch across one wrist. (Mine, that is.) The only problem was that BYHM was trying to back up the staircase in front of us, and I could tell he was getting more and more agitated, so I didn't think the odds were good for me getting LGK back into his room without some cat-vs.-cat action. So I reversed course and went to shut LGK in the downstairs bathroom for a minute until I could get the other two under control.

The next couple of minutes are a blur ... I did manage to get LGK into the bathroom, but at some point I also ended up with seven or eight scalpels embedded in my right leg. Okay, so it was four sets of claws and one set of teeth ... trust me, it all feels the same. Electric Mayhem decided that my leg looked like a good target for her frustration, so she really let me have it. Thank goodness for heavy denim, is all I can say. After LGK was in the bathroom and EM had disengaged from my flesh and was snarling at everyone from under the dining room table, then I had to defuse the agitation brewing between BYHM and EM before they decided to get into it. BYHM was ignoring the toy I waved in his face, so I grabbed the broom and shooed him into the basement and slammed the door on him. Then I lured EM (with difficulty) out into the sunroom for some treats and shut her out there. Finally, I managed to get LGK out of the bathroom and back upstairs to his room. (In case you're wondering, Big Acoustic Kitty was safely shut in the master bedroom during this whole adventure.)

Eventually everyone got calmed back down and EM and BYHM and I had an extended feather toy/kitty treat session ... long enough for me to feel like they had worked out their aggression and weren't going to start in on each other. LGK I just left alone for the rest of the day. I didn't hear him howling or jumping at the doorknob, so I think he needed that alone time. I did let BAK come down later in the afternoon, and nobody seemed any more interested in him then usual, so I think we're okay.

Suffice it to say, getting that screen door up is tomorrow's #1 priority.

I'd post a photo of my war wounds, but I don't think anyone's really interested in looking at my pasty white leg. But let me tell you, it's a really good thing that shorts weather is several months off. Not only do I have large, bloody holes in my leg (one might even have been a candidate for a couple of stitches, but I'm too cheap to pay the $150 emergency room co-pay, so screw it) but EM nailed me with enough force that I'm already forming some extremely impressive bruises.

*Oh, yes ... I think I've failed to mention that the sunroom (location of some of the earliest aggression incidents) is back to being a cat-friendly zone. I went with the white-trash option of painting the glass at kitty eye level so that any visiting kitties will go unseen by our bunch. It looks pretty tacky, but as far as the intended results - so far, so good. *Knock wood*

Board

We have a new toy. It doesn't look like much, but it the mostest wonderfullest thing in the entire world!

Long story short, I spent my first full day of Thanksgiving break doing some long-overdue things around the house ... cleaning the kitchen, putting all my canning stuff away for the season, and cleaning the master closet. A previous owner had built his/her own shoe shelves out of some 1" x 8" boards covered with these truly lovely, olive green, cut pile carpet scraps - I'm guessing this was the original carpet in the house. These things were next to useless, so I yanked them out and propped them up at an angle against the bedroom wall while I dealt with the rest of the closet cleaning.

Little Grey Kitty, who had been lounging on the bed watching this whole operation, decided to come and investigate. First, a few sniffs ... then, a tentative stretch and a little clawing ... then some more serious claw sharpening ... then it was Woo-hoo, Katie bar the door!

He ran up the board!
He ran down the board!
He jumped from the board onto the bed!
And back again!
He levitated from the far side of the bed onto the very top of the board!
He climbed up the back side of the board and then swung himself around to the front!
Lather, rinse, repeat!
"Mom, Mom! Look at meeeeee!"

So now, of course, we must find a spot for these two boards and their hideous carpeting somewhere upstairs where the fun can continue. Tomorrow, I will be cleaning out the studio closet so that we can figure out some sort of permanent configuration in what promises to be a rather impressive kitty jungle gym by the time we're finished.

Photos to come.

A New Wrinkle

Remember the baby gate I've mentioned? And how it worked well for keeping Electric Mayhem and Big Acoustic Kitty apart back in the day, but how Big Yellow Hallway Monster hurdles it quite nicely? Well, now Little Grey Kitty can hurdle it quite nicely, too.

For the longest time, LGK would go tearing through the house and just come to a screeching halt when he hit the gate. We think he did try to jump it once, way back when, but he came down wrong and injured one of his legs. Until recently, he hadn't tried it again. But lately he's been getting more and more frustrated with his space limitations and he apparently decided it was worth trying to hurdle the gate one more time. We've had 3 successful escapes in the past two days.

One the one hand ... Oy! This, I do not need. On the other hand, while there has been hissing and growling and much puffing of tails and back fur, there has been no actual contact between cats or bloodshed. Not that we're willing to just let LGK roam around down there and let the chips fall where they may, but at least he's not instantly attacking the first cat he sees.

Did I mention the screen door previously? And how the plan is to use it as a replacement for the baby gate? Originally it was so that BYHM would stop invading the upstairs, but now it will be just as much so that LGK won't invade the downstairs.

Frustrating.