Favorite things

My pets are spoiled. They have all sorts of toys. But nothing I ever bring home from the pet store is apparently as fun as household junk.

Katie's all-time favorite toy is shoelace. I had a pair of boots that came with an extra set of shoelaces. She loves to swat at it when we swing it around. We used to play this game every night before bed. This was back when she was an only pet. Now I try to play it with her every day. She sits near shoelace all the time. She brings it to me and meows up a storm, asking to play. She carries it upstairs, downstairs, in the bed. There was even an unfortunate incident where Mojo ate one of the shoelaces. (I saw some very gross proof). Gunnar loves shoelace too. It's to the point where, they'll even steal small ropes and cloth belts that are attached to my clothes. I had a black sweater that had a belted waist. The belt was a thick black string (or thin rope) and the cats pulled it off the sweater and brought it to me. If I ever have laundry on the floor with any sort of strings, they'll play with it.

This looks like a fun string.

Katie used to steal my hair elastics all the time. But after Mojo ate a few, I've stopped leaving them around. They stay in the bathroom—not the nightstand where the cat can get them.

Gunnar's favorite toys are Q-tips, cheap plastic drinking straws and dog food. He loves Q-tips. He knows they're in the bathroom. He's even knocked over a trashcan to get to them before. He loves to bat drinking straws around. He's broken into my lower kitchen cabinets to find straws I didn't know I had before. But he can't really play with either of these these because he wants to bring them to Mojo so Mojo will play with him. And Mojo will just eat them. Game over. (And Mojo doesn't really need to digest either.) And then there's dog food. Every day he'll find a single piece of kibble and bat it around the house. Every day without fail. He thinks it's the best thing ever how it slides across the wood floor. This game always ends when Mojo eats the kibble. I'm not sure if this is an intentional part of the game, but Gunnar does bring it to Mojo and dogfood is for Mojo to eat.

Guarding the much sought-after shoelace.

Helping mom work.

Mojo's favorite is socks. He LOVES socks. Every night he finds a pair of socks to play with and does a lap around the bedroom with socks. He'll carry the socks around with him—upstairs, downstairs, even outside if we let him. He likes to play keepaway with the socks. He'd like to play tugs too, but I don't really want to destroy our socks.

Delicious, mom.

Pet Salon

Katie is fascinated by foam toe separators. Every time I paint my toe nails she tries to run off with one.

Gunnar is obsessed with Q-tips. He thinks they're the best toy ever.

If Mojo did hair, we could have a pet salon ;)

Weekends with the Kids

 I was hanging out with my furry trio this weekend. Notice how they surround me?

Apparently I bore Mojo. Yawn!

This trio fits so nicely in the bed. There's almost room for me.

Park Outing

Mojo went to the park today. I took him to the playground next to our house. He really loves to climb on the playground equipment. He climbs up the stairs and runs over the bridge. He's never been down the slide, but he likes to jump off the platform.

Mojo meets Lexi

In college I had a photojournalism professor who was all about hard news photography. I think his rule was no kids and no puppies....He would fail you if you turned one of those photos in. As a joke one day, I turned in a photo of two dogs wearing Hawaiian shirts in a little red wagon. (I shot it at a news assignment I was already shooting.) Apparently I got points for making him laugh because I got an A in the class.

I still love to shoot kids and puppies though.

Here is Miss Lexi celebrating her first birthday....and getting sniffed by Mojo. Mojo loves babies, especially cute delicious looking ones.*

(*No babies or animals were harmed in the making of this blog post.)

Why Gunnar stomps

To say that Gunnar is like no cat I’ve ever met would be an understatement.

I’ve been around cats my whole life and I’ve met shy cats, bossy cats, sweet cats, He-man cats, crazy cats—all kinds. But NEVER have I met anything in the same universe as Gunnar.

For starters, he doesn’t have a regular cat’s tail. He’s got a short stumpy plume. But it’s full and fluffy and fancier than any tail I’ve seen.

He’s also a lot more vocal than any cat I have ever met, period. He talks and calls. He sits at the top of the stairs and mews. He cries when the dog goes on a walk. And boy does he know how to wail. It’s not easy to ignore him when he cranks the volume up.

And then there’s his walk. Whereas cats are synonymous with stealth and silent stalking, Gunnar stomps. When he’s walking around upstairs I sometimes wonder if a hippo is pacing the floorboards. He certainly doesn’t sound like a nimble cat walking to the bed. He stampedes, he throws his weight into every step to maximize the sound. Sometimes it sounds like a person is walking around the second floor, not a 14-pound fur ball.

He’s bigger boned than most cats. He’s got a stocky, muscular build. His best friend is a dog who walks loudly. I figured those two things were to blame, but no. That’s not it.

The other morning he was in full Gun-Guns mode stomping around the upstairs as we got ready for work. Katie was innocently licking her favorite plastic when Gunnar took the opportunity to silently stalk up on Katie and pounce.

He can stalk! I didn’t even know that. Apparently the stomping around is just another part of his macho-man personality we and act we like to call “Brutusing.” He puts on a big show of being a brute. He can be downright evil to our other cat. And he stomps around so the cat thinks that’s how he walks and BLAM—when she least expects it—sneak attack.

So why does he stomp? To remind the other cat he’s around and to make sneaking up on her even more unexpected. Evil thing.

Eight Times

"Areow!" Gunnar was crying the loudest I'd ever heard him last night.

"Are you dying?" I yelled back.

Gunnar (pictured above with Mojo who is NOT hurting him) is a very vocal cat, so crying loudly is nothing new. He likes to sit on the top of the stairs and do this every night around the same time. He's just talking or asking for play or cuddles. This was loud and persistent so I needed to check. I scooped him up.

"Mom, I'm sick," he whined. (Yes, I speak cat—sometimes). He promptly started to gag and hack, so I put him down so he wouldn't throw up on me. He hurled and I pet him.

He threw up seven more times after that—eight times in all. It was a combo of fur, stomach acid and bits of fake plant. See, I know he likes to eat my fake plants so I put them away. I just forgot that I put one away in the bathroom cabinet and he can open cabinets. The fake plant is now in the garage.

I just thought it was cute that he told me he was sick. Apparently, I don't have a 14-pound Manx cat, I have a toddler that can open cabinets, put everything in his mouth and even tells me when he's sick.

Kitty Sauna

Today I learned that we have a kitty sauna. I was taking a load of towels out of the dryer and Gunnar decided he wanted to investigate. He hopped in the open dryer door and flopped luxuriously on the warm towels. Must be nice.

Straws

Gunnar likes to play with anything he shouldn't have. One of his favorites, though, is straws. Yesterday morning I was playing on the computer when Gunnar came charging into the room batting around a straw. My first thought was that it was cute. My second thought was where did he get the straw. I figured the husband had used a straw the night before and maybe the straw fell out of the trash can. I wasn't too worried about it until the husband asked me where the straw came from. Still, I wasn't that alarmed it must have come from under some chair or something from this summer. (We haven't used straws since then).

A few minutes later Gunnar waltzed back into the room, with his head covered in spidewebs, paper shreds and who knows what. I had to go investigate. Sure enough I found an open cabinet door and a pile of straws laying in front of the open door.

That particular cabinet I use to store potatoes, extra stuff like salad dressing and paper products. Gunnar had pawed the cabinet open, climbed to the very back corner, shredded open a bag of straws and one at a time pulled them out.

Kudos to Gunnar. I didn't even remember we had those straws.

Now, if you'll excuse me I have to go baby proof my house— for a 13-pound cat.

The kids

I LOVE my pets but sometimes I wonder how people with actual kids do it.

This morning I was rushing around the house trying to get ready for work. I decided to put my basil plant outside to get some sunshine. I look down to find shoes and notice a big pile of cat vomit that the dog is trying hard to get into. I shoo the dog upstairs, clean up the vomit (trying not to vomit myself) and then put my shoes over the spot so the dog doesn't try to lick the cleaning product. I take my basil plant outside (at this point I'm in pajama bottoms and a work dress shirt). I finish getting dressed, go to kiss the dog goodbye and notice that he has vomit all over his snout. So gross. I clean that up. That's not exactly how I want to spend my morning.

But then there's the bedtime ritual. This is what happens every night.

We take the dog out. He comes in, bounds up the stairs and plays for about 20 minutes—while we're trying to go to sleep. If anyone gets up out of the bed to set an alarm, check the dryer, etc, he gets in the bed and is sometimes really difficult to get out of the bed. The lights go out and after another 20 minutes, just when we're dozing in the bed, Katie cat jumps up in the bed. She walks on my legs and then pokes at the hubby until he lets her under the blanket, then immediately leaves. This happens every night without fail. Last night Katie meowed for an hour after we turned the lights out. At some point each cat curls up on either side of my legs so I can't move without kicking someone.