Favorite Toy, Favorite Playground

These tinsel balls are still Maggie's favorite toys. She loses them under things for a while and then somehow find s them. She either hits the ball and chases it or carries it in her mouth and drops it to bat it or tosses it in the air and catches it. Her favorite locale for this activity? Our new king size bed with our lovely gold comforter cover.

Two Approaches to Life, the Sequel

Another example. This large mess is on the desk in Pat's room. I'm working on moving all my beads (and there are a lot of beads!) up there and reorganizing then. This involves putting them into flip top tubes and sorting the tubes into boxes. Both cats have come to check it out while I work.

Maggie Mae carefully finds a way to climb onto the desk. She steps delicately and carefully around the stuff, looking and sniffing. Nothing is disturbed and ultimately she finds her careful way down.

JoJo starts on the floor in front of the desk and hurls himself up. About 2 out of three times he falls back down because he hasn't counted on all the stuff. When he land, it involves scattering stuff everywhere. As he walks around, stuff crashes in his wake. He finds a tube and bats it around to hear the noise. Eventually he flies off the deskscattering more stuff.

Very different beasts!

Six Months Old!

I can't believe how much these guys have grown in the almost 4 months they've been living with us Whet delightful companions.

Happy half birthday kitties!

How did they do that?

I was upstairs and heard a crash. I went downstairs and discovered that they had knocked a wooden card box off a cabinet and onto the base of a lamp in the living room. Nothing too unusual. The amazing thing was that they had also somehow turned on the lamp! It has a pull chain to turn it on and off. My guess is that they stretched off a chair to bat at it, turned on the lamp in the process, fell and knocked over the box. Now the question is will the fright from the crash outweigh the fascination with the light coming on.

A Physics Experiment

I finished reading my board packet and dropped it on the floor near my feet while I did other things. Next thing I knew I heard a "snap." I looked down and discovered JoJo using his paw to pull up the rubber band and let it go. Maggie came over to join in the fun,

Breakthrough!

Maggie has been quite a challenge about scratching. She looks at me and then turns back to the corner of a chair or sofa and scratches. I finally ordered a very tall and sturdy post covered with woven sisal fabric (and some catnip). I then started finding ways to get her interested. The alpaca band and wide ribbon started catching her fancy. Finally I put treats in the recess at the top of the pole. Success! She is now scratching on the pole more and her transgressions are more infrequent.

I'm afraid I need another one upstairs.

Two Approaches to Life

JoJo and Maggie Mae not only look like opposites but they have totally different styles. Maggie is definitely more curious and playful -  not to mention braver. JoJo is more affectionate and emotionally needy. JoJo is also kind of a big lunk, kind of filling all the space around him without regard to what's in that space.

 I thought the way they were sitting on the chairs showed their approach to the world..

Can I go to work with you?

Ward was getting ready to go to work  this morning and had set his computer bag on his chair. Maggie draped herself over it when he walked away. He came back to get it and she looked rather pleadingly at him.

Baby Pictures

Today I was getting some pictures off the CD Maggie Mae and JoJo's former owners gave me to print them. The pictures were so cute that I thought a little family history here would be good. Mom Tallulah  is pictured with Dizzy (now JoJo), Duke, Ella (now Maggie Mae), Holiday, Louis, and Thelonius. I don't think I could tell you which is which except I know that Maggie was the smallest and JoJo has the longest hair.

Mellow Kitty

JoJo relaxes comfortably on my ottoman.

That smells familiar ...

I took off Maggie Mae's collar tonight. She had seemed to not even notice wearing it after I flipped it down instead of over her face but as soon as I took it off she very happily took a thorough bath. She washed all her paws, her neck, her face. Didn't even touch the incision area (which looks well healed). I left the collar sitting near my chair. She ran into later and was quite intrigued by the smell.

Mmmm ... Catnip!

New catnip toys arrived in the mail today. Big fluffy objects. Filled with catnip so strong you could basically smell it before I opened the box. I tossed one to JoJo and he went nuts - grabbing, chasing, kicking, biting. Loved it! I tried to toss another to Maggie Mae but JoJo zoomed over and pounced on it before she could get it.  Eventually she got her turn. Her best move was tossing it in the air and catching it and rolling around. Great purchase!

Chasing Rainbows

We obviously haven't had much sun since the kittens came to live here. I have a garden ornament which consists of a bunch of little mirrors hanging on a mobile stuck in a container plant. The sun came out and little beams of light (barely visible in the top left corner) danced around the carpet near the window. JoJo was enthralled chasing them.

Wanna see my scar?

Yesterday was the big day. Time to spay and neuter Maggie Mae and JoJo. I got them in carriers around 8AM and they were definitely NOT happy. Maggie went in the smaller carrier first and thrashed madly and wailed. Caught JoJo and stuffed him in the bigger carrier. He HATES the outdoors and, even more, the car. He started to cry piteously as soon as I opened the door. The drive to the vet was noisy - alternately "call and response" and stereo wailing. I assume they could hear JoJo while we were still outside. Signed the consent and went home to worry.

I called the vet around 11:30 AM yesterday and found out all was well. Maggie was resigned to whatever was going to happen. JoJo was quite agitated and had a rapid heartbeat. They had to get him calmed down before they could proceed but everything went fine.

Picked them up just after noon today. JoJo looked pretty normal (Aside: he's around 8 pounds now, about 2 more than Maggie. Yikes - he's going to be HUGE!) Maggie is wearing a collar so she won't lick herself open - needs to stay on at least 5 days. Oh boy. She looks a little more tired. Was told to "keep them from running around too much." Right.

We got home and I thought we'd sit quietly in Pat's room together. Not what they had in mind. Apparently it was very important to see if anything new had appeared in any room of the house. After about an hour Maggie got a paw caught in her collar and ran around the house like a banshee. I finally caught her, calmed her and freed her paw. A few minutes later she stuck her head under a rug trying to get the collar off and totally freaked out again. I called the vet and the tech suggested changing the collar from "looking like a flower to looking like a skirt around her neck." Much happier girl!

Dark Trouble? Light Trouble? No - BIG Trouble!

I heard a crash from the living room and figured the kittens had knocked my silk flowers over. It had happened before. Went to explore and this time it had gone a little farther. The dish it sits in had broken in half. Uh oh. Fortunately glue-able and not precious.