Cats up high

I've mentioned before how the humans have an odd tendency to remove us from the kitchen counter tops. It's frustrating, because they put so many interesting things there. We're cats, we're supposed to explore and examine everything new that comes into the house, and that includes new things that the humans make.

They have some clever tricks, I have to admit. A whole load of different things go into a black thing at the end of the countertop and it makes noises for quite some time.

It gets hot, too. I've checked, when nobody else is watching. I leave it alone now.

But I find it intriguing, because nice smells come out of it, then eventually it makes a bleeping noise... and, like magic, a loaf of bread is inside. I love bread, but unfortunately we don't get given any. We have to make do with crumbs on the counter top after they've cut it up.

That's just one example of how ridiculous it is that we're not permitted on the work surfaces when the humans are around. Do they really think they can stop us when they're not looking?  Sometimes I sigh inwardly at their lack of imagination.

But I digress.

A couple of days ago, the female human was doing something in the kitchen that smelled very good. It wasn't bread; she called it fish. She was putting things on it, and turning it around.. no way could I avoid jumping up to investigate.

But she put me back on the floor.

Repeatedly.

She started to sound quite frustrated and I nearly gave up. I don't want to upset the humans, after all. I just want to find out what's going on, and - if possible - have a taste of things that smell good. Maybe more than a taste. Why should we be limited to food we're given in our dishes?

I could tell I wasn't getting anywhere with my attempts to wear her down. The problem was that if I stayed on the floor, or left the room, she would think she had won. How humiliating. It's not as if I'm a small kitten any more. We don't want humans to think they're in charge.

Then I had a brilliant idea. Humans, I remembered, are remarkably bad at jumping. They're not particularly good at climbing, either. If they want to reach something high, they find a chair to stand on, or even a ladder.

So I jumped up, via a bookcase and the fridge, to the top of the kitchen cupboards:

It was a cunning plan. It let the human know I was not to be intimidated, and reminded her that I could reach higher places than she could. She would have to go and find the ladder to get me down - and while she was gone, I planned to investigate the counter top thoroughly. 

She did pop out of the room but before I had a chance to jump down, she returned. Not with a ladder, but with her camera. 

She made no attempt to get me down. She just smiled. 

I strode up and down on the cupboards for a while to remind her that I was there and that she was not the boss. I knew I had won.  

But it was a bit of a hollow victory, as I gradually realised. There was nothing interesting on the top of the cupboards.  I couldn't reach down to the counter top, and the human ignored me.

So I climbed down again, when she wasn't looking. 

Cat toys or human toys?

We gradually realised that the small human is not just benign, but bears a lot of resemblance to a kitten. He doesn't seem able to move very far by himself, but that's an advantage, from our perspective. He doesn't try to eat our food, and he mostly stays away from our toys.

So, on the whole, we've stayed away from his toys. They're not as interesting as ours, in any case.

Or so we thought.

We are particularly uninterested in books, which seem entirely pointless to us - other than when we jump on the shelves and pull them out, but the bigger humans don't seem to like it when we do that. So when the small human was looking at a book, we didn't take much notice until we heard a sound, and realised that this was no ordinary book. It had a little metal thing that went all by itself around a kind of track:

At least, it went once around. Then it stopped, and the big humans had to do something to a little knob on the side, and put it back. They called it a 'bus'. Of course that quickly became rather boring... the small human preferred to pick it up or move it, and so did we. We batted it around quite a bit, although the big humans kept putting it back. 

Most of the other small human toys were put away in a big and colourful bag at night time. I don't know why humans keep putting things away. It's a lot more interesting to have them scattered around the floor, under furniture or in the middle of the kitchen. That way, we come across things when we're not expecting them, which is so much more fun.

However, big humans seem to like things to be organised. The little one was happy to tip his toys all over the floor, however.  I thought I might check that there was nothing left inside the bag; then I had the idea of hiding completely.

I  have no idea how the humans knew I was there: 

Floating, vanishing balls...

Just when we thought things were settling down, we had a new and unexpected experience.

We're quite used to balls rolling around the floor. There are some that go slowly, and some that go faster. Some of them bounce better than others. Most of them eventually get lost under a sofa, or beside a big piece of furniture until we can persuade the humans to get them out again.

However, after much experimentation and a great deal of playing, we had determined that balls last pretty well, even if we sometimes can't easily find them. At first we thought that sometimes they vanished - but that was when we got distracted and forgot to watch them. As we grew older and more mature, we realised that they simply disappeared from our view, under or beside furniture. Sometimes with a careful paw we can retrieve them ourselves.

What they don't do is to vanish into the air.

Or so we thought.

We had just finished our afternoon nap one afternoon when we heard talking from the big humans and some chuckling from the small one. We had a good stretch, and made our way slowly downstairs.

There we saw some new and shiny balls, some floating in the air and some on the carpet. They looked very interesting:

We started to jump at them, only to have a nasty shock. As we touched them, they disappeared. It was as if they stopped existing! We chased them and tried to bat them about, but it was useless. And when I nudged one with my nose, I had a nasty taste in my mouth; it reminded me somewhat of the sink when the human has been washing dishes.

We backed away. Then we saw something even stranger: the humans were somehow making these balls appear. Or so it seemed.

We didn't make the same mistake more than a few times. The small human was still trying to bat at them to catch them, but we kept out of the way. This is a scary kind of magic.