Birthday Cats

Last Saturday, my sister and I were one year old. That means we are now mature and sensible cats, despite the fact that our humans keep referring to us as 'kittens'.

I didn't know it was going to be such an illustrious day. When I tried to wake the humans before daylight, they shut me out of the bedroom like they always do. No concession to the day. Still, the female human got up shortly after it was light, and gave me my first meal of the day:

She went out after that; she often disappears in the morning, then she comes back a while later with one of our former human family, and they stand outside talking while we call to them from the roof. Eventually our human came in again, and after we greeted her we let her know that water out of the tap is so much nicer than the water in our bowl:

For some reason, she doesn't like us doing this. Or maybe she's just jealous that she can't jump into the sink so neatly. Whatever the reason, she lifted us down, unceremoniously. Which meant that it was time for a nonchalant wash:

When the human was busy making a noise with one of the machines and those big orange ball things with juice inside, I jumped back, as there were some lovely little puddles on the side of the sink:

The humans have some strange routines, but at least they're fairly predictable. After a little tray was taken upstairs to the male human, it was time for our yogurt. Joan is particularly keen on that, and watched closely so we knew when it was time for the call to yogurt:

The human thinks it's strange that we call out, and try to climb up the cupboards when she's putting yogurt on our saucer. She tells us she's doing it as quickly as she can, and that there's no reason to make a fuss. We're not making a fuss; I don't know why she can't understand, it's a way of showing how enthusiastic we are:

Of course, once the saucer is on the floor, we stop our singing and lap it up as fast as we can:

After breakfast, we usually go upstairs to play outside for a while, but on the way up on our birthday, we discovered - oh, joy of joys! - the bathroom door was opened.

That meant we could have a wonderful game:

Alas, it was over all too quickly.  Then we thought we should perhaps make ourselves scarce, as the humans don't seem to like it much when we pull at the roll of tissue. We hoped they wouldn't guess what we had done.

We love exploring the nearby roof-tops:

When the humans came out, we went to see if they had anything interesting for us, but it was just a camera. They never let us grab the bit that dangles down, though we keep trying.

I love being out on the balcony, rolling around in the dust:

Still, we can't spend all day having fun. Before long it was time to go downstairs to keep an eye on the humans:

That gets boring after a while, so I decided to take a nap:

Lunch-time with wet food is a wonderful part of the day, but the human forgot her camera. Then we repeated the morning's activities: more washing, playing outside, sleeping and snacking.

We heard some of the humans talking about women having to be a pace behind men in some other places a long way away, so we thought we'd try it. But walking like that was very awkward, so we sat down instead, and had a rest:

I'm not really sure what the point of a birthday is; it was much the same as any other day, as far as I could see. But then again, our life is mostly quite pleasant. What more could a cat possibly want?

Another escape plan... foiled!

Outside the kitchen is what the humans call the 'utility balcony'. There's a noisy machine where they sometimes put clothes and towels and other strange human paraphernalia. It churns and spins around, and then after a while the female human takes them out again. The things are all wet by this stage, so she hangs them up on some rope things strung across the balcony, until they're dry again.

This is another example of the lack of human intelligence. If they didn't put the things in this machine, they wouldn't get wet. I don't think they realise that it's the machine that makes their clothes so wet; but perhaps their minds aren't developed enough to understand cause and effect.

At the edge of this balcony are metal railings, evidently designed so that the humans don't fall off. It's quite a long way up and they're not good at falling even short distances. Of course, my sister and I can easily get through the railings; sometimes we walk on the little ledges outside. We look down, and at the rooftops nearby, and we keep thinking that maybe - one day - we'll make a bid for our freedom. Not that we want to go very far, but there are so many interesting toys outside, and so many new smells.

There's a litter tray on this balcony, and what they call a 'cat flap' that gives us access from the kitchen. While they went away recently, they blocked up the cat flap and brought the litter tray into the kitchen. We thought this was an excellent idea. Other friendly humans came in each day, two or three times. They gave us our food and water, and cleaned out the litter trays. Our needs were met, and we didn't really miss the humans who belong here, except at night when their bed was cold and unoccupied. It was quite nice when they got back, but then they decided to move the litter tray out to the utility balcony again. I don't know why.

We're trying to train the humans to get up while it's still dark, but they're not very co-operative. We don't mind sleeping for a few hours on their bed, but we get bored around the time the birds start singing outside, so my sister jumps on the humans' feet, while I pat at their heads. The male human used to get up and give us some food when we did that, but now he takes us out of the room and shuts the door. This is not what we intended.

Still, a few days ago I decided to make use of the time to study the escape routes from the balcony while there were no humans around.

I spent a long time weighing up my options. The best place to jump to was a small roof where I've seen other cats, occasionally. I wiggled, and moved, and found the best spot, and nearly kittened out several times. But finally I jumped. My sister wasn't brave enough to join me, but I made a beautiful landing. I explored the small roof - it was quite light by this time.

The female human had got up by this stage, and my sister let her know I was outside. She came and looked at me, then she went to get her camera, and then asked me what I was going to do next.

And there's where I perceived a flaw in my plan.

There was no easy way down.

There was no easy way up.

Of course I didn't let the human know I had miscalculated. I walked around the small roof, sniffing the exciting smells, and trying to see if there was something I had missed.

Then I heard the sound of food being placed into our bowls. I heard my sister starting to eat. The human called to me, and I started feeling very unhappy.

I cried a bit and the human came out again. 'Silly Alex', she said. She tried to persuade me to jump up to the balcony, or down to another bit of roof, but I was feeling scared so I just cried some more.

She went inside, and I felt even worse. Even the humans had abandoned me. Would I be stuck on this little roof forever? How would I eat? How would I reach my litter tray??

The sound of my sister crunching at MY food was too much. I looked up at the balcony again. I didn't think too hard. I concentrated... and I jumped.

I then strolled casually into the kitchen, as if I had not just been through one of the most stressful experiences of my life.  The human made quite a fuss of me, and told me, again, that I was silly. But she said it in a nice voice.

I haven't tried it again.  I will do, one day, but it wasn't terribly exciting on that little bit of roof, once I had sniffed it all thoroughly. We have all we need in the house, after all. Maybe there's no real reason to go outside.... 

Sister up high

I'm bigger and stronger than my sister. I'm also much more interested in everything that's going on with the humans. Sometimes my sister Joan stays fast asleep while I'm in the kitchen, trying to get involved (usually in vain) with the interesting smells and noises that happen.

Joan is pretty good at jumping, though.

For a girl, that is.

She's quite elegant, too. I admit it, I can be a bit clumsy and heavy-footed at times. I miss my footing if I'm not concentrating. Joan is better at estimating how far she can jump, and landing neatly on the ground. It's only recently that she's begun exploring the high places of the house.

However (being a girl) she's sometimes a bit lacking in common sense.

I've looked at doors. The tops of them are very tempting, sometimes. But they move, and there's not a lot of space... so I've resisted the temptation to explore them.

Not Joan. She jumped from a bookcase to the top of a door last week:

She was quite pleased with herself. When the female human saw her, and asked what she was doing there, Joan sat down to show that she was quite comfortable.

But after a few minutes she realised she was a bit stuck... she walked up and down the door, but it had moved a bit when she jumped, and she could no longer jump to the bookcase.  

So the human eventually lifted her down. I would have felt humiliated in such a situation, but Joan didn't seem to mind. 

She hasn't been on the door again, but a couple of days later she jumped right up from the sofa to the top of the curtains, where there's a nice broad ledge. 

That's me sitting on a small table, deciding it wasn't a good idea to join her.

Here's a better picture of her, as she tried to decide whether she could jump down the other side: 

The human didn't help this time so eventually Joan turned around and jumped down via the sofa.

It feels very strange that my sister has been exploring and getting into tricky situations, while I remain in safer places lower down.  Surely I can't be turning into an elderly, boring cat already....? 

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.

Cat-sized human sitting in water

We're getting used to having the small human around. He seems quite benign, and doesn't move on his own so it's easy to stay out of reach. He has his own toys, and we usually leave him to play with them although from time to time we manage to get hold of one of them. They don't roll as well as ours, though.

But yesterday something very strange happened.

Usually we're not allowed in the bathroom. I don't know why. There are lovely toys there; my sister is particularly keen on the rolls of tissue paper just waiting to be shredded. However the humans don't seem to be very happy when this happens. Every so often they go in there and close the door. I scratch outside but they hardly ever let me in.

But yesterday evening they opened the door, and then turned on the water tap in the enormous bowl that they refer to as a 'bath'. I was rather pleased; I have often had a drink from the smaller bowl in the kitchen (the one they call a 'sink') or the similar sized one in the bathroom.  Perhaps, I thought, I was now big enough to have an even bigger bowl to drink from.

But no - they kept removing me.  Then they stopped the water, so it wasn't very deep. It would have been quite tricky to balance on the edge and drink without falling in.  We didn't know what to make of this... yet it was evidently for us, as they put some brightly coloured toys in the water, and even a yellow thing that looked almost like a bird. Surely they were cat toys! Yet how could we reach them...?

Then something even more unusual happened.

The small human was put into the water! At first he stood up, then he saw the toys and sat down. He even started playing with them.  We did not know what to make of this situation. Should we try to rescue him? Or should we join him? In the end we just watched:

The normal-sized humans splashed water over him, and he didn't like that at all. He can make quite a bit of noise when he wants to, so we went away after that.  

I think this finally confirms that humans are totally crazy. 

How do they know?

My sister and I stopped sleeping in the nice round bed when we learned that it was supposed to be a cat bed. Somewhere, deep in our consciousness, is the knowledge that we are never supposed to sleep where the humans want us to. I feel there is a logic error here, as I very much liked that bed, but when the humans moved the furniture around they tried to persuade us to sleep in it again. Bad move. Perhaps when they've forgotten about it, we'll get back there again.

Then again, it was beginning to be a bit small.

Happily, we discovered a larger and almost as comfortable place to cuddle up when we take a nap:

This is not a cat bed; the female human sits in it sometimes, and refers to it as a 'bean bag'. We know about beans, the humans eat them sometimes and are careful not to let us have any. I suppose this is a bag for beans to sit in, but we've never seen any here. The beans usually stay in the kitchen.

Talking of the kitchen, I still like drinking water out of the taps, and hunting for interesting things on the work surfaces, but the humans don't like it and keep dumping me back on the floor, saying, 'NO Alex.' Something else deep within our consciousness is that 'No' for a cat means 'Not while we're looking'. So, not wanting to cause conflict or stress, I now usually limit my counter-top explorations to times when the humans are out, or occupied elsewhere.

But I begin to think they must be more intelligent than they appear. Sometimes they know exactly where I've been..

I wonder if there's a hidden camera.....

Cat-sized human

Life is never dull in this household. Just as we were getting used to the strange green thing in the corner, draped with balls and other toys, there was more disruption. The humans kept going in and out - shutting us in the house, as usual, so we couldn't follow them - and talking in excited voices.

Then one evening they started talking about 'airport' and 'flight'. Back when I was a little kitten, they told me several times that I was not able to fly. It was disappointing, though I gradually realised they were correct. Humans can't fly either - or so I thought. That evening, they seemed to be discussing humans who were flying. Very mysterious.

Anyway, they went out in the car - leaving us behind, again - and when they returned, there were two ordinary looking humans with them, and a small one. I think it's a human, anyway, although the noises it makes don't bear much resemblance to human language. Sometimes he (they refer to this small person as 'he' so I assume they are correct) tries to stand up, holding onto the humans. But he is very wobbly and doesn't seem able to balance. Anyone would think he was a newborn kitten, except that his eyes are wide open.

I went to investigate, of course, and to see if he could talk our language, as he didn't seem too competent in human. He reached out to me:

Fortunately the regular humans were there too, and stopped the small human from grabbing me. They have been trying to teach him to stroke gently. He seems to be mostly benign:

My sister isn't so sure, however. She's not as calm as I am, and she was a bit jealous for a while. Silly girl, I've told her that the humans don't like it when she tries to climb up their legs. But she won't listen.

However, a couple of days ago the small human was asleep on our female human, so Joan decided to join them:

She's still not keen on getting too close when he's awake, though. 

New hanging toys

Our humans must have read my post about the disappearing furniture. Things are much better this week.

First they put the house back to how it was, or mostly so:

There were still gaps where the sofas used to be, but at least the carpet and curtains were back, and the chair with our favourite bed. Except that they referred to it as a 'cat bed'. It seems they like us sleeping there. Hmm.  Time to boycott it and find somewhere else to sleep:

They say this is cute too, but I think we can deal with that.

Then they went out and came back with this interesting black thing. It's cat-sized, but I was suspicious because it looks rather like the purple noisy thing that they sometimes use on the rug:

I was right. They fitted bits of it together and then pushed a switch and it made even more noise than the other one used to.

Still, it came with a very nice box:

The next day, we were just settling down for a nice nap when we heard some of our old family arriving. Should we go to talk to them, we wondered? We decided against it. They are fun to play with, but it was quite noisy and we needed a nap.

Next thing we knew, our male human had arrived home, and we were feeling quite wide awake again. So we hurried downstairs to greet him, and shortly afterwards some more humans arrived. They shut us in another room for a while and when we came out again, what should we see but two nice new sofas!

Sofas are so wonderful for scratching. We were very grateful to the humans, although they didn't seem all that happy about us rushing to sharpen our claws... they can be so unpredictable.

No sooner had we finished admiring the new furniture when we noticed something even more exciting:

Toys! So many toys, temptingly hanging on a green thing that seemed to say, 'Climb me!' I don't know why we felt that urge, but it wouldn't go away.

First of all, though, we had a most satisfying time pulling as many toys off as we could, and rolling them around the floor. We tried eating the green parts - the humans called it a tree, but it was nothing like the trees we vaguely remember from our first home. It didn't taste good at all.

They kept picking the toys up and putting them back again so we could bat them some more... but, once again, human behaviour proved fickle: they seemed to be annoyed. It makes no sense. If they didn't want us to play with these balls and other toys, why did they keep hanging them up?

Later on, when the humans were busy with something else, we had another go at this 'tree' thing. We removed as many toys as we could and pulled it down:

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing thoroughly.

Disappearing furniture

Sometimes, the humans do very strange things. Just as we are beginning to think that perhaps they are more intelligent than we had assumed, they demonstrate by their actions that they are not. Rather the reverse.

Take this week, for instance. Quite out of the blue, they got it into their heads to start moving furniture around the house. They took the nice sofa - the one that opens into a big bed - and moved it out of the study. Then they said it was too heavy, so they left it in the living room until another strong human arrived to help - and carried it up the stairs to a room which they (confusingly) refer to as 'Tim's room'. Tim doesn't even live here and the door is usually closed, so we can't sit on that sofa any more.

Then they moved one of the living room sofas into the study. Well, that was fine, although it seemed rather a strange thing to do:

But then they started moving other furniture into the dining room, and pushing what was left to the far end of the living room. They even rolled up the rug. It left a big open space:

Perhaps it was done to make a nice area for us to run around in, as it's often a bit chilly on the outside balcony. It was a kind thought, but we quite like furniture, and jumping over things, and hiding. A big open space really isn't terribly exciting, and our voices sound rather different in there now, which is a bit disturbing.

Still, we tried to be grateful, and as we found a little ball under one of the sofas, we did chase that around for a while.

The next day, they closed the door to the living room and we were trapped in the kitchen/dining room area! We didn't mind - we usually sleep in the mornings - but it was rather mysterious. There were odd noises going on, and another human talking.

When they opened the door again, we raced into the living room, wondering what nice surprise was there for us.

And I have to say, it was a bit of a disappointment, although we tried to hide it. The humans do their best, after all. There was a sort of sheet in the middle of the floor:

It smelled quite interesting, but it wasn't warm enough to sleep on, and we couldn't move it because there was a strange heavy object holding it down.

Being the intelligent cat that I am, I quickly realised that this was a new piece of furniture, one expressly designed for cats - it would be too small for a human to sit on it:

Joan looked up at me, and she noticed something strange on the ceiling, so I had a look too. I think this must be some kind of secret sign but we have not worked out what it means:

She decided to join me on the new furniture; it was a bit of a squash but we fitted so long as we kept still:

However, when we started rolling around and playing, we realised that we were in danger of falling off:

So we got down. The humans must have realised that this wasn't a very useful piece of furniture, because later on it disappeared.  

Then, the next day, another human arrived. We were shut in the dining room area again, and when we managed to get out, we discovered that the sofa in the study had gone too: 

I don't suppose we will ever understand humans. 

So now, there's only one remaining comfortable place to sleep in our usual quarters: 

I hope they will realise that it was much nicer the way it used to be.

A Dirty Cat

My sister and I like to play outside on the balcony, next to where the humans have their bed. Sometimes we go there in the morning and lie in the sunshine. Sometimes we chase each other around. Sometimes we roll in the dust. When we're feeling brave we jump to the neighbour's roof and run around there, and roll in their dust and dirt too.

At least, I roll a lot. I like feeling the dust on my skin. Joan doesn't do so much rolling. She watches me, slightly puzzled. Then when I get up she jumps at me, and we run around some more.

Usually the dust blows away, or I wash it off. But a few days ago, I rolled somewhere different, and when I went inside the humans started making comments about me being very dirty. I was quite insulted at first. I licked myself a few times and I didn't taste dirty. But then I did notice a few spots on my side that weren't there earlier:

One of the humans said the back of my head was the worst place. She tried wiping me with a damp cloth. I quite liked it, but she said it didn't make any difference at all. They said that they hoped I would wash. What a thing to say! I wash regularly. I'm mostly white, and I have to keep my fur immaculate.

However, they did have a point. No matter how much I washed, I couldn't get rid of those grey spots. One of the humans said that perhaps we would have to wait for my fur to grow out. What a horrible thought! I don't want my fur to go away. Does this mean I'll turn into a furless animal like a human?? I hope not.

Today our original family were visiting, and one of them said that it was fine to use a bit of 'fairy liquid' on my fur. So the humans put a drop of something that smelled like flowers on a damp cloth, and rubbed it around... then they rubbed it with just water. It felt quite nice at first but I soon got bored. They said I looked wet:

Humans do make silly comments. Of course I was wet. They were the ones who made me wet. They even talked about it first!

However they did also say I looked cleaner. I think they're right.