Category: Cats

Post-Thanksgiving Report

My family left for Texas last night. As expected many things ended up in different places than where I put them, but I’ve been able to find pretty much everything I looked for so far. Despite how nice my closet and pantry look when organized I very much doubt it will last. The only thing I couldn’t find was a clean bowl last night. It turns out bowls get used much faster by four people than by one, so I loaded the dishwasher and ate my jello desert off a plate.

While my mom was here I got her to make a cushion for Talore for my desk. It covers the corner of the desk, but has a notch for Talore’s cup of water and the squirt gun I use for discipline. All yesterday afternoon/evening Talore slept on the new pillow, and a good bit of today too, so it’s clearly appreciated.

The roomba died again today. It stopped in the middle of the room Tuesday or Wednesday when I forgot to cancel the schedule and we weren’t here, but it had also picked up a large portion of Talore’s tissue paper so I hoped that was the cause. Apparently cat hair managed to build up in the gear box to the point of jamming it again (not at all surprising). I took it apart and cleaned it before supper, then some time later started putting it all back together. After I’d put together the entire brush module I realized that I had 6 extra screws from where I’d fitted the gear box back together before I ate and didn’t realize the cover wasn’t fastened down when I got back to it. It’s all back together now and seems to be in working order, but the vacuum sometimes cuts out, so I’ll probably clean the contacts on that sometime soon.

Since I didn’t want the roomba trying to eat the things that were left on the floor while my family was here it was deactivated pretty much the entire week. That meant that kitty litter got tracked into the kitchen and wasn’t cleaned up automatically, and my mom couldn’t stand that. She got Talore a fluffly bath mat to go in front of the litter box. The first time Talore stepped on it she decided she didn’t want to walk across it and just jumped (scattering litter a bit farther than usual) but now she seems used to it and it’s doing quite a good job of catching litter (meaning it has plenty of litter on it, not that it’s 100% successful in stopping it from getting tracked into the kitchen). The problem right now is that it’s too thick for the roomba to roll over really easily, and it’s not heavy/stiff enough to prevent the roomba from just smashing it against the litter boxes. Putting the roomba in the middle of it works, but I’ll probably try taping the corners down or something.

The Bearded One

Last Saturday night my parents got here from Texas. When I heard my Dad coming up the steps I shut Talore in the bedroom so she wouldn’t get out while we unloaded. After we were all inside I opened the door to the bedroom to see that Talore was a bit spooked. I’m guessing that shutting her in the bedroom made her suspicious of who could be here, then when she saw my Dad (who’s beard is similar to the maintenance guy who tested the smoke detector and installed the carbon monoxide detector) her fears were confirmed, because clearly the bearded one is not to be trusted.

Her tail was puffed up to about three times it’s usual diameter, but as far as I could see that was the only part that puffed up to look bigger. On the other hand, my Mom’s first comment was about how big she is so perhaps I just didn’t notice. It took a decent portion of the evening for Talore to finally warm up to my dad (carrying her close to Dad was not productive). Eventually with Dad lying on the floor with his arm out she walked close enough for him to rub her head. She also wasn’t at all bothered by who it was in the middle of the night when she apparently walked over him.

It’s entertaining to have company over and see Talore reacting to all the usual things except with someone else triggering them. The main one is that when the shower stops she runs over and sits down outside the door. I knew she always met me there when I get out of the bathroom in the morning but I could never tell if she sat there the entire time. She also follows Mom around in the kitchen just like she does to me.

We went to Grand Junction to visit my cousin and her family for a couple days, and I didn’t think Talore needed to be carted along, so we left her with extra food and water and a pair of clean litter boxes. I was somewhat worried about her the entire trip (having never left her for nearly that long before), but when we got back Talore was just glad to see us and well rested (she kept waking me up all night). She hadn’t even finished off the food I left for her, though she did track litter all through the kitchen. To try to avoid a repeat of last night we’ve been trying to keep her from napping today. I think we pretty much kept her awake, but she did start watching us suspiciously when she got away and went to lie down.

While we were in Grand Junction we went over to Fruita to see the statue of Mike the headless chicken:

Pre-Thanksgiving Activities

Last weekend Talore learned to use my laptop.

Learned to use it for heat that is. She first lay down beside it so the exhaust was pointed at her, then she moved over onto the keyboard. She’s walked on it before but never really stopped on it. Since then I’ve been keeping a blanket on the corner of my desk for her, but I really need to get a large flat pillow or something to put there. She didn’t consistently sleep on the cat bed when it was on my desk; I think she didn’t like the sides being there when there was flat space all around it.

When she moved to the keyboard I was playing Commander Keen (using DOS Box on linux), so you can kind of see that on the screen. Keen is a series of old DOS games that I played as a kid. I’m considering submitting it to Calvin for an episode of ezmode tv, but the first level is really easy and he didn’t go very far in the last video I watched. Perhaps I’ll give him keen4 with a save to the fish level, or even keen4 in general, though I’d have to go play through it again. I do at least still remember most of the keen 1 levels (not that I beat them all easily).

Talore being on the laptop wasn’t a problem. The problem was a combination of her feeding pattern being messed up (I don’t give her more food when her bowl is half full) and the cable in front of my laptop. I hadn’t fed her earlier in the day, but I didn’t remember to feed her by the time she was hungry (she didn’t make enough of a fuss to remind me). The texture on the cord (ipod cords are kind of rubbery) was probably what interested her besides the location of it, but I eventually turned around and saw that she’d chewed through it in four or five places. She got squirted for that and has still gone back to it several times since then (prompting more use of the water gun). Hopefully she won’t decide that any other cables are so inviting.

Speaking of chewing on things, Talore occasionally bites at my watch band. For a long time I figured she was just biting it for the texture since part of it has a leather texture, but now I’m wondering if she thinks it’s like her collar. I put the collar on her when my apartment door will be open (generally as I’m leaving for work) and I take it off her when I get back, but sometimes she finds someplace out of convenient reach to sit when I’m leaving and I don’t put it on her. She is always happy to have it removed (and have her neck rubbed), and since she generally bites my watch band hard then pulls hard perhaps she thinks I’d like my watch removed. She doesn’t always bite on the leather, and she bites it at random times (being woken up by Talore tugging at my watch was a surprise). At any rate, my watch band doesn’t have a clasp that releases by pulling on it (the collar is designed to release if she catches it on something) so she’s not likely to get it free any time soon.

I have family visiting for Thanksgiving, so I trimmed the tips of Talore’s claws. I wasn’t trying to make them stay dulled for a long time, but I didn’t think everyone else would be so tolerant of being prodded with fully sharpened claws. She didn’t struggle at all while I was clipping them, but she did seem to find scratching at the post a bit awkward at first. She also is now unable to easily snag toys with one paw, but that sometimes just makes her chase them more.