We should have named him Neptune...

Kelly linked to a “personal DNA” test that is quite fun.  If you’d like to give it a try, click here.  Kelly is a Considerate Leader.  Jake is a Cautious Inventor.  I am a Benevolent Visionary.  Funny, I didn’t see THAT coming.

I have spring fever.  The birds woke me up at 7 AM this morning, and I did NOT experience the desire to purchase a shotgun.  I am not a morning person.  I am, however, an idiot.  I have just ensured that the birds will wake me at the crack of dawn by setting up five bird feeders.  See, spring fever.

I am not blind to the irony of a cat owner setting up bird feeders to attract birds.  My kitties are the indoor variety, however, and so just sit at the front door, salivating and plotting their escape.  Being cats with tiny little brain pans, their only strategy so far has been to periodically charge the door when it is opened and this strategy doesn’t work.  It is annoying, but it doesn’t work.  I see Hobbes and Patches with their heads together, diagrams and maps laid out in front of them, synchronizing their watches- and then they charge the door.  Cats do not seem to learn from past experiences.

Hobbes is turning out to be an interesting cat.  He loves water.  I have trained cats using a spray bottle in the past pretty effectively; well, as effective as can be, since we are discussing cats here. If they get on the table or counter, I squirt them.  Since most cats hate water, after 6 or 7 millions squirts, they associate getting wet with whatever it is they are doing, and stop doing it.  Hobbes, however, seems to enjoy getting wet.  He engages in forbidden activities so that I will squirt him. His hydrophilia does not stop there.  He splashes in his water bowl.  Since he shares this bowl with Patches, she is not amused, and since the floor is slippery when wet, neither am I.  He loves to play in the toilet and doesn’t seem to mind when he periodically falls in.  He particularly loves to watch/interact with a flushed toilet.  He also likes to shower with me.

I’ve had cats that were curious about the whole bathing thing before.  They would jump up on the tub, look in, horrified and appalled by water falling from the ceiling and the stupid human just standing there, for Pete’s sake, and then take off.  Not Hobbes.  Hobbes gives me “Psycho” moments.  My bathroom door does not stay closed unless locked, and I don’t like to lock it in case I fall or faint or am attacked by newspaper wielding bell-boys.  Hobbes takes advantage of the easily opened door and lets himself in.  He stealthily gets up onto the tub rim and begins to pat at me through the shower curtain.  The first time I felt something touch me while I was showering I nearly had a coronary.  Good thing the door was open, because I went through it, dripping wet and buck naked, and stood trembling in my bedroom, looking for something to defend myself with.  Fairy figurine in hand, I went back into the bath, and found Hobbes in the tub, batting at the spray at the far end of the tub.  We bathe together regularly now.  

Hobbes is an “in your face” kinda kitty.  Patches likes to curl up on my lap, or in the curve of my legs while I am sleeping and purr her deep, loud and throbbing purr.  It is so soothing.  Hobbes likes to curl up on my face. I push him off, he comes right back.  I throw him off and he comes right back.  It’s actually a signal that he wants to play, and I can get him off my face by playing with him.  We usually play “kill the kitty”.  

     Well, gotta go.  The workmen are here to put down the tile in Mama’s bathroom, and she and Hobbes, apparently fascinated by the process, are driving them crazy.  Guess I should go rescue the poor dudes.  Ever notice that “senile” and “feline” have all the same letters but one?   Mama is wandering around in “shout, sing and babble” mode, and Hobbes is investigating the disconnected toilet which is sitting in the tub.  I’d squirt him, but I don’t want to encourage him.  Wonder if I should squirt Mama?