Cat\’s Eye View

One of the joys about being a cat is the routine. I love my life. I can anp, stroll over to bowl and eat, nap, get brushed, nap, cuddle, nap. And, did I mention nap?

Ma says I nap like 18 hours a day. She exaggerates. Some of that time I’m awake, on my stool, watching bird out the bedroom window and then the sunshine warms the fur and well, sunshine induces naps, right?

It’s a simple routine, really and I only really get cranky when they deviate from it, like on Fridays!  Fridays suck! They follow the routine until about fish time (that’s 6 p.m. for you non-cats) and then they go away.

I can always tell its coming. They turn on the light and give me my dinner and put the music and lights machine on to keep me company. Ma says its funny when I watch television. I like the lighted box.

Then, they tell me “No parties!” and “Guard the house.” I swear they have me confused with a dog sometimes. Do I look like a party animal? I mean seriously.

They stay gone forever and then I meet them at the door when I hear the noisy thing outside. I don’t like the noisy thing ’cause it takes my people away and sometimes takes me to see Dr. Kim.

Anyway, I hear the noisy thing and I meet them at the door. Doh! I shouldn’t do that. It probably reinforces the idea that I’m a dog. Must stop that.

But I can’t help it. They’re gone forever and I need a snuggle. Don’t you dare tell them I said so! There is after all a routine and cuddle time is part of the routine…they just need to think it’s their idea.

The people I adopted,  I call ‘em Ma and Da, live in a big ol’ apartment on the ground floor of a two story house. And, we get the basement too.

Sometimes, it’s kind of funny because I can hear the kitties upstairs running over my head or smell them when their people walk past the front foor, but mostly it’s like having the whole house to myself. Ma and da don’t let me outside and they used to be really picky about letting me in the basement, but Dr. Kim told ‘em it was mostly okay. So, I get to hunt down there whenever I want.

Da says the basement is unfinished and full of mold and other icky things. I’ve never seen a mold, but I do know that it is full of crickets. They are big brown ones with furry legs. Ma calls them cave crickets and says she hates them. So, being a loving girl, I try to remember to bring her one every day.

Last year, I thought I had hunted them to extinction, but they came back in the spring. I was okay with that, ’cause a girl needs to hunt sometimes and we never get any mousies. ma says its cause the mousies smell me and run away. Dang it!

Anyway, the proper way to hunt a cricket is to sneak downstairs when your people are sleeping or busy. You find the cricket and chase him around for a bit downstairs to tire him out. Then, when you get bored teasing him, or if you hear soemone moving upstairs, hold the cricket gently in your mouth and carry them upstairs.

This part takes practice and the first fews times, the cricket wouldn’t play anymore once we got upstairs. Stupid cricket!

Anyway, if you don’t squish him in your mouth on the way upstairs, you can turn him lose again, preferably near your people and bare feet. I always have bare feet, but Ma sometimes puts extra fur on her feet. You should wait until she takes those off.  Leaving the cricket in the bathroom floor at night is always fun and good for a yell.

Today, I put the cricket under my water dish. This takes talent as you lift the plastic edge of the bowl with one foot, like you are marking the dish, and then spit the cricket underneath. Ma found him when she got my morning water.

I giggled all morning long!

Today I feel crummy. Ma says my eyes look glassy and my nose is dry. She thinks I have a cold.

I’m not sure what that means, but I know I want her to hold me today.

I want to be held and snuggled and have my back rubbed (she calls it petting.). The problem with feeling this way is making your people think its their idea to hold you and maintaining a properly indignant attitude about the whole thing.

I have found that if you lay on your cat tree, or other snuggly spot, and look miserable, they will invariable come and pick you up. Now, normally, I hate the picking up part and tell her, “I want down, I want down, I want down!” so you have to struggle a smidge to let them know picking up is a bad thing.

Then, you have to look exhausted, like you’ve been hunting crickets or chasing the ball all afternoon. Be careful not to look too pathetic or it can result in a trip to the vet. You do not want this. I won’t even scare you about the thermometer thing, but let’s just say OUCH!!!

By looking appropriately pathetic, you can get special treats. Once, when I was really sick, Ma put my food dish on my tree for me. If I had felt better that day, I would have been giggling inside.

Right now, I am going to take a nap. To be honest, I take a nap every day about this time, but I may sleep longer today. Maybe when I wake up, Ma will bring my fish dinner to my bed.

This blogging thing is fun and I should ahve started it years ago. Okay, not too many years ago since I’m only 2 and a half, but you get the idea.

Today I am trying to master the concept of a straw and why my people use them. Both of them have glasses with straws in them and it makes it so much harder for me to steal a drink. that silly straw thing drips everywhere when you try to lick it.

I am also putting out a plea for peach ice cream. They keep telling Ma that I can’t taste sweet, but what do they know?  I love ice cream. Well, not chocolate, that’s gross (and Ma says it’s poison for me). But vanilla is pretty good and oh-my-gosh have you had this peach stuff?  Ma thought I would hate it since its fruity. Strawberries are another big yuck. But peach, oh peach, you are the second best thing to tuna fish. Maybe third, ’cause banana pudding is good too.

Be wary of the puddin’ though. it seems sometimes they try to hide things in it. Last year, I got sick and my tummy hurt really bad. I just wanted to sleep. It hurt to drink my water.

Ma put me in the box and took me to the pokey, smelly place where the lady she calls Dr. Kim lives. Dr. Kim is nice, but one of her helpers is dumb, so I clawed her arm up. She poked me and tried to steal my blood!

Anyway,  after we got back int he box and came home, Ma tried to feed me puddin’. I love puddin’. But it smelled funny and had sandy parts in it. Ma said it was medicine to make me feel better.

Now, I love my Ma, but apparently, she didn’t know cats can spit. So I showed her. be very careful of gritty puddin’ that tastes bad. Just say no!

Of course, then Ma scruffed me and stuck her finger down my throat to make me take the medicine, so maybe the gritty pudding was a better option.

Anyway, I’m better now and trying to smack the sassy little robin sitting on my windowsill. She taunts me every morning.

Anybody got a good robin trap?  I’m not allowed outside, so I need to be able to get her from here.

Hi!

Welcome to my view of the world. For those who are just meeting me, I am nearly 2 1/2 years old, or as my Ma likes to say, a basic pre-teen in human years.

Most of the time, I am Rain, though I will answer to RainyDay Kitty or RainyDay Killer when I’ve been hunting crickets. I am occasionally called Fuzzybutt, but I find this highly offensive and it usually prompts me to go sulk in the basement.

Before I was adopted by my Ma and Da, I lived outside in the backyard with my extended family of feral cats. Though most of them are kinda jerks, I have become a union organizer for strays and other mistreated pets since moving inside to the lap of luxury. Yup, I’ve got my humans trained pretty well. They will brush me, pet me, play chase (You should see them throwing the ball and expecting me to get it! Sometimes, for giggles, I actually do.) and feed me fish at precisely 6 p.m. every night.

I get crunchies (Ma calls it cat food) too and greenies for my teeth, but the fish is my first love.

Anyway, this is my blog. My chance to tell you about the adventures of RDK and sometimes of the mysterious blue-chair kitty. That’s my secret ‘dentity. Don’t tell anyone, k?

My blog will be all things I’m interested in: crickets, fish, exploring, the squirrels in the yard and union development. It is after all, a cat’s eye view.