Cobalt and Rhodium, eh? I’d be interested in knowing what other tributes you have made, in your personal life, to the periodic table.
I dunno, does seven years working on a PhD in Materials Engineering count?
Any chance of putting him on a harness and leash and introducing him to the great outdoors? Sounds lame, but many people in my urban neighborhood walk their cats.
Then, if you thought it was a good idea for you and the cat, you could start letting him go out on his own later.
Heh…maybe I should try reading responses before posting? 
Anyway, I encourage the walking on a harness. A woman in my neighborhood brings her cat out every evening and lets him climb trees. He seems happy as a clam. I’m thinking of starting to walk my kittens when they’re a little older.
masonite do you have a basement? We’ve got a trio of indoor/outdoor cats getting on in years (12.5 years the lot of them) so they’re only let out when a. it’s light out b. someone’s around to check on them a couple times an hour. Usually this is fine by them, but two of them occasionally get it in their minds that they want to go out a night. So they hang around the door and yowl their heads off. I’ve found that allowing them in the “forbidden” (in their minds, we have no real rules against it) basement is enough of a change of scenery and enough room to explore that they forget to complain they can’t go out 
Instead of throwing them down there, I pretend I need something and leave the door open to give them the thrill of “sneaking” past me to go down too, lol.
No, no basement. I did have a Secret Room of Mystery (see above) but its door now stays open, so it’s lost all appeal, naturally.
Hey, I got a harness, and we’ve been training with it indoors. The cat is hobbling around like he’s 100 years old, even though his movement is not actually restricted.
I have one of these cats too. It doesn’t sound like you could do this, but I’ll toss this idea out anyway.
My plan is to enclose part of my front porch with wire (hardware cloth). They would access this new ‘outside’ area through a cat door I will install in one of the windows. I’ll plant some containers of cat grass out there and probably put up a bird feeder station so they have something fun to watch.
I’m hoping this takes care of ‘bored kitty’ syndrome and the ‘claw the crap out of the door jam’ routine.
Well, after a week of in-house harness and leash training, Huey and I had a walk outside tonight. It’s freezing cold, and he enjoyed tiptoeing across the compacted snow and ice. He was very good with following the lead, not straying outside of the yard when I pulled back on the lead, and not freaking out generally. We calmly explored the grounds together.
However, after about 30 minutes we both had had enough, and came inside. Now he’s HOWLING to go out again. He’s making that low growly noise way in the back of his throat and clawing frantically at the front door.
I was afraid this might happen. He’s seen the outside and now he wants it all the time. It might have been better to just try and keep his mind off it altogether, but I had to go and feed the addiction. Now he’s an Outside Junkie.
I am beginning to think some tranquillizers are in order. (Again, for him, not for me.)
I used to let my cat Achmed outside with me for supervised playing. He never went out of earshot of me or tried to cross the street (this was a development so no one drove very fast anyway). This was all fine except that he started to want to go out all the time and drove me nuts. Sadly, I had to stop taking him out because I couldn’t take the kitty verbal abuse.
I moved into an apartment that had no direct door to the outside (the stairway had a door at the top, so they couldn’t get to the front door). He promptly stopped meowing at me every day.
Lately, Harley has escaped from our new house and now wants to go out all the time. He ripped up the carpet around the sliding glass door and cries. He cannot go out because he has FIV, so I just ignore him and chase him away from the door. He has since laid off the meowing and clawing.
I wish the world was safe for kitties to enjoy the outside, but it just isn’t. When I make my first million, I’ll buy a small island just for them.
I was struggling with the indoor/outdoor cat dilemma recently.
I have two fixed males, one young, one old. There is a cat door so they could come and go as they pleased. I really liked not having a litter box. All was cool.
Then, the other night, I stepped outside just in time to see my old cat race across the yard with a coyote in hot pursuit. :eek:
That ended my dilemma. Cat door locked, litter box back in the bathroom. I’ll do my best to keep them entertained but their wandering days are over.
I’ve been going through the same problem with my cat, Brynn. She started up not long after she got fixed, and it quickly progressed from howling at the windows for hours to ripping the carpet in front of the door to shreds. We had to play games just to get out the door. I have two other cats but they never acted like this and I thought it would eventually pass.
She got out last Thursday night when my neighbor unknowingly let her out. We chased her, then looked for her for awhile but figured she’d come running when she got hungry.
Unfortunately she was hit by a car that night.
Now my heart is broken,and I feel so guilty. I was with her when she was born! She was my babygirl.
I know there’s not much I could have done other than maybe have her put on some kind of tranquilizer. She and her sisters have always gone out on harnesses but she hated it and the other two have never shown any interest; they seem to fear the outdoors.
Well that didn’t help much but I’m being mopey tonight and needed to share. I hope your harness solution eventually works.
I had ferrets at one time and they loved the big clear plastic bubbles. They’d roll around outside in the backyard for hours if I let them. I don’t suppose they make those things big enough for cats do they?
Oh, I’m so sorry, Rushgeekgirl. That is just awful.
I’m about at wits’ end with my situation. We’re having these daily strolls outside, which go all right, but the rest of the time the cat is howling and – who knew cats could do this – shrieking. Also clawing at all the carpet in the house.
He kept me up literally all night. I’m a shaking, miserable wreck this Monday morning. First order of business today is to buy earplugs for sleeping. Then I don’t know what I’m going to do. Start saving money to replace the carpet, I guess. 
I suppose I could just give him his freedom. But it’s truly murder in this neighborhood. I doubt if he’d last a day. I’m so sorry I ever let him see the outside at all.