The Preternatural Grace of Felines…

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

…Or: My cat fell in the toilet.

This weekend, I noticed that cat slinking into the bathroom. This isn’t particularly interesting. She likes to sleep in the bathtub, but thinks it’s something she has to be sneaky about. I also happened to notice that one of the boys in the apartment had left the toilet seat up.

The cat noticed this as well and decided to investigate.

Just peeking her head over the bowl didn’t sate her curiosity, so she put her feet front up on the edge. But she was still too far away from the tempting, tempting water.

She leans further and further down, three legs on the lip of the toilet bowl with the forth stretched out behind her like a ballet dancer.

She leans a little further, a little further, the water is centimeters from her curious whiskers…

And she falls in, dunking her head. Shoots straight up, yowling, and bangs into the toilet lid.

For the next hour, she hides under the couch while her fool head dries. Hopefully, this will be a lesson to her.

Whoever claimed cats are graceful creatures has never met mine.

2

I love when cats investigate the toilet.

Or rather, I love pushing them in. That’ll teach the little buggers not to stick their head in the bowl when there’s a 12 year old boy who doesn’t flush…

3

Almost as good as seeing them run headlong into sliding glass doors and then stagger away, trying to feign the body language of “I meant to do that!”

4

I need more funny kitty stories please.

5

Okay, then. When I had only two cats (Pippin and his younger adopted sibling Coppelia), Pip got a steroid shot and spent a week with cold-like symptoms. Snarfy, wobbly, spaced out…
Coco, who had spent most of her 3-year existence being tormented by him, decided that she now had a chance for revenge. So as Pippin was staring woozily out the window, his sister walked up to him and raised a paw. Looked at him, looked at her paw, looked at him again, looked at her paw again, looked at him and WHAP!
Then she casually walked away. More of a saunter, really

Years later, when we moved to a new place, Coco wanted to assert her dominance, and would chase Pip all over. There were a couple of times I caught her wailing on him while he was in the corner, standing on his head!
Don’t think he was weak, though. Less than a year before I had to have him put down, we moved to the swamp, and he got to go outside for the first time in his 13 years. So he did what any cat would do. Followed owls, stalked ibis and blue herons and utterly tormented out neighbor’s golden retriever.

R.I.P. Pip. I miss you, buddy

6

Elka, our black Persian, used to race at full speed down the hallway from the bedrooms into the kitchen, where she would attempt to negociate the 90º turn into the dining room. Since the kitchen floor was shiny-clean tile, she wasn’t the most co-ordinated of cats, and her paws had long feathers of fur growing between her toes, the usual result, as heard from the living room, was:

Galump, galump, galump
Scrabble, scrabble, scrabble
THUMP

as she desperately tried to gain traction for the turn while sliding inexorably into the refrigerator. It was even funnier to watch, with all four feet working madly away without affecting her direction of movement at all. She lived in that house with us for four years, and never learned to slow down before the turn.

7

Swampwolf, your Pippin was a big boy! And I love the whapping story.

Bookkeeper, one of my kitties did something similar when we brought our rescue German Shepherd in for the first time.

We brought Molly (dog) in through the back door, and Chloe (kitty) liked to come to greet us. She took one look at the dog and almost fell over trying to back up–she looked like Linda Hamilton in T2 when she first sees the Terminator coming out of the elevator.

Well Chloe was trying to get to the pet door in the door leading to the basement, but she overshot that one by a good three yards. She gave us an “O shit” look and raced up the stairs, not to be seen again for about three days. Totally lost her cool.

Anyway, I don’t have an online picture of her but I do have a picture of our kittens. They are bigger than this now, this was taken in June.

Enjoy.

8

We used to keep salt water fish. The top of our tank had a couple of good sized lights on it, so it was always nice and warm. Our cat used to like to sit on top of that tank. All that lovely heat, and fishy smells to boot.

One afternoon, my SO and I were cleaning the tank. We were in the bathroom mixing a batch of replacement water. SPLOOSH. YEOW. Scrabble Scrabble Scabble. ZOOM.
Drip. Drip. Drip.

Yep, the cat had made a leap for the top of the tank, 4½ feet off the floor, only do find that there was no top on it. He must have managed to get a paw over the edge and scrabble his way out. We followed the trail of water to his hiding place, made sure he was ok, and let him sulk for a while. We were impressed that he had managed to get a fair amount of water up onto the ceiling.

9

Sometimes Eddles tries to run up the wall. He never makes it very far.

10

My cat, Raven, was something of a surprise adoption while I was in college, and while my parents swore they wanted nothing to do with a cat, they adore far more persistently than they do me.

When I first brought her home over the summer, my mom had decided to re-wallpaper the kitchen. The first step involved pulling out the refrigerator so we could measure the walls accurately. We worked as a team - Mom, me, and my younger brother - and went to work during the commercial breaks of a show we were watching.

So, the refrigerator has been pulled out. We’ve been in the family room, just next to the kitchen. The kitchen has been measured, and we only need to put things back. Phoukabro gets up and goes into the kitchen to finish things up. My mom and I hear:

grunt shove grunt shove *gru-
RRRRRAAAAOOOOW!
“Ah!” heave “Dammit!” heave

Mom and I scramble into the kitchen to find phoukabro hauling the refrigerator back out of place, and the cat clawing her way out from behind the refrigerator, onto the built-in desk, and zooming through the kitchen, family room, and up the stairs to disappear for at least a full day.

She never trusted that refrigerator again.

Oh, and phoukabro got annoyed when she wouldn’t leave him alone (she was a total slut for anything with testosterone) and trimmed off her left whiskers with a pair of scissors.

11

My cat Max loves ice cubes. Likes to bat them around the floor hockey style. Likes to lick them. Likes to bounce them in his water dish. Reaches up on the front of the fridge to try to operate the ice cube dispenser. When we moved the fridge to the living room to redo the kitchen floor, Max walked around behind the fridge – clearly he was looking for where the cubes come from. Looked very disappointed to find nothing icy back there!

12

Cats without feathery feet do this as well. We have hardwood floors in our living and dining rooms, and linoleum in our kitchen and den. Our two dumb cats have never learned that they CAN’T get traction on smooth surfaces. Their kitty claws just can’t dig in. The smart cat knows that she can’t get traction, but it’s a moot point, as she usually can’t be bothered to move faster than a sexy saunter.

The day before yesterday, I was doing a load of laundry, and had left the washer open while I looked around to see if I’d missed anything. Usually we keep the lid shut on that machine. This time, though, it was open and unattended. When I came back, there was a kitty tail sticking out of the opening. Sure enough, the dumb female had decided to check out the new cave. I turned the water on (on warm, not hot, and not cold) and the cat levitated right out of the washer. Good thing I hadn’t added soap yet. She hasn’t jumped onto the washer since, that I know of, and it used to be one of her favorite lurking spots.

13

The other day, my great stupid oaf of a cat, Lloyd, was frolicking with a little ball on our tiled floor. He clouted it away and went galumphing after it, when suddenly his back feet slipped. His butt fell down, skidded between his still-galumphing front feet, and struck the ball again. Lloyd stopped, totally bewildered as to where this rogue butt had come from that was playing with his toy.

14

My idiot cat, Squirrel, (real name Kee Kee, but the nickname suits her personality), is an escape artist. One day, after my husband had come in through the sliding glass door from the backyard, she lauched herself across the kitchen with the intent of making a spectacular escape about 2/3 of the way up the door. A resounding BONK shook the house, and she retreated under our bed, embarrassed.

She loses us in the house, too. Last night, I was reading in bed and she had been up to get scritches. She left for a few minutes, and then I heard a plaintive meowing from the living room. I had to call her, as she seems to be unable to look into the only lit room to find her human servants.

BTW, the feet in the picture belong to Queen Bruin.

15

I’ve written about this before. Lotta is one of our most graceful kittens. But one day, Pepper Mill had just opened the lid on the toilet (which is always kept closed), and Lotta, believing it to be closed jumped up to it full tilt, planning on hoisting herself by momentum up to the bathroom window. She quickly discovered that the lid was up, and found herself in the water. She howled piteously and hauled herself out, looking daggers at Pepper and shaking herself off.

Cats, of course, are masters at the Artful Recovery – taking a mistake and gracefully changing it into another motion. “I meant to do that,” they say. Only there was no way a cat MEANT to jump into an open toilet. Normally, Lotta is gentle and kind and bright, but there wasn’t any way to recover from this. “You did this to me,” her looks said to Pepper. “You made me look like an idiot. YOU!”

The other ungraceful motion by an otherwise graceful cat is the way Hestia, our kitten, runs on the wooden floors or the linoleum when she’s starting from a dead stop. Her feet scrabble and slide as she tries to get traction. She looks and sounds like a Hanna-Barbera character.

16

Does she have vision problems? I had a cat that was mostly blind from juvenile cataracts. He could see shapes and shadows but he’d get confused sometimes, especially in the dark when there was no light contrast and he’d start meowing. I’d call to him and he’d follow my voice to me.

He, Stevie Wonder, was a font of funny cat stories. He was supposedly blind but he’d steal small shiny objects, like my jewelry and play with it. One of his favorites past times was sitting in the tub and batting my razor around. Sometimes he’d pick it up in his mouth (by the handle) and carry it around the house. He wasn’t afraid of anything either. If a stranger came to visit he’d be on them as soon as they walked in the door and when they went to leave he’d follow them.

The one time I bred my Golden Retriever, Stevie was only about 6 months old and the dog adopted him as a pseudo-puppy before her litter was born. He’d lay next to her and she’d lick him. Once she had the puppies Stevie was the only animal in the house she’d let near them. He’d go in the whelping box and lay on the rail and bop the puppies on the head. Later when they got bigger he would be right in the middle of the mob of 7 puppies rolling around and wrestling with them. When he got tired he’d wriggle away and jump over the puppy gate, he’d be covered head to toe in puppy spit, which I first discovered as he sat down next to me while I was reading and I started to pet him. I ended up keeping two of the puppies and Stevie remained the only cat that would hang out with the dogs. I think he thought he was a dog.

However, as Stevie got older and I acquired other cats, Stevie became their pseudo-mom. He’d cuddle with them and lick them, he’d even tolerate them “nursing” on him. They didn’t actually latch on but they’d knead and nuzzle in the nippular area. He was one of the best cats I ever had.

My current vision impaired cat, Popeye (he has one eye) was playing with a toy mouse the other night and he was really into it when the mouse flew out of his paws and under the dresser as he dove for it we heard the BONK of his head hitting the dresser. He didn’t seem to understand what happened, I think he thought the mouse got him.

Said cat and his younger sister also have leaped into the toilet, usually when my boyfriend was attending to some nightly business. There’s nothing like being awakened at 2 in the morning with the call “I just peed on your cat!” Then having to chase down the cat and give it a bath.

17

We had a house rabbit when I was growing up. Stairs were always a bit of an adventure for him… at least the going down part: thump…thump… stumble… panicscrabblescrabblescrabble… brief-hangtime-pause… CRASH. The rabbit literally did a mid-air endo from about halfway down the staircase. Every time. Yet the rabbit loved going to the second floor. Sometimes I’d find him standing at the top of the stairs, looking down in dread, one ear drooped down, and I’d carry the poor schmuck down to the bottom.

We also had a wood-burning stove in the center of the kitchen, and a little padded basket under the stove that the rabbit loved to sleep in during the winter (yes, fire hazard and all that.)

Then we brought home a Manx cat, who turned out to be less cat-like and more doggish.

The rabbit was soon displaced from the under-stove basket and was not happy about it. The cat would occasionally get a belt from the rabbits hind legs, then would retaliate by grabbing the rabbit in a head lock and gnawing on his head. The rabbit would take off running with the cat, still head-locked and gnawing, hopping along beside it hanging on for dear life. We’d be sitting there having dinner and this odd Siamese monstrosity would shoot by (and they had nearly identical black and white coloring, further confusing the issue.) They’d disappear around a corner, we’d hear some banging around, then, more often than not, the cat would scream past us with the rabbit following closely on her heals. Neither of them was ever hurt, amazingly enough.

I’d also take the Manx for the household equivalent of a Nantucket sleighride. She’d be throw-rug-wrestling (Lie down on side, gather up fold of rug between paws, disembowel fold with hind legs, leap up, attempt to run off rug but end up running in place while rug shoots out from under paws, attempt to gain traction on slick wood floor, get traction, go off on unrecoverable vector, crash into bookcase, spy rug sitting there just waiting for beat down, get nutty look, repeat.)

Anyway, she’d be flailing away at the rug and I’d grab one end of the rug and go running all over the house. I’d stop and twirl it as fast as I could while she held on, she’d be happily vocalizing and giving that rug a beat down. If she fell off she’d give chase and leap back onto the moving rug.

18

Apologies for the grammatical molestation, but I thought your cat was absolutely adorable.

Don’t click on this is you don’t like the recent lolcat fad.

19

So far our newest master has amazed me almost every single day.

The Beastie fears nothing. He is the strangest cat I have every been a slave to.

The normal cat fears do not phase, excuse me, apply to him him. Vacuum, nope. Hair dryer, ut uh. Broom, dogs, other cats, no way. Slaves 100 times his size, hell no.

We see this on a regular basis. If you try and swoosh him away he swats at you and gives you a ** MEOWHOWL**. He does not have a regular meow. He is irritated that you are trying to keep him from something that he wishes to do. This cat stuff is serious business.

We get the same tone when you try to close the fridge and he feels he should be allowed a longer time to investigate the contents. If you try to swoosh away with your foot you will get swatted at and a possible attempted bite. He feels very strongly about his refrigerator.

This past weekend one of our other cats Uno decided to play with a ribbon on my daughters floor. She grabbed it in her mouth and started to trot out into the living room with it until she realized there was an almost completed deflated helium balloon attached to it. She freaked and darted away. Beastie looked at it and promptly walked up and bit it. No fear what so ever.

It is also fun to play laser tag with him. He has no front claws so the boy just glides across the kitchen floor like the dust bunnies.

He also likes to be swept. When I sweep the kitchen floor he runs over and I must sweep his fur for several minutes. If I don’t he will attack the broom until I do. Then he walks away quite pleased with himself.

Sweet looking huh? Yeah don’t let him fool you for one second. He is the spawn of Satan himself.

My sweetie weenie Beastie Bear, yes he is.

*Note: He was declawed when we adopted him.

20

SomeUserName, I think your Beastie must be the larger sibling of my Sugar Magnolia. She got all the sweetness, though - she is the sweetest babycat in the world. Nothing makes her happier than giving kisses, which she will do to the point of total skin loss. She has also been known to give Mr. SCL some tongue.