Blitz learns from Seth's example.
For all that, using the litter box was a good lesson, as was staying inside the house when the dog goes outside is a help. We live by a highway. And we have coyotes. The highway is more lethal but either one would do the job.
I also like that Blitz learned that in the evening, he's supposed to lie on someone's lap. That way two-thirds of us have a cat to pet at least part of the time while we're watching movies.
When I was a kid, I had a white winter muff that had fur inside and out. It was just a little tube, big enough for both of my small hands to knot together inside at one time. I loved my muff and tried to keep people from realizing that my hands weren't in the least bit cold in the springtime but that I liked to surreptitiously pet my muff like it was a tiny kitty I was allowed to carry inside the house. All of our cats when I was a kid were outdoor cats. Eventually, my mother informed me the season for winter wear was over and she packed away my sweet muff with ratty mittens and various boots and toboggans into a cardboard box.
Did you call your winter hats 'toboggans?' I always wondered how they were related to the great sleds. When I was a kid, any knitted winter hat was called a toboggan.
Somehow, I didn't see how my muff belonged with ratty mittens, boots, and toboggans. If my muff had had googly eyes, I would have cried when my mother closed the cardboard lid. I came close as it was. That was my kitty, my bunny, my sweet muff.
I never saw my muff again.
So, when I sit on the couch watching a movie, it is with joy and a teeny bit of sadness for my lost muff that I can tuck my hands into warm kitten fur. Blitz is still a squiggly kitten, though, and I seldom get to pet him during a whole movie.
But Seth did teach him to jump onto a lap to get petted.
There are things I'm not so happy that Seth has taught Blitz though.
Did I tell you that Blitz is convinced that it is our job to lift him up onto the washing machine any time we're around when he's hungry?
Seth taught him that. Both are perfectly capable of jumping up to their food on their own, but Seth just glares at someone in the kitchen until they lift him and now Blitzen has learned to sound so pathetic when it's his turn. His tiny meows turn into an elongated 'meoooooowwwwwwww' when I ignore him. I'm certain it's a cat version of nagging. It just goes on and on until I do my job.
Then, there's the waking up game. Seth made sure that Blitz took over wake up calls when he was very young. If it's a Saturday and I'm snuggled deep in my covers, Blitz begins to leap on and off my butt. When I try to focus my eyes, I can see that it's only 6:03 in the morning, or sometimes 4:15 in the morning because it's nearly summer solstice and the sun rises earlier now. Seth only takes over if the communal food dish gets down to one layer of kibbles. That is an emergency. Then, at any hour, the whole house wakes up with his repeated siren call. I blame Mike because he gets up and puts kibbles into the bowl. I'm convinced the reason our house harbors two insomniacs is that we have these cats who live here and one tenderhearted man who will feed cats at any hour.
And now there are the baths.
I'm sure I've described how my shower time has been significantly cooled and extended because Seth opens the pocket door and comes in. Then, as all hot air escapes the room, he gets between the shower curtain and the liner and insists that I bathe him. This involves using my wet hand to wipe him from head to foot minus his butt because that is just too gross for either of us to contemplate, even when soap is available afterward. Then, when I've finished and dried myself off, I am to use a dry towel and sponge up all the wet fur so that Seth is nicely cleaned and relatively dry. He does this every other day.
So Blitz has begun to expect a bath every other morning as I'm trying to stay warm in my shower with the pocket door half open and all the steam escaped. This means that I add even more minutes to every shower and significantly lowers the temperature of the room to a chill as I stand naked in it after I'm out.
I look forward to about eighteen more years of this chilled and extended naked time after my showers because the old cat has taught the kitten how to pry open the pocket door just in case I thought about trying to close him out before I build up steam in the room.
That's what I get for thinking it good that the cat teach the kitten how to behave in my house, eighteen more years of early wake up calls and eighteen more years of being in a shower devoid of hot steam.
Thank you for listening, jb
For all that, using the litter box was a good lesson, as was staying inside the house when the dog goes outside is a help. We live by a highway. And we have coyotes. The highway is more lethal but either one would do the job.
I also like that Blitz learned that in the evening, he's supposed to lie on someone's lap. That way two-thirds of us have a cat to pet at least part of the time while we're watching movies.
When I was a kid, I had a white winter muff that had fur inside and out. It was just a little tube, big enough for both of my small hands to knot together inside at one time. I loved my muff and tried to keep people from realizing that my hands weren't in the least bit cold in the springtime but that I liked to surreptitiously pet my muff like it was a tiny kitty I was allowed to carry inside the house. All of our cats when I was a kid were outdoor cats. Eventually, my mother informed me the season for winter wear was over and she packed away my sweet muff with ratty mittens and various boots and toboggans into a cardboard box.
Did you call your winter hats 'toboggans?' I always wondered how they were related to the great sleds. When I was a kid, any knitted winter hat was called a toboggan.
Somehow, I didn't see how my muff belonged with ratty mittens, boots, and toboggans. If my muff had had googly eyes, I would have cried when my mother closed the cardboard lid. I came close as it was. That was my kitty, my bunny, my sweet muff.
I never saw my muff again.
So, when I sit on the couch watching a movie, it is with joy and a teeny bit of sadness for my lost muff that I can tuck my hands into warm kitten fur. Blitz is still a squiggly kitten, though, and I seldom get to pet him during a whole movie.
But Seth did teach him to jump onto a lap to get petted.
There are things I'm not so happy that Seth has taught Blitz though.
Did I tell you that Blitz is convinced that it is our job to lift him up onto the washing machine any time we're around when he's hungry?
Seth taught him that. Both are perfectly capable of jumping up to their food on their own, but Seth just glares at someone in the kitchen until they lift him and now Blitzen has learned to sound so pathetic when it's his turn. His tiny meows turn into an elongated 'meoooooowwwwwwww' when I ignore him. I'm certain it's a cat version of nagging. It just goes on and on until I do my job.
Then, there's the waking up game. Seth made sure that Blitz took over wake up calls when he was very young. If it's a Saturday and I'm snuggled deep in my covers, Blitz begins to leap on and off my butt. When I try to focus my eyes, I can see that it's only 6:03 in the morning, or sometimes 4:15 in the morning because it's nearly summer solstice and the sun rises earlier now. Seth only takes over if the communal food dish gets down to one layer of kibbles. That is an emergency. Then, at any hour, the whole house wakes up with his repeated siren call. I blame Mike because he gets up and puts kibbles into the bowl. I'm convinced the reason our house harbors two insomniacs is that we have these cats who live here and one tenderhearted man who will feed cats at any hour.
And now there are the baths.
I'm sure I've described how my shower time has been significantly cooled and extended because Seth opens the pocket door and comes in. Then, as all hot air escapes the room, he gets between the shower curtain and the liner and insists that I bathe him. This involves using my wet hand to wipe him from head to foot minus his butt because that is just too gross for either of us to contemplate, even when soap is available afterward. Then, when I've finished and dried myself off, I am to use a dry towel and sponge up all the wet fur so that Seth is nicely cleaned and relatively dry. He does this every other day.
So Blitz has begun to expect a bath every other morning as I'm trying to stay warm in my shower with the pocket door half open and all the steam escaped. This means that I add even more minutes to every shower and significantly lowers the temperature of the room to a chill as I stand naked in it after I'm out.
I look forward to about eighteen more years of this chilled and extended naked time after my showers because the old cat has taught the kitten how to pry open the pocket door just in case I thought about trying to close him out before I build up steam in the room.
That's what I get for thinking it good that the cat teach the kitten how to behave in my house, eighteen more years of early wake up calls and eighteen more years of being in a shower devoid of hot steam.
Thank you for listening, jb
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