Early Caturday posting

Okay, so it’s Friday, not Caturday. But still.

So, remember all those goofy poses I caught Tig in?

Looks like his successor is going to be just as goofy. This is what I saw when I looked over from my downstairs laptop. The downstairs laptop is mine; the upstairs is the work laptop in a docking station. Tig follows me. The blanket is a fleece blanket that I picked up winter before last. I kept it on my chair this winter because it gets chilly downstairs, and the backs of my kitchen chairs are metal. I never wound up putting it away because, well, look at the picture. Somebody really likes it. Half the time, he’s underneath it and I see a grey lump right about where he’s lying.

I also discovered him in Tig 2 mode on my bed earlier today: Sprawled on his back with his paws in the air and looking utterly ridiculous. Apparently, that’s a Maine Coon thing, so we can look forward to more fluffy Tigger belly pictures. And he’s gained another half pound since I last checked his weight, so the boy is growing. He’s weighing in at over five and a half pounds, and he’s not quite five months old yet.

Tig’s got about a 75-25 record of sleeping in my room. About 25% of the time, he wants to play when I want to sleep, so after about two minutes of my saying “No!” as he jumps for my feet, leaps at my hands, races around the bed, and yowls for me to play with him, I catch him, throw him out, and close the door on him. And Gracie’s been coming into my room at night again, too, so it gets quite exciting from time to time. They’re taking turns chasing each other, I think. He literally chased her down the stairs the other day, because he was so excited that Aunt Gracie was upstairs with us that he ran over to her, which prompted her to make a hasty exit. Which made him think she was playing, so he ran after her, chasing her down the stairs. She’s such a wuss. But the other night, she came upstairs to sleep in my laundry basket, and held her ground when he came near. There was much hissing. I awoke to Gracie in the laundry basket, adding more fur to the dirty clothes in there. (I think I should go back to using the hamper, but then, I’m a softy for kitties, and Gracie can’t sleep in the hamper.)

One of the things that I find very interesting is that Tig has decided that he really likes playing on my bed. We have a nighttime game now: I throw rolled-up paper balls on the bed, and he chases them around (and off) the bed, retrieving them in his mouth and leaping back on the bed if they fall off. And he likes to chase the laser pointer on the bed, or strings, and all-around play on the bed. Well, when Tig and Gracie were kittens, I lived on the third floor of a converted house, and was careful about my neighbors. I encouraged the kittens to play on the bed, not on the floor. I’m in a townhouse apartment here, and don’t have to worry about neighbor noise, and Tig has free rein in the apartment. I’ve been getting him to run up and down the stairs chasing the laser pointer, because it’s just kitty noises, and doesn’t bother the neighbors. But still—it’s just a tiny bit eerie that he wants to play on the bed every night, like Tig the Second used to do.

Then again, it’s a whole lot of funny. He does all the classic kitten moves, including the leaping a foot straight up in the air before attacking the paper ball, turning around and pretending it was sneaking up on him, driving it under the blankets then trying to get it out, and, well, I laugh. Every night. Just like I used to do in the old days.

It’s a good thing.