nuisance cat

Grumpy Cat

/ Shane / 4 Comments

Nala has acquired a taste for human flesh. Specifically Sara’s flesh. Every opportunity she gets, she sinks some fang into the back of Sara’s feet. Sara can be just walking around, minding her own business and then out of nowhere, fang in the achilles. She sometimes attacks me, but very rarely. She’s too frightened of the kids to try it with them.

Nala is about 13 now, and I think she is getting grumpy in her old age.

It’s not just the attacking either, she has suddenly become very particular. She will no longer drink water from a bowl. For a long time she has been gradually turning her nose up at her water bowl. At first I thought it was something to do with the bowl, so I tried several different bowls and different schedules for replacing the water. She continued to drink out of it less and less until now she refuses altogether. Instead, she either drinks out of the toilet, sometimes trying to jump in as soon as you lift the lid, or out of the bathtub, sometimes while you are taking a shower. I have to admit, at first I was worried about her hydration, since she seemed so desperate to get a drink. But then I remembered that she had a big bowl of fresh water sitting there that she was refusing on principle to drink. Makes it hard to feel bad for her.

However, I think we have finally crossed the line. Nala has suddenly decided that she no longer wants to go to the bathroom in her litter box. If I clean the litter box, she will deign to give it one use, but after that she’s done, usually preferring the bathmat.

Well I’m sorry, but I’m not cleaning the litter after each use, Mrs. Queen of Sheeba.

I’m not sure what to do about this exactly. You can’t really reason with a cat. Combine all of these things with a return to meowing outside our door before 6 every morning, and I’m kind of at wit’s end. I understand that the older generation may be entitled to a little bit of persnicketiness, but this is going too far.

Why is my life just a series of showdowns with my cat?

Is this the line for the piggy-back rides?

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Because sometimes it’s not as much about finding a comfortable place to sit, as it is about displaying dominance.

Dear Maids

/ Shane / 5 Comments

If you are going to come while we are on vacation (so that we have to stress about picking up our house while we are trying to get ready to go) and won’t be home for a week, then please make sure with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that you do not leave the door to the litter box shut. Because that would be bad. Almost like the opposite of cleaning our house.

In other news, does anybody know what about 7 days of cat urine and feces does to a treadmill?

More Search Terms

/ Shane / 1 Comment

As I mentioned in my previous post on the subject, I am endlessly fascinated by some of the things that people google which result in them landing on my blog. So here are some of the highlights. These are broken down into a few categories of amusement, 1) what the heck was that person searching for, 2) how did that search land on my blog, 3) I don’t know why someone was searching for that, but amazingly, I have a blog post for them!

What the heck was that person searching for?

  • ‘tactical mayonnaise’ – Lunch tactics? Or war tactics?
  • ‘resplendent start with the dead’ – I don’t know what that means, but I’ve had that one no less than 4 times!
  • ‘pull out fingernails’ – Yeesh. No thank you!
  • ‘human zombie cat’ – Yeesh! NO THANK YOU! Stitch together your sick creations on someone else’s blog thank-you-very-much. I have enough trouble with a living, non-human-hybrid cat.
  • ‘jelly fish hunting fighting boats’ – What could that even mean? It conjures images of sea battles with giant mutant jelly fish.

How did that search land on my blog?

These are usually things that I don’t believe I’ve ever talked about, but I do in fact agree with or support. So it’s like Google detected that these people think like me and led them to my blog, despite me never mentioning anything of the sort.

  • ‘are “two question” marks aggressive’ – I don’t know how they found me, but for any future searches on this topic: Yes. Yes they are.
  • ‘awesome cat’ – Okay, I had a couple of hits on this one, but I’m not sure how those found me. I have the opposite. But I did get a hit on ‘nusiance cats’, so that one I understand.
  • ‘what do zombie pirates say?’ – I really don’t know. But I kind of feel like, if anybody should know, I should know, right?
  • ‘where there be pirates’ – Was this a search by an actual pirate?!
  • ‘i grit my teeth when i pet my cat’ – My favorite, hands down. It describes my position exactly. I don’t think I ever said that on my blog though, so how did they end up here?

I don’t know why someone was searching for that, but amazingly, I have a blog post for them!

  • ‘big headed chiquita bananas’ – Lead to this post, in which I mention the chiquita banana lady, but not the size of her head.
  • ‘bacon evie’ – Now those are good search terms for finding me! I get a lot of ‘erith1 is this thing on?’ searches, but those are more obvious. What if ‘bacon evie’ was looking for someone else?
  • ‘litter box in bathroom curtain AND cat peed on curtains why’ – I soo feel for the desperation of the person searching for this. Now, my cat didn’t pee on my curtains, but my story did involve both cat pee and a curtain. So I wasn’t too far off.
  • ‘picklerita’ – Wow, I actually had a good post for them! There can’t be that many picklerita posts out there.
  • ‘she toot on me’ – ::sigh:: but I did get a ‘toot hole’ search, so maybe the phrase is catching on!

Quote Monday is back to Monday

/ Shane / 2 Comments

I used to put quotes up on Mondays, because I spent so much time with Evie on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, that I had a lot of quotes to talk about. It sort of became a regular feature of the blog. Lately though it has been skipping around a little bit. I make no promises for the future, but for today its back to Monday!

Nala: meowing like crazy outside Evie’s door
Me: wishing death in every possible way on the cat
Evie: “Nala! Be quiet!”
Nala: falls silent

Who knew that after all this time, Evie has the power to command the cat?! And here I always worried Nala would wake her up, it turns out that would be the best thing for all of us!

Evie and I went to see a Christmas play at a church the other day. She was following along with the action, but at one point, she got really upset. She understood that Mary and Joseph were looking for a place to sleep. What she couldn’t understand was why that was a problem, when there were so many unused benches at the back of the church. She was really upset about it, I had to shush her a couple of times as her insistence got louder and louder. She would point toward the back of the church and say, “But there’s benches! Right there!” I got the impression that she was about to run up to the front and make the suggestion, but the play had moved on by that point. She didn’t let it go for the rest of the play, asking about every 5 minutes, “Is someone going to come sleep on these benches?”

::singing “Hey Diddle Diddle” about 20 times in a row::
“Mommy, can we sing Row Row Row Your Boat? I am sooo tired of Cat and the Fiddle.”

“I can comb your hair and then you can comb my hair, daddy.”
“Okay, that’s fine.”
::combing big circles around the outside of my head::
“I’ll comb the outside because there’s no hair in the middle.”