CatDonna's Cats

I learn something new about cats everyday. These little events happened over the past couple of weeks. Right, let's get started:

1. Roach Hunt
I'm in the bedroom reading and I hear this loud, ominous "crash/thud" sound, the kind you don't need to hear when you're about to rest.

I come out to the living room and I see this: the five big kittens and two babies on the dining table, staring expectantly towards the ceiling. [The crash/thud was a fallen dining chair... prolly one of the cats pushed it a bit too hard while jumping up the table.]

Then a little bug head peeps out from behind one of the ceiling lamps, desperately looking around for a place, any place to hide. It's a cockroach, and a big three-incher.

All my life I'd never seen a frightened cockroach. Till now.

You can see the fear in its beady little eyes; for a moment I actually feel sorry for it. Then it flies for the wall -- a flash of black and orange fur -- and everything's over.

The winner is Polly, whose ferocious bloodlust and soaring leap leaves the rest eating her dust. She then plays with her roach very slowly, pulling off legs and gently batting the body into pieces so the roach stays alive to the end.

Even after we clear the mess and turn in for the night, Teddy is still on the dining table in quiet confusion, looking up at the ceiling and meowing quizzically.

2. Royal Flush
I'm sitting on the toilet. Yes, don't laugh, you poo too. Pip comes in for a bit. She likes to hang around when I'm showering, and she's guessing it's not far off.

So I let her sit on the cistern behind me. A minute later, the toilet flushes, apparently by itself. My butt is cold and wet. I turn to yell at Pip, and I see this: a paw on the flush button, a pair of green eyes widening at the significance of this new skill, and a criminally poker face.

And then Pip flushes the toilet again. With me still on it, and shrieking. I couldn't get up because I hadn't wiped yet, ok?

3. ...And they even tell you off
I've caught a cold and I'm sitting around feeling bleah. Then the sneezing attack starts and it's one of those loud and unstoppable, six-or-seven-at-a-shot snotty redfaced ones.

I thought I was alone in the room, so at first I wonder about the soft, high-pitched noise that follows each sneeze I make. Then I turn and Pip's lying on the table, evidently having just woken up from a nap. Her eys are half-closed and she's staring daggers at me.

The mystery is solved when I sneeze againandagain, and each time Pip moves her lips a bit and mutters peevishly, aiaiaiiiiiiiiiii.

This is Classic Pip: Patronising. Pissed off. Perfectly enunciated annoyance.

Just to test her I pretend to sneeze, pitting my feeble sense of humour against Her Imperial Haughtiness Pip the High-Priestess of Good Social Manners. In retaliation, Pip slowly blinks away -- she is offended at my presumption -- and ostensibly goes back to sleep. Now the stupid woman's shut up, the Princess can finally get some rest.


CatDonna