jeff and i had a pre-4th barbecue dinner at my mom's tonight, and we just got home 10 minutes ago. just like every night, when we came home, smudge greeted us at the door (by trying to squeeze past us to go exploring) and then led us into the bedroom.  he always runs ahead of us and jumps up on the bed, spins around to make sure we're behind him, then flops down on his side and does the whole bunny-pose routine to get us to sit down and pay our respects. if we don't both devote a good ten minutes to reminding him how much we adore him, he gets all pissy.

tonight was no different. i went into the bedroom with smudge, and as he started wriggling on the bed to entice me, i kicked off my shoes and walked towards him. then my bare foot stepped on something cold, wet, and slimy.

i'm not proud of what happened next. "ew! what did i step in? jeff what is that? what is that? i stepped in it! i'm barefoot and i stepped in it!!!! I STEPPED IN IT!! WHAT IS IT? WHAT IS IT? WHAT IS THAT?!?!!!"

jeff, super nonchalant: "oh, he must have barfed up a furball. he was eating his fur last night." (when we brush him, he goes after the clumps of fur, even digging them out of the garbage, so he can eat them. if i'm the one who brushes him, i will make sure, UNLIKE SOME OTHER PEOPLE, that smudge does not get his paws on any stray tufts.)

while i was screaming and shrieking and generally freaking out, yelling at both the barfing cat and his permissive, enabling daddy, and the fact that he couldn't have done it on the white tile floors, he had to do it on the taupe carpet, ensuring it would not be easily seen or avoided, jeff just laughed. "you should have seen your face. priceless!" then, while i cleaned it up, he wandered off, giggling, "dinner at your mother-in-law: free. gas for the trip home: 45 cents. your wife stepping barefoot in your cat's fur-barf: priceless."

i don't know what to make of this. smudge has begun apologizing for bad behavior.  not for the carpet-shark attacks on my ankles, or the sinking of his fangs into the webby area between my thumb and forefinger, or the pounces onto my head as i sleep -- i guess he doesn't consider those to be misdeeds.

but there are some things he does that, if we chastize him strongly enough, smudge will come over and say he's sorry... 

...like when he jumps onto the sideboard, stands in front of the lcd tv, and starts raking his claws across the screen. we yell at him, and he turns around to look at us for a second, then turns back and starts swiping at it again. so i get up and walk over and point him to the carpet. after that happens, and i go back to the couch, he will follow me, and quietly walk up to me with his head hanging down, and wait until i say he's forgiven and scritch behind his ears.

...and the other day, i was on the exercise bike, and i guess smudge agrees with me that it's not a place i should be, because he usually swipes at me or tries to jump on behind me and bite my shoulders. this time, i had a hand towel next to me and i gave him a little swat to shoo him away. he ran for cover, but then came back and did the same thing - stood in front of me, head hanging, waiting for forgiveness.

i know this is his apology, because he never does it unless he was yelled at for being bad.  he does occasionally come up and ask for affection or scratching (very very occasionally) but it's never with that "hangcat" posture.

has he wised up and learned that the world does not revolve around him, and he needs to consider the consequences of his actions? or has he wised up and learned that if he pretends to say he's sorry, he gets some scritches and then is free to go and misbehave again?

not really much of a question, is it?

smudge hates our cleaning lady, sofina. that's well established.  it's become a war of escalation, and i'm afraid what will happen when he goes too far.

at first he just chattered and hissed.

then he started swiping at her.  so we gave her a spray bottle and told her to spritz him if he got fresh.

then the sprays didn't stop him. and one day, she was bent over picking something off the floor, when he climbed onto the bed and leaped off, landing on her back.

i started staying home when she was there, to keep an eye on him.  but i can't miss an afternoon of work every week. and i also can't hold him back -- he is very large and very strong. so we bought a lovely cage. big and roomy, we put a litter box in it, plus a bowl of ice water and some crunchies.

first he loved the cage. now he still likes it, except on friday afternoons. somehow he knows it's sofina day. (probably because that's the only day we've picked everything up off the floor so she can clean.) only then, when he sees us open the cage door, he hides under the bed. but as smart as he is, we usually get him in there.

so the cage worked. he just sat in there and watched sofina, occasionally hissing if she got too close.

then when she was near it, he would reach out and smack her. so she put a framed poster along the side where he grabbed at her.

then he started grabbing at her through the top of the cage.  so we covered it with blankets or pillows. but he still reaches through the blankets, or any little crack of vulnerability he can find.

so we bought a large, 4-panel, four-foot-high shoji screen, and we put that around the front and the other side of the cage. smudge is now enclosed on all sides: wall, poster, screen and screen.

today jeff just told me smudge has learned to reach out and knock the screen down.

UPDATE:  well, he did it. smudge finally got her. he reached out and slashed her hand. jeff said she put some bacetracin and a band-aid on it, but it's deep - almost bad enough to need stitches. this is ridiculous.

UPDATED UPDATE: sofina is done, she left for the day, i will apologize profusely next week and tell her she doesn't have to come within 3 feet of the cage from now on. hopefully that will be good enough and we won't be paying for her hand surgeon's kid's college education. jeff is home, and he let smudge out of the cage as soon as sofina left. smudge is now being super-cute and sweet to him. the little shit.

i just finally got flea killer onto minnie and dora yesterday and was going to do squeak today (i can't get near enough to ghost and shakes' necks, but i bought spray for them).

then last night my mother saw a report on the local news and made me watch it on the internet today. i'm sure it's all fearmongering, business as usual for these guys, but apparently that flea and tick stuff you put on your pet has killed thousands of animals so far. horrible seizures and violent deaths.  the pesticide they use is a potent nerve toxin. that video made me cry.

and minnie was really not herself yesterday after i dosed her.

i am never using that poison again.  if anyone out there knows of a good non-lethal option, please let me know.

smudge just ate the bell off the fish toy. one minute: "tinkle-tinkle" and next minute: silence.

i don't know what's gotten into smudge, but after a period of relative safety from attacks, the carpet shark has awoken. he has started attacking me constantly, swimming up silently behind me and leaping into the air to grab my wrist in his paws. or circling me as i try to walk into the bedroom and lunging at my ankles.  it's gotten so bad, he doesn't even stop when jeff steps in between us -- it used to be that when daddy appeared, smudge instantly turned off and became sweet angel kitteh. now he just tries to serpentine around him to get at me one more time.

stupid me. i decided to shake out the blankets before i went to bed. the first snap of a sheet is like a personalized invitation to smudge. and then i couldn't get into bed.

i think it's safe to go to bed now. smudge followed me to the computers, and is sprawled out across the desk between me and jeff, resting his head on jeff's forearm, while getting his ears scritched, and he has a completely blissed out look on his face. i think i even heard a little purring. so i'm sneaking back to the bedroom before he notices.  goodnight, all.

you know how smudge likes to drink from the bathroom faucet.  he sticks his head under the stream of water, and laps up the splash around the drain.  then he picks his head up, and stares cross-eyed at the water running down from his head, so he can catch the drops as they drop off his snout. it's absolutely adorable.

this morning, he was very thirsty. he must have been under that tap for a good minute and a half.  and when he came into the bedroom afterwards, i grabbed the camera.  of course, smudge is very uncooperative when you point a camera at him, but i managed to get a few grainy shots of his fauxhawk. (jeff got a couple of good ones on his phone, but i'm too impatient to get them from him.)

when i'm not laughing at him or taking pictures, i take a towel and hold it up in front of me. he walks over and drops his head down i can rub the top of his head until it's dry. such a good boy.

when we went to the craft store to get supplies for my big dresser papering job, jeff bought assorted stuff to try to make a substitute for smudge's favorite toy.  it used to be called "gone fishin" from hartz mountain, but they changed it -- it WAS a nubbin of fake fur and a feather and a bell, on a bungee. now it's a stuffed fish on a string.  you can't really blame smudge for refusing to play with that poor excuse for a toy.

so jeff bought some fake fur, and feathers, and beads and bells, and tonight he set up the table with all of that junk, and he is trying to craft a frankentoy for smudgie.

first, jeff stood in front of the drawer where we hid the supplies, and smudge hovered behind him, perched on an end table, trying to see over jeff's shoulder.  "what's going on, daddy? what are you doing? hey, what's that? what ya got there? what is that? heywhat'sinthedrawercaniseecanicanicanihuh?"

then jeff laid everything out neatly on the table. first smudge tried sitting on the couch, but jeff kicked him off. then smudge tried standing under the table, and reaching up with his paws to pull himself up and see, but jeff moved him aside.  then smudge jumped onto the table, and squanched himself down onto the cutting mat, and grabbed the sides of the table with his front paws. he MELDED with that cutting mat.  it took a great effort by jeff to slide him off the table, and smudge just kept jumping back up again.

i think smudge is affronted, because how could jeff not know that NOTHING CAN HAPPEN HERE WITHOUT SMUDGE'S DIRECT SUPERVISION AND OVERSIGHT.

the old toy on the right, and the new and improved model on the left. still needs some dangly feathers and fake fur, if you ask me, but it was impossible to get those to stick.

i went upstairs to the kitchen to make lunch, and figured i'd check and see what everyone's up to. (note: momma patches is not pictured, but she was sprawled out in a sunny patch on the deck. also not pictured is tuxedo, who showed up later and curled up on one of the deck chairs. but i got everyone else.)

first, minnie was in the same mood as me: hungry.

ghost and dora were napping on a couch. (or is that shakes?)
squeak was on the bottom shelf of the etagere on the deck, with shakes (or dora?) one floor up. the pictures are kind of dark - i took them through the bathroom window and if i opened it any more than it was, the noise would wake them.
nice holes in the screen, no? one of the joys of having cats.

uncle and father were under one of the deck tables. since nureyev left (have i mentioned he got adopted? yay!), uncle and father have been spending more time here. patches too. anyway, uncle spotted me taking pictures, but father is out cold.

after i took these, i went back to my desk (totally forgot about having lunch) and minnie decided to come back to work, too.