smudge is a very neat cat. everything must be where it belongs. chaos makes him nervous. so, you can imagine how he feels about jeff's workspace.
this cat is so neat, he even eats in a straight line.
sometimes, he just needs to lie down on the kitchen floor to collect himself (note bruno on the right, which smudge brought in and left there).
in the morning, after i shower, if i go back into the bathroom for something, i often walk in on smudge licking the bathtub. what's been driving me nuts is the face he makes -- he looks up from the tub with a surprised, guilty expression and a second later, he bolts from the room, like i've discovered his deep dark shameful secret -- he's a tub-licker! i know i've seen that startled face somewhere before, but i could just never place it, and it drove me nuts. until this morning.
when minnie comes to cuddle, there is no doing anything else until she is satisfied. if i don't hold her, she tries to climb up my legs, usually getting knocked off when she reaches my ribcage and her super sharp claws dig in like - what are those things rock climbers use?
anyway, it's easier to just let her curl up in your arms against your chest. you can sort of type around her, and sooner or later she either decides it's time to go elsewhere, or she falls asleep. if i'm really lucky, i can get her to accept the chair next to me, as long as it's right up against my thigh, and i keep one hand on her at all times. then she'll fall pretty deeply asleep and i can get some work done for about an hour.
the other day, she was a perfect circle of calico, snoozing away, and i snuck to the kitchen for my afternoon snack - a cup of coffee and a teaspoon of peanut butter. when i came back, she was still sleeping, so i put down the cup and rested the spoon on a clean post-it on my desk.
within 10 seconds, minnie's head was up, sniffing the air. before my eyes, she became the cartoon bloodhound, following scent trails through the air, led by her nose to the prize. but she had no idea what she was looking for, only that it smelled good. so i grabbed the spoon and moved it to the other side of the keyboard. she found the first spot, snorted around, and then was back on the trail, stomping right across the keys on her way to the source of the mystery smell. she still had no idea what it looked like, or what it was, but she knew it was something she had to investigate.
i got the spoon away half a second before she found it, but even though she saw it, she still didn't realize that the spoon was the source of the smell/treat, and she homed in on the post-it. she licked the little grease spot a few times before realizing, no, that can't be it.
when she turned around and fixed her shrewd green eyes right at the spoon hanging from my mouth, i picked her up and hustled her out the door.
i do not share my peanut butter with anyone, no matter how intrepid a detective they may be.
i don't know what makes smudge pick one personality over another, but if i'm alone at the computer and smudge jumps up on my desk, 9 times out of 10 it's bad news. he sits there and bites at my hands if i put them near the desk, which makes it impossible to move the mouse, or use the keyboard. if i lean back and hide my hands, he yowls and swings wildly.
the only thing that gets me any respite is jeff's empty chair next to me. i tap on the seat, and smudge jumps on, then i spin the chair around and around. smudge waits until the chair is facing away from me and pops up over the back, trying to snag me with his claws as i push the chair. when i get enough momentum, i let go, and as the chair spins a few more times, smudge lies down, grabs one of the arms with his front paws, and enjoys the ride.
it's not like i can get any work done that way, but i love the crazed expression on his face when he springs up over the chair back. and it's my hope that one day i'll get him so dizzy that he'll just stagger off.
usually i can avoid the claws when i'm spinning the chair, and i don't think he's really trying to hurt me, because he's grabbing at the top of the seat and my hands are at the bottom. but last night, he caught me on the wrist.
are you familiar with the noise skin makes when it's being torn? it's just like fabric ripping. this was a quick tear, so it sounded more like a pop. i couldn't really look very closely at it, just that it looked deep, so i held my wrist together and ran to jeff.
it could be worse, i could be one of those who faint at the sight of their own blood, but i panic and cry. jeff was great, he washed my wrist and bandaged it with gobs of bacetracin, and put me to bed, and brought me jello, all the while trying to calm me down.
and smudge very wisely stayed the hell away from me the rest of the night.
