the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

new phrase, like 4 alarm chili, but not as pleasant

I came up with a new phrase this morning at 2am, and in the interest of avoiding real responsibility, will tell you all about it.

To begin somewhere....the new addition to the family, Seamus   , hasn't settled in yet.

He is still a bit intimidated by

the puppy, Coffee,

who play-bows, woofs, and whines everytime she sees him.

And come on...just how intimidating can that puppy be?

Also, because Seamus doesn't yet eat the same food at the rest of the cats (instead of grain-free food, he's still on kitty junk food: Purina kitten chow), he gets fed upstairs in the bathroom while the rest of the cats get their victuals here on the main floor.

Combined, these temporary arrangements have given Seamus the notion that he owns the master bedroom and bath on the second floor (except when Coffee is loose up there).

We don't spend a lot of time up there during the day. It's pretty much a place to feed the kitten, read, occasionally play board games, and sleep. The kitten thus has attention deficit disorder.* (Come to think of it, we can just make that ADHD and be done with it. He is a kitten, after all, so instead of body mass, he has energy.**)

* He doesn't get enough attention.

** You'd think physics would have found a way to harness this phenomenon by now.

The sleeping arrangements are as follows: Coffee goes in her cage because she will still chew random objects (usually Mich's shoes--the expensive ones) when she feels neglected.* I suppose good parents would just give her all the attention she wanted instead of jailing her, but we aren't good parents. We're preparing her for life: you will feel neglected from time to time and you need to learn to deal with it.

* When she's bored, she chews bones and chew toys like she's supposed to.

Maxx has his own bed a few feet away from Coffee's cage. The bed and furniture and night stands are free-range cat area.* The cat arrangement is dynamic over weeks, days, and sometimes mere hours. The adult cats, if left to their own devices, will scatter themselves over me or sometimes take up positions on the corners of the bed, like griffins.

* If they lay eggs, we can market them.

The night begins with Seamus pouncing into the big middle of this Lion's Den to see what happens. Keep in mind that he weighs a mere two pounds eleven ounces right now. He's almost entirely fur. If nothing happens, he'll crouch and wiggle behind a lump of comforter, homing in on one of the huge adult cats,* then he'll pounce.

* Or one of our feet. Or a pencil. Or anything, really.

If he pounces at Phlebas, he'll usually get a playmate out of the deal.  Phlebas is the grey one here.

Gracie is the calico.

Gracie is a bit persnickety about who she plays with. For some reason,* she'll play with Phlebas. The rest of the felines and the mutts are off limits to her, though. She is the queen and Phlebas is her jester, but only when she's in the mood.

* Attrition.

Seamus likes to pounce at Gracie, too, probably for the same reason Phlebas pesters Mouse and Coffee chases Seamus: the thrill of getting a rise.

So we have this complex ecosystem, see, which has been upset with the kitten virus. The way the system works, pre-kitten, is this: Gracie decides she's hungry. It doesn't matter how late we feed her; she decides she needs more foodstuffs between 2 and 4:30am. We won't get up just to feed a beached whale, so she finds something vertical that rattles if she bumps it, like a shut door or the panel on the outside of the tub, then rears up and hits it repeatedly with her front paws. Think of a boxer training with a rhythm bag, and you have the picture.

bam bam bam bam bam bam bam

She does this until she's ready to take a break, at which time Phlebas gets in the ring. His method is to jump on a nightstand (always overloaded with laptops and pencils and books etc.) and knock things off. WHAP clunk WHAM. Then he walks across the bodies in the bed none too gently to the other nightstand and do the same thing until someone swats him down.

Over time, this becomes more of a snooze alarm than anything else. If you can hit the snooze in your sleep, you can hit a cat.

There is silence for a while, then Gracie starts again. Then Phlebas. Then Maxx (the turncoat) decides now is a good time for him to go pee. He gets up and starts pacing.

Click click click click click click *shake* *JINGLE*             pause

click click click click click click

pause                   click click                                      pause

The break in rhythm is oddly disturbing.

If not stopped, this will become a symphony.

bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam click click click click *jingle* WHAM click click click bam bam bam bamma bamma bamma* CLUNK

* Gracie can get some reverberation going.

No meows. No barks. No whines. Yet.

Mouse has developed her own technique. You can think of her as the gentle flute section. She curls up next to my head and purrs furiously. She doesn't just purr, by the way. She purr-squeaks, sort of a high pitched, breathy, r-r-r-r  r-r-r-r  r-r-r-r-r-eak. I cannot ignore this. I scratch her cheeks, which amplifies her pleasure. Maxx is still pacing.

click click click click *JINGLE jingle jingle*

WHAM

bambambambam pause R-R-R-R R-r-r-r R-R-R-R-EAK

click click click bam bam bam

bamma bamma bamma CLUNK R-R-R-R-R-R-r....

Every living being in the room is awake now. Only the humans are feigning sleep. The first person to give any sign of wakefulness gets to take out the dog and feed the cats.* If Mich's breathing** so much as changes, I'll nudge her with my foot. (Speaking is deadly at this point. It means you're really awake and the duty falls to you. These things have rules.)

* Or just throw them in the basement. But it's easier to just feed them.

** Snoring

Eventually, the menagerie wakes Coffee, who moves around in her cage and whines softly. You want to get the problem resolved before Coffee is brought out of her coma.

Seamus, since being introduced to the garage band, has found his niche. He'll be curled at your ribs (you can't feel his weight, really, but there will be one spot inexplicably warmer than the rest) until Gracie starts. He'll perk up. As the noises build to a crescendo, he'll get excited and begin pouncing on latent cats or toes.

Movement of the target is not necessary. As a matter of fact, we move less when the noise starts than we do in normal sleep. That is, in order to avoid leaving the coziness of the bed for a trek to the back door and to the kitten feeding table, we feign death.

This has no effect on the kitten. Now I understand why they play with dead mice: if the mice are anything like dead human feet, they'll eventually come back to life. Perseverence is key.

So there I am, see....sleeping contentedly. There are warm, snoozy kitty spots around and on me. Then...

bam bam bam bam bam bam bamma bamma

*pause*

WHUMP pad pad pad

CLINK

JINGLEJINGLEJINGLE click click click click click                                     pause

bambambamBAMBAMBAMBAMMABAMMa bam bat

WHAM

click click click click click jingle

POUNCE

click

POUNCE POUNCE

POUNCE

POUNCE

pause

r-r-r-r r-r-r-r-r-r  r-r-r-r-r-r R-R-R-R-R-R-EAK click click click click WHAM pad pad pad WHACK

*JINGLE*

It's like Seal training. I could probably deal with waterboarding.

So when I say I'm 4 cats awake, I really mean I'm 4 cats and 2 dogs awake.

And now Mich wants chickens. Lord help me.

d