Ah Wait For Mah Eenvitation.

Ah wanted to jump on mom's lap whale she was layin' on the couch the uther day but Ah could tale she wasn't ready... Ah thank she was a beet preoccupied and what nawt.

So Ah went and sat a little further away, biding mah time. Ah figured, Ah'll give her her space.

And then she turned to me: "Gabriel? Wanna come up here?? "

Ah sure did, sure did. Ah got up promptly and walked over to her to join her.


... You see, Ah wait for mah eenvitation.


:) [Happens every time.}

The "V" Word

That's right. Gabriel knows the word "vacuum" rather well.

He was lounging up against the railing on the second floor hallway, his head leaning against one of the rails. And then I gave him the warning: "Gabriel? I'm going to v-a-c-u-u-m", I said.

His head immediately snapped upright, eyes widening, dilating: "Huh? aw.."...

He disappeared promptly.


:)

A Transfer of Anger and a Curved Neck

We had a serious cat fight this afternoon that I had to break up. Unfortunately, it looks like I helped create it to begin with.

We were all happily lying around together on the couch. Princess was snoozing on my feet, Gabriel nearby under the coffee table. He figured, he couldn't fit himself on my lap this time, it was an awkward position.. :)

Then Princess got up to go eat in the kitchen. Just as I was trying to cajole Gabriel to come up on the couch, stroking him and talking to him, I noticed that he suddenly turned all his attention to Princess. It was the fact that she went to the kitchen to eat. He got up on all fours, ears perked in her direction, and began to stalk his way to the kitchen.

"This is why she is so skinny... He's stopping her from eating every time she goes there... ", I thought. Well, I stopped HIM.

"Gabriel? NO, no.. ", I called but he fought me. He spited me and ran right into the kitchen straight to the bowls. "LET HER EAT!", I yelled. I knew that the moment he does that she starts to leave. I reached out and picked him up and brought him back to the couch. As we both sank deep, Gabriel got stuck between the couch and my body, all four white paws up in the air, his belly sunk down below me. There was no way he could move up, he was totally stuck.

This was a very unsettling feeling for him. Apparently, Gabriel does not like to feel out of control. I began to giggle a little, watching him try to come up with that oversized belly of his and he couldn't do it. He really had to struggle and yet he wouldn't use his claws on me to get a real hold to come up - he knew it would hurt me a lot if he were to dig into my legs. So he struggled a little more and finally he got his body to turn over the other way. Now he was back on all fours.

He looked up at me, eyeball - to- eyeball - he really looked very unsettled.. very perturbed, I could see it in his eyes.

"Ah can't belieeeeve this happened to me, gawd damn it! ." He jumped down from the couch and the first thing he did was to target Princess who was done eating and was now unsuspectingly grooming herself leisurely nearby. He got over to her and pounced. "STOP FIGHTINGf!", I yelled from the couch. They split up for a few seconds.

I knew this wasn't good when he went back and started curving his neck menacingly at her for the second round, raising his body and neck to make sure he's higher than her. I could tell she didn't know what had hit her, why was he so mad. She crouched in response which is very unusual for her. He continued to take this threatening stance. The next thing that usually happens after a cat stands over the other with the neck curved is the shrilly 'yelling'. Of course, in OUR household, we don't do this sort of thang... (we don't know how).

I really had to step in on this one; I fret that he may hurt Princess inadvertedly, even though he loves her so much, because she is so small boned and tiny, and he is three or four times her size. She ran downstairs to get away from him and he tried to follow her but I stopped him. At least he listened to me and stopped - now he could tell I was pissed. He continued to have that shocked and confused look in his face now that he discovered that he was not going to be allowed to bully her to that extent.

..At least, I did not hear any squeals for the next half hour and Princess came up to watch me lift the barbell weights so... it seems like it was all good.

Kick-Ass Trimming

Gabriel's special grooming sessions continued. I had to get some other big knots around his derriere. That cat has a luscious, long fur complete with a permanently puffy tail. So I worked on him some more the other day, clipping away all the impossibly knotted, matted hair - I basically gave him what they call at the groomers a "hygienic shave".

He took it well. He let me do it, is the point, while lying on my bed. After a while, he decided to take control himself; he sat up belly-up, spread his fluffy hind legs, and focused on the very area I was working area ("Awkay: let me do that mahself now.")

A while later he came down to the kitchen. I was already down there when I turned and looked at both of them. Princess was trailing him, her nose aimed at his derriere. She had that curious look, when her neck stretches out and she wants to know or understand something:

"So... what happened Googie? Come again? You say, she was doing something on your butt? !!"

"Aw.. drop it, Pipi, awkay? It's all over now and I just want to go over to the bowls here and eat...", Gabriel kept walking toward the food bowls, trying to ignore her.

:)

The Carrier and the Vet

Princess got a new carrier a while back, a hand-sewn pink number with her name on it. She got a pink-Princess carrier basically.

So we finally got to use it last week when we had a short little visit at the vet's to find out why she is still so underweight.

We came back home and I left the carrier in an unusual spot - kind of randomly on the floor in the middle of the rec room.

A few days later I catch sight of something dark under the daybed, clear on the other end of the room: it was the Princess carrier. She had actually pushed it all the way over there, out of sight.

Or at least, I think it was her... Maybe it was Gabriel, who just hates leaving the house in those carriers. Maybe he figured, he will reassure her by trying to hide the carrier, put it out of sight. (One of the two did anyway!)

:)

That Dress

Mom came back in today and I just wasn't happy again with certain things.. like the state of my litter box, for example. I've been trying to tell her I'm not happy for a while now but she's not getting it. So, I did it again. I went ahead and snuck a pi right where she SITS. ON the couch in the living room.

She didn't quite get it until she sat right on it. She was wearing a new dress I hadn't seen before.

Next thing I know, she starts coming at me kind of slowly. "Princeeeess??"

Oh-no. I can smell my own pi on that dress, and she's holding it now in her hands, walking toward me..!

"Princesss? Honey?" [YES, I was gonna rub it in her face when I got a chance]. Oh-no - I'm not gonna let that happen. The closer she walked toward me, the faster I started scurrying away. I KNOW what she wanted to do with that dress.

I ran up the stairs, out of her way, down the stairs, what have you.


.... Well, okay, she finally did catch up with me, and well... I did get a bit of my own pi smell on my snout but hey- you can't have everything.

[She just KNEW THAT dress was no good news, didn't she...]

Bad Cat

I'm going through another heat cycle here, being Princess - the - cat. And so, I found it imperative to leave some of my pi on mom's bed again. Right where she puts her head, pretty close anyway.

I waited until she was busy in the small room [bathroom] before I did my deed.

Happy she was not. I waited for the wail, which did come - and as soon as I heard it and saw her face ... I mean, I did hear the "F--!" word and my ears went down and I scurried off.

She eventually came down to the kitchen where Gabriel and I were hanging out and yelled at me: "YOU?! Are a BAD CAT!!!". I looked straight at her, stopping in mid-track in the middle of the kitchen floor with my eyes wide open and dilated, my ears flat going flat down. Oh-no - Now, that was NOT a good word... "bad cat" is just not what I need to hear.

So then, Gabriel started scratching his claws where he wasn't supposed to. A-HA! - I thought. Here is my chance to REDEEM myself and become an ... UN- "Bad Cat": I ran over to Gabriel in front of mom, just moments after she had just called me a "f-ck", and stopped him from scratching more.

:)

The Reincarnation Story

A new permanent link has been posted at the bottom of the page. You can scroll down to the end and read what happened after Princess I passed.

Perturbed Pet Grooming - Part II

I had to take matters into my own hands - and scissors.

After stroking Gabriel's back numerous times and feeling those knots on his fur, I realized there was no other reasonable solution than to cut them off. (The vet wants $90.00 to clean him... ) So I bided my time. I was gonna get him when he was relaxed and preoccupied.

I saw him looking out the window, perched by the bedroom's window sill. He was definitely preoccupied, looking out for birds. So I snuck up on him and started stroking him. And clipping. Clipping away those stuck hairs right on his lower back where there was no way he could get to them.

He was beginning to look like he had a mohawk! for god's sakes!.

So as I clipped, at first he didn't realize what was going on. His fur is so thick, with so many layers. But with each clip, I tempted fate and dropped his bright red fur tufts right in front of him, under his nose ... on the window sill.

"HUH?!!... Whaat ees thiis?", he looked at the first drop and put his nose on it. "What in the world? How did this get there? That's mane, ain't eet?? ".

At least he continued to sit in place. I had to repeat this grooming session when he got on the bed. More tufts falling in front of him. And yet he could not feel a thing as I clipped away, he had a few big knots that had to be clipped in steps.

"Hey, haww .... haww did this get there? What's going AWN here?..", he appeared a bit confused and slightly perturbed. This was a new experience for him and he wasn't sure about it. He finally realized I was holding something in my hand, the small pair of scissors. "Awww.. 'dat's whare the noise is coming from?? What the hell EES this thing?? ", he looked at me, a bit unsettled again. He knew I was working on him with 'this thing'.

"It's okay, Gabriel. I am CLEANING you", I intonated for him. He knows what "all clean" and "cleaning" means, even though I am not the anal cleaning housewife type, a-la "Ordinary People"... let's hope not.

He settled although he did not appear to be too happy. He knew he had lost a bit of his fur, seeing the red tufts fall under his nose.

"Hey! Ah really don't wanna be DONE OVER here! " (no paw scratching or screaming, thank you.)

:)

Perturbed Pet Grooming

Hah, y'awl... Ah gawt to tell ya, mah special time with mom the other mornin' didn't really turn out to mah liking too muuch.

You see, Ah like to follow mom every mornin' into the small room and Ah have mah special time with her there. Ah like to park it right bah her side, happy as ever, and she strokes me and talks to me in return. Mand ya, Pipi does not disturb us during that time. She don't like mom smothering her too much, whale Ah on the uther hand just love it when mom picks me up and hugs me on her lap. We're both so happy together like that, Ah could let her hug me fouraver.

But this uther day? Eet deedn't quite work out that way. Mom started cleaning a spot on my belly, really getting to it, geeving it way too much attention for mah taste. She got me so perturbed, Ah had to use mah paw to gently push her away a leetle.

And then Ah walked to mom's [bedroom] and climbed on the 'beddie-bye' just so Ah could concentrate on that damned spot she was so eenseestent awn. Mah ears went down a beet, Ah was definitely unsettled becowze Ah am a clean kand of catman. Let me take over here, little lady, it's MAH body and AH will clean it good and ready, awkay??

[Gabriel's fur is quite long -Angora-like long, and he's beginning to get knotted fur where he can't reach. He can't keep up with it, the fur's too long and too much for him to upkeep. ]

Pipi's Priorities

It's really important that "Pipi" (Princess) eats as much as possible. She is still underweight and she only nibbles a few morsels of food before she flits off (and then I have to return her back to the bowl where she'll eat more - we do this a couple of times at least).

So, I should have known better the other day when I filled her bowl with her favorite wet food flavor and began to walk away downstairs to leave. She had begun to chow down in ernest, so I thought, we're good.

Not so.. As I was tying my jogging shoe strings downstairs, who do I see barreling down the steps but .. "Pipi". She looked up at me with surprise, her neck stretched out, tail twitching ... pretty much eye-balling me:

"Mom? What? Are you like.. LEAVING? .. I didn't realize that... "

I mean, she actually left her favorite wet food, hungry as she was, to walk down and find me...

(... I should be so lucky that I don't have a separation-anxiety situation like some people do with their dogs! )

:)