Cats

Cats are weird.

And if you think that you may vaguely remember this photo, that's possible. I might have used it before. I was too lazy to get out the camera just now (when I decided to blather about the cats) to take a new one, so I'm recycling.

That's Max on the left and Penny on the right. Or, Smack on the left and Lumpy on the right. They answer to either. Or at least I call them either. They don't seem to mind.

Because they're cats, some of you are saying. Don't let that fool you. Cats know their names; sometimes they just don't care that you're calling them, that's all.

Technically these are my father's cats because I can't have pets in my apartment, but since I'm here pretty much every weekend I'm considered part of the service crew as well. If Lumpy demands a shoulder ride around the house or Smack wants his belly rubbed at too freaking early in the morning, I'm the one on call.

It's funny how cats decide that different people are good for different things. Penny knows that I'm the one to go to for shoulder rides, and if she wants to sit with someone she'll sit beside my father but on me. She's only a part-time lap cat, I guess. And as far as Max goes, my father's the nighttime person and I'm the morning person. Max has his set rounds. He also knows that I can be suckered into filling his treat ball in the morning if it's empty, while the father figure generally can't be.

Hmmm. Let's sidetrack for a moment from the cats' general weirdness and talk about the treat ball (which, before anyone says anything about the use of too many treats, I should tell you that we fill with regular cat food. It's just a different cat food from what's in their dishes, so the cats think it's treats. Works for all of us). I said it was his treat ball because it originally was, but I suppose it's their ball now. You see, when we got the ball years ago Max figured it out pretty quickly. Bat the ball with your paw; food comes out. Penny, on the other hand... well, Penny's a bit... shall we say floaty? That'll work. Penny knew that there was food in the ball, she'd watch Max get it out, she'd snap up any of the leftovers on the floor... but she never really got the concept of the ball itself. "Come on, Penny. Hit the ball. Food will come out. You can do it." Her answer? Usually a blank stare and a meep. Well, later a maow. It took a while for her full voice to develop.

Anyway.

One day (years later. Literally years) Penny nudged the ball a tiny bit with her nose. She may have been trying to lick it or something, I don't know. Whatever she was aiming for, the ball moved and food came out.

It was Penny's eureka moment.

Now poor Max has to share his secret food stash. He still uses his paw and Penny still uses her nose, but they're both equally capable of getting food out of a plastic ball. A useful skill to have, don't you think?

I suppose I should take a pointless photo of Max and his ball, because he really does have finesse with the thing. And then you'd be able to see (getting back to weirdness) that he currently has no eyebrows.

I have no idea why. Something must have irritated his eyes and he overgroomed, maybe. All I know is that when I came here last weekend the cat had no hair above his eyes. None on the lids, either. It's starting to grow back now, but he looks pretty freaky.

Appropriate for the day, I suppose.

Happy Halloween, everyone. Stay away from weird cats.




Which, I suppose, would be all of them...