"Pet Tails": the latest in dinner-theater

They say that owners begin to look and act like their pets after a while. Me? I think its more like the pets begin to look and act like their owners.

One of the things I have to do with my cats is sometimes watch them when they go to eat new food in their dish because I have learned that Tabby has a tendency to eat too much and too quickly. For whatever reason she does it, if I don't stop her after a few seconds she will eat too much and then wander off and within about 5 minutes she'll vomit. But if I can control how much she first eats, then I usually can prevent this getting sick.

However, in the past several weeks I have begun to notice something that is rather unusual. I've had Porkey and Tabby since fall of 2001. Athena since spring of 2002. Whiskers since late summer 2004, and Sylvester since spring of 2005. All of a sudden it seems in the past 2 or 3 months or something, at night I will get home and go to eat supper. And for whatever reason.....

I'll have an audience as I eat supper. I will be sitting on the couch enjoying my supper of whatever food I have cooked, and usually I'll have one or two or three cats sitting on the floor in front of me in various positions ... watching me. Seriously, they're just sitting there watching me. Usually one of the cats, mostly Whiskers, will get up on the couch beside me. He'll lay down in a comfortable position and just observe me from a closer position.

Once in a while one of the three, most of the time either Whiskers or Sylvester, will attempt to just get right in close at my plate. I'm sitting right there and my face is right there and they're daring to get in close like that to my plate??

This is like a bad-version of a entertainment dinner theater. Except... I'm not only the one eating the food, but I am the one being watched for the entertainment.

"Pet Tails": This bed is crowded

One of my cats' routines is that as the weather gets colder out, they seem to gravitate toward places in the apartment that are warmer. Typically that is usually the bed. What place would be warmer than where their owner sleeps on a bed covered in comfy pillows and blankets and such. During the summer, they aren't as much up on the bed with me at night. During the summer months they're more often found in the living room on the couch, sleeping overnight in the bathroom (strange, I know), or just whereever they feel like it - underneath the bed as well. So as the weather gets chillier outside, this presents some really interesting and silly situations at night time or early in the morning when I get up.

Such as this very morning....

Even though I have nothing to get up for until work at 11:30, I do usually wake up M-F at about 6am. Why so early? Because a radio show I enjoy listening to starts on the radio at 6:05am and goes until 10am. So not wanting to be up period all so early and wanting something to listen to at work that is silly and funny, I will get up at 6 to start my mp3 player recording off the radio station. Then I can just listen to it when I get to work (kinda like tape-delayed). So this morning while my alarm was set to go off at 6, I for some reason woke up out of my sleep at 5:30. instead of going back to sleep, I laid in bed just kinda relaxingn for the next 30 minutes.

As I did, I began to observe things that were around me. What cats did I have up on the bed around me? Athena was kinda laying up on the pillow up above my head. Tabby was laying on the pillow on the other side of the bed from me. Whiskers? Laying about half way down my legs, and off to the same side of the bed where Tabby was. Porkey? Laying down at the corner of that side of the bed, about near my feet. Sylvester? up on this cat "perch" I created by overturning a clothes basket and putting a thick blanket in it and stacking on top of a few storage totes.

However, after laying around until my alarm was going to go off, they began to shift and adjust their positions. Not very much except for Sylvester then joined us on the bed. So just before the 6am mark, I was laying in bed and noticed: Athena, Tabby, Whiskers, Sylvester and Porkey were all laying up on the bed with me. However, observing that I was semi-awake, Whiskers decided to come say hi at a closer view. So he got up on my side and laid there. Kneaded his paws and then just laid down on my side. Fine for a while until I had to roll-over. When I did he got back down and laid back down on the bed near me.

Why they were all up on the bed at the same time? Who knows. I did look around at them and asked them if they all wanted me to do something for them. And for a little bit, I had all five looking at me. That's right: five sets of eyes looking my way and five stomachs probably aching to tell me to go fill their food dishes. It was just the funniest sight.

Of course when I finally needed up get up and out of bed, and went out into the kitchen/living room some of them followed me. Then went to their food dish and patiently waited for some food. After feeding them, starting my mp3 player and using the bathroom, I returned to bed to catch some more Zzzzz's. Shortly thereafter the cats returned slowly.

Soon we were right back where we were. Tabby and Athena laying up on the pillows by my head. Porkey and Whiskers were laying up near my upper half, with Porkey taking a spot between me and Tabby. And then Sylvester was either down at the foot of the bed again or he got back up in the "cat perch" tower.

Its quite interesting how the cats will hang out with me on the bed at night time and then closer to morning they seem to gather and take up spots on the bed. At times I think they have agendas that they try to accomplishm. One of the biggest being to get me up to go put food in their dishes that they emptied overnight. One way they accomplish this is by laying close enough to my body on top of the blankets so that I can't move. By doing so I believe they know that they can prevent me from moving and thus will eventually wake up. They have other tricks up their hairy but shirtless sleeves.

The only question I have for them is.... do they hang around on the bed in the morning as a way of being cute, or is it a devious ploy to get me up?

I never even got into explaining how I will get up and then before I can return back to the bed to get some more sleep in the morning some of them will retake their spots on the bed quicker than I can and there's barely room enough for me. Hell, some times they take back MY spot on the bed!

.... and a photo of me

And this is me! The one of the right, obviously.

a photo introduction of my cats

A brief pictoral introduction to my cats:

Sylvester

Athena

Porkey

Tabby

.... and Whiskers.

my first blog

The job I work at involves reading media articles from various sources - including television, internet, newspapers, magazines and such. It has been from the internet articles that I have had to read that I have learned about "Blogspot.com". I do also have a blog going on my daily adventures, thoughts, and stories involving my five cats (Porkey, Tabby, Athena, Whiskers, & Sylvester) on my webpage at MySpace.com, but I thought it might be good to have an additional source to post my blogs at. I like it when people read my posts, but I've been hesitant about letting some of my fellow co-workers read my writings. Why is that so? Some have shown that they're all about reading what I have to say but they never bother talking to me at all, and they've taken some extreme reactions to posts I have written....which haven't even been about them.....and they've shown displeasure to me. In other words: they're OVER-REACTING!

So here is my first post. First of more to come. As long as my cats do silly and crazy things, I will always have something to say.