The new cats we adopted in August came equipped with terribly mundane names. I believe cats choose their own names, and the mundane ones simply didn’t fit. After less than 24 hours with our new fur kids, it was clear that their true names were Mischief and Mayhem. Mischief is heavy and less than graceful, but hardwired to be a huntress. Mayhem, on the other hand, is lithe, laid back, and cuddly — but he has a substance abuse problem:
dragonet2
October 3, 2006 at 4:56amROTFLMAO
It took a great deal of yelling to get Aja to stop doing this, until we finally left the damn bathroom door shut for several years when it was uninhabited. She also had a jones for styrofoam peanuts, gosh that must have hurt coming out her butt… (I’d sift them out of the box…. aftermarket, so to speak). She got over the tp thing when she got older, but she would still catch styrofoam, and also she’d gnaw on styrofoam packaging if she could get to it (like computer packaging).
Myrt had a paper towel substance abuse problem, tp had no attraction BUT if you left a roll of paper towels where she could get to it the roll was toast. She NEVER got over that, not until her final fading.
Right now Vel’s doing okay with his meds, Badb is overgrooming herself (she’s shaved her tummy several times this summer and we have A/C….) and Angelina appears to be having an allergic reaction to something (she’s losing hair in tracts along her butt/tail, but does not appear to be over-grooming) BUT she has stopped having the sneezing/coughing attacks that she was having.
I wanna kitten. But it won’t happen until Vel passes, he’s too much on the cusp to put him through that annoyance.
allisonstein
October 4, 2006 at 2:17amRe: ROTFLMAO
The adventure continues. Later than same evening, Mayhem came bounding down the stairs with the upstairs TP in his mouth and trailing behind him. Then one-by-one, he fetched a couple pairs of my socks. (Sigh.)
PS check Angelina’s her bare spots for dark spots at the base of the hair shaft. FurBeast had a similar problem at one time, and it turned out to be mites.
menziesclan
October 3, 2006 at 12:58pmI remember a “Far Side” cartoon about what dogs name themselves. One who was speaking introduced a female poodle to another dog as (IIRC) “She-La, Stainer of Persian Rugs” and himself as “Vex-Org, Barker of Great Annoyance”.
Sometimes you gotta wonder if cats do something similar.
allisonstein
October 4, 2006 at 2:18amSure they do. At least that’s what T.S. Elliot said.
mckitterick
October 3, 2006 at 7:34pmOh, my!
allisonstein
October 4, 2006 at 2:19amOh, yes. (See my reply to dragonet2 for the continuing saga…)
dragonet2
October 4, 2006 at 2:29amdifferent cats, different things
A couple of months ago, Jim realized he was missing a buttload of socks. Usually just one, but often both.
He poked through the box Margene keeps of one-off socks (about every six months we do a major effort to find socks, then toss the ones that remain one-offs). No luck. He poked around the house in visible places, no luck.
A week or so later something fell off of a night stand and he had to look under the bed. Peering at him from a nice pile of smelly daddy socks was miss Badb Catha, who quickly started going “What? Why are you destroying my BED!!!!!” when he got a broom handle and rescued them all.
Now we know, and just remember to sweep under the bed when we do the underwear laundry.
It does go on. She’s a grown kitty.
menziesclan
October 4, 2006 at 3:59pmOne of our cats — Shere Khan — loves to rub himself on my leather shoes and my sandals. I think he likes the “daddy smell”. I have to be careful when I set out my dress gillies for my kilt: while my back is turned getting dressed, he will rub his face all over the shoes, shove his head down inside, play with the tassels, finally lay across both shoes, and generally make a nuisance of himself. He especially likes when I take them off. I almost have to fight him to get them back in the box.
I remember a children’s story that had pets (dogs, mostly, I think) engaging in the Sock Exchange. They would bring one of their master’s socks to a central meeting place, then exchange it for another. When they had swapped enough socks that their master could no longer make a matched pair, the human would have to go to the store to buy more. Thus the Sock Exchange kept the wheels of American business turning.
I thought it was amusing, and might even be a little true.