Inmates' Demands: Send Cuddles! (Or, What Happens in the Litter Box Stays in the Litter Box ... Usually.)

Day three of the inmates running of the asylum.

This morning I didn't have to get out of bed to see what the boys had done overnight. Something which looked it belonged in the litterbox sat four feet from the bed. No doubt Penwiper meant to leave it in the litterbox, but his furry butt occasionally collects a souvenir which then gets left elsewhere.  Fortunately, this morning's souvenir was dry and self-contained.

Short haired cats do have their advantages.

Speaking of dry and self-contained, three hairballs which were not dry and self-contained had to be cleaned up. Of course, in and of themselves, hairballs in the Kitten Farm are not newsworthy. (We feed the boys, rake their box, clean up their  hairballs, cuddle them, fill their fountains, and repeat). But they do add to the inmates running the asylum ambience.

Penwiper, love monger that he is, has noticed the chief valet is, in his book, AWOL. Immediately after breakfast, he reared back and gently put his velvet paws up on me at the dining room table -- his classic "cuddle me" request. So I padded over to the couch, called him, and gave our lovable inmate a few minutes of petting.

Meanwhile, others are also taking also advantage of the short staffing.  For example Billy thinks the food prep counter, including its sink window, is now in bounds:

Billy Conquering the Kitchen Window

Billy, you're as handsome as ever, but I have a Mist of Doom and I'm not afraid to use it.

Two kitten meals left before the rescue party arrives.

By a Nose

The inmates running the asylum would be so much easier if they didn't rumble with each other. And they have been, or Whitey has been walking into edges of inanimate objects:

Whitey and His Abused Nose

I have my usual suspicions about the other party involved.

Also ...

Note to Penwiper: performing your death-defying leap to the top of the headboard (AKA Death From Above) when it's time to flush the humans out of bed does not work nearly as well if there's no human on that side of the bed.

Two hairballs (one two-part hairball?) cleaned up.

Boys fed, box raked.

Four kitten meals until the chief valet returns.  (I miscounted yesterday).

Inmates Running the Asylum, 2017 edition

Each summer, Pamplona has the festival of San Fermín, including the Running of the Bulls. For decades, the Kitten Farm West and before it, the original Summerhill Kitten Farm, has had the annual Running of the Asylum by the Inmates.

This is precipitated by SEMICON West in San Francisco. SEMICON is scheduled each year shortly after the Fourth of July -- picture the timing of the MLB Summer Classic (AKA the All Star Game) and you'll get the idea. +Katherine Derbyshire  has attended faithfully since she started at Solid State Technology back in 1994.

Ever since the feline overlords arrived in 2004, they've run the place while she's gone. Every. Year.

(To be fair. other conferences like MRS and IEDM also create this condition. Checking the archives, the original documented running of the asylum was December 2004, for IEDM.)

Festivities for 2017 have already kicked off; I got up this morning and walked out into the upstairs hall to this scene:

Inmates Running the Asylum 2017 is Off With Bang!  (And a Hairball.)

Consider the sheer energy required to move the cat tower from its home by my office door (its home footprint is visible in the rug) at a right angle multiple feet from the direction of how it tipped.

You can also see the hairball pointed at by the tower. You can't see the cordless telephone & charger in Katherine's office which landed on the floor in the same timeframe.

Busy early shift.

The telephone, hairball and tower are cleaned up, the boys fed, the litterbox raked, and the (first) morning conflict between Penwiper & Whitey mediated. Now Billy has hopped into his morning sun chair, Whitey is on the floor soaking in the same sunbeam, and so on with our day.

Only eight kitten more meals until the chief valet returns.

I'm praying they don't figure how to order sashimi via Uber Eats before then.

This Month at Café Le Matou

A funny thing happened this spring in the dining room.

I took a 10 week college course which met twice a week on the same nights that +Katherine Derbyshire had Aikido class.  Since we both were gone at the official feline dinner time (8:30 PM) and we don't like to feed the boys early, we split it:

• High Tea (10 grams kibble & 2 kitty treats each) at 6:30 PM before I went to class.
• The remainder in kibble or wet food equivalent at 10 PM when Katherine got home from class.

The funny thing is, all the boys now eat the pure kibble meals smoothly.  This includes Whitey, who didn't like kibble last year, and tends to ignore it when we sprinkle on wet food.  But they all have been somewhat fickle about wet food lately.

Since they have been fickle, wet food is slower to serve, and wet food is just plain messier, we've gone back to pure kibble for the boys. After a week plus, so far so good.

We are wondering if they'll demand wet food again before or after the four cases (two fish, two chicken) of food we have in the garage expires ...

Catzillas at Rest

The Catzilla Brothers in Two of Their Natural Hobbitats

Nothing more needs to be said.