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.