A Day in the Life of our Cats

I love my cats, I really do. I have never been one to shy away from announcing the fact that they are stupid, though. They are, poor things. I think I've shown pictures from time to time on here, but I've never really done a big proper post on them. I can't sleep and it's late at night, so here is that post. Complete with pictures! Drawn by me! And bad sentence structure and grammar! Because it's late at night!

This is Vader. He is the older of the two. As you can see in his picture, he is a bit special.



He has his strengths, namely the fact that he kills any scary bugs that get into the house. However, he also has been known to knock a toy he was playing with off of a table, and not be able to figure out where it went.

He is also allergic to fleas. Have I mentioned that?

This is Raven. She is younger, and we got her to help Vader not be so psychotic when we leave for a few days to go on vacation. We used to come home and Vader would be there, completely traumatized by the fact we were gone. Now when we get home, he's like "Meh, it's you people again."



As her little description says, she's a pretty sweet tempered little thing. (Emphasis on little, she's maybe 5 lbs. soaking wet.) Lindsay has kind of claimed her as HER cat, and the two can be found cuddling together often. However, when she's not being cute or cuddly, she can also be found staring vacantly off into space. Sometimes with her nose an inch from a wall. She's also allergic to her own teeth. (yes, Google it. It really is a thing.) The vet says some day she'll need extensive dental surgery where they will probably extract most of her teeth. That's ok, I'm sure the kids didn't want to go to college anyway!

I will mostly focus on Vader. Raven tends to be a more mellow cat, sleeping a lot and blending in with the background, except for a few times a day when she gets spunky and plays.

Vader. . .well, I don't think he could blend into a background if he tried. He probably wouldn't even be able to FIND the background.

Sometime very early in the morning, way before anyone wants to be up: Claw frantically at the carpet in front of the master bedroom door like the apocalypse is coming. Body slam it and meow loudly for good measure. Wait till people open the door and yell at you. Run away. Wait five minutes and then come do it again.



Sometime still early, before the humans actually wanted to get up, but late enough they figure they should get up anyway: Claw at the door until they come out and sigh "FINE, I'm up." Run under their feet as they stumble down the stairs. Bolt into the kitchen and stand by your food bowl and meow loudly, as if starving to death. Even if there is food in the bowl.

When the humans go to let the dog out: Try to escape.

When the kids go out to play: Try to escape.

When the kids come in from playing: Try to escape.

When the humans take the trash outside: Try to escape.

When the humans come home from the grocery store: Try to escape.

When the humans go to water the garden: Actually escape. Run across the yard, hop the fence. Attempt to climb a tree. Get stuck six feet off the ground hanging onto the side of a tree because you don't actually know HOW to climb a tree. Let human pluck you from tree and take you back inside. End escape attempts for the day. Or at least an hour.

I don't know what Vader thinks about the outside world, but I imagine it is something like this:



Any time throughout the day when a bug is in the house: Play with it until it's dead. Eat it if you feel like it.

It's really one reason that other than the love and affection makes Vader very worth all the trouble. He's like a bug killing ninja assassin. It's very useful when dealing with the ginormous palmetto bug/tree roach things around here.



The rest of the daylight hours, when you aren't playing, eating, attacking Raven, or pooping: sleep.

Randomly throughout the day for no apparent reason: Tear like a bat out of heck across the entire house. Stop just as suddenly as you started. Meow loudly.

This is a rough drawing of our downstairs.



Vader will be doing something, sometimes even sleeping, at one of the red stars. Then, without warning, he will run as fast as he can to the other point, stop, and meow. Sometimes he runs back to his starting point before stopping. Sometimes he does it multiple times in a row. Then he just stops. And yes, he runs up the banister. We're going to have to replace it.



Later that night after the humans go to bed: Find something to play hockey with in the dining room, right below the master bedroom door. Make the humans so happy they put in laminate instead of carpet, as it greatly amplifies the noise. Also rearrange furniture. Or whatever in the heck it is you do at night that sounds that way.

The next day: Repeat all of the above.