When You’re a Princess and You Know it…

Mac(aroni) is a princess. Not only does she always have to be in the middle of whatever action is going on in the house — even if it literally means butting into the attention another cat is receiving from the human — but she also thinks she owns most of the cat beds on the premises. She has actually tried to occupy two of the fluffy puffs positioned next to each other at the same time by sprawling across the top of both so no other cat could get in one of the beds. Heaven forbid another cat lie next to her royal highness without permission.

Another thing Mac does is if she sees another cat sleeping or reclining in one of the beds she believes she owns, she shamelessly chases that cat out of the bed and any other bed the cat subsequently attempts to occupy. In pure Brat Cat mode, she then doesn’t lie in a single one of the beds. Of course, she’s also famous for waiting for Pepe to leave one of his many boxes and then hopping in and refusing to leave, causing Pepe to camp out beside her until she departs. Meanwhile, she sports a smug expression and tries to wait him out.

In the morning, while Corky, Pepe, and Taz are yowling up a storm in an attempt to get the human to dispense breakfast faster, Mac remains upstairs curled up and sleeping in one of the kitty beds. Then, several hours after all the other cats have had breakfast and the human is lashed to her keyboard working, Mac shows up and demands special treats. After all, she couldn’t possibly eat the same food as the other cats. Her favorite snack — which she wants to eat exclusively all day long — is freeze-dried chicken breast. When the human can’t or won’t dispense any more of those treats, the Merkitty shreds the sides of boxes, stands up and digs forepaws (and claws) into the human’s hip, and has been known to hop up and land on the keyboard to prove her point.

Whether out of boredom or some other reason, the smirking Merkitty also delights in scooping water out of the water bowls. She floods plastic trays and absorbent dish-drying mats and often floods the surrounding floor. That leaves the other cats without clean water to drink and gives the human yet another task to perform multiple times daily. Such a meow!

(c) Copyright 2024, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Image my own.

Working to Cross-Purposes

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. That’s Mac trying to drink water out of the kitchen water bowl. Her antics with water are legendary. Note that she is standing with left paw over right and head turned to the left as she contorts her body to drink over her shoulder. (You can also tell that the absorbent pad she’s standing on is soaked with liquid that the Watery One tossed out of the bowl before drinking.) For some reason, the Merkitty has just never been able to “grok” the concept of a water bowl. If you really want to mess with her mind, you put water in a clear bowl and watch the fun begin.

(c) Copyright 2023, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

When Morning Starts way too Early

Sometimes Mac and Fireball act like morning comes way too early for them. They skip breakfast and just lounge in the big pink puff as though moving would take far more effort than they could possibly muster.

(c) Copyright 2023, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

Tiny Toys go Swimming

Someone has been removing some tiny new toys the meows received last month from the toy boxes and dunking them in the kitchen water bowl, then taking the soggy toy out and leaving it on the kitchen floor. To dry them out, the human has been clothes pinning them to a hanging basket full of vegetables.

The other morning, the two-legged found one very soggy toy still floating in the water bowl (which had mostly been emptied of water and yucked up with dirty feet) and another (also soggy) toy lying beside the bowl.

Both Mac and Pepe routinely stand in the kitchen bowl to take a drink and yuck up the water. And Mac regularly tosses water out of the water bowls and floods the floor…hence the elaborate arrangements meant to stop the tomfoolery.

As for who is taking the toys for a dunk, the human suspects the Tiger Babies — perhaps with initial instruction from the Merkitty. Cats…they definitely keep life interesting.

(c) Copyright 2023, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

When Your Plant Doesn’t Quite Look Right

Every morning when the human comes down stairs, there is interesting evidence of the kitties’ nocturnal adventures waiting to be found.

This morning, as the human walked by and glanced at the plant stand in the “(wood)stove” room, something just didn’t seem right. She went back to check and sure enough, impaled on the needles of a dangling piece of cactus, a bright green toy mouse was suspended.

The mouse is now free of the cactus (and the cactus is free of the mouse) with no permanent damage to either. Where will that mouse turn up next?

(c) Copyright 2023, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

Telling the Human You Disapproved of the Food Offering

The human is clumsy and stupid, doesn’t understand cat speak, and can’t purr to save herself. Worse, she often leaves a lousy food offering for her masters. Since the 2-legged doesn’t understand when the cats try to explain to her that they don’t like their food, the best way is to show her by leaving a toy mouse or two in the bowl. <<<Food not even fit for a (toy) mouse!>>>

(c) Copyright 2023, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

Crazy Tiger Babies

There is much to report about the crazy tiger babies that the evil human brought into the house in late November. However, that same human has been working long hours 7 days/week with almost no break, and she’s quite behind in her postings — which, it must be said, does not please her masters.

Nonetheless, to give you a sense of how Mumtaz Mahal (Taz Bird) and Shah Jahan (Shaja) have enlivened this household, we present two images. The first is a newly opened 20-pound/9-kilogram bag of sunflower seeds that the human found tipped over on the kitchen floor early the other morning. (The kittens weigh 7 and 9 pounds/3 and 4 kilos, respectively.) See the little kitty tracks in the seeds? While no real harm was done, it took the 2-legged 15 minutes to clean up the floor before kitty breakfasts could be served, which also displeased the masters.

Then, this morning, the human came downstairs and found that someone had knocked over her rolled up yoga mat onto the floor and then caused the mat to unroll. Do you suppose the 4-leggeds are suggesting the human get back to practicing her yoga again? (Note that Mac is there watching things, not that we suspect her.)

(c) Copyright 2023, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

The Mighty Mushroom or What to do When Your Cats are Engineers

Another really cool gift Sandy Claws brought the kitties was a multifunctional mushroom-shaped play center. As designed, the unit is predominantly made of unvarnished wood — some of it covered with a sisal scratching surface. The bottom-most disc is grooved and, together with the next disc, holds several large plastic balls with bells that can be rolled around inside the groove. Balls can be accessed both from the side and through a series of large holes on the upper disc. That large upper disc also is grooved on the top surface. When combined with two smaller discs, it holds a series of 5 small wooden balls. A central spindle provides a tough sisal scratching surface, and the large cap also is covered with sisal, providing yet another tough scratching surface. There’s even a pom-pom that hangs down on a string from the top, which is what Pepe is beating on in the image above.

It only took a few hours the first evening for the kitties to figure out how to tip the mushroom over on its side and pop the 2 large balls out of holes from the top of the second large disc. Where those balls have gone is anyone’s guess. Also missing are 2 of the 5 small wooden balls. The human really did crank the whole assembly down pretty tight with the supplied Allen wrench — not enough that it hindered movement of the balls, but it certainly should have been tight enough to keep the cats from popping over half the balls out of the assembly. The human tried adding some additional big balls, but the replacements have also disappeared.

Despite the fact that only 3 small wooden balls currently remain in the system, the cats — especially Mac (shown above) and the Terrible Twins — really enjoying sharpening their claws on the sisal scratching surface. And occasionally, someone will knock the remaining 3 small wooden balls around inside their discs. Thanks, M&J!

(c) Copyright 2023, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

Mac Steals Pepe’s Box (Again!)

Maybe it’s a tuxedo cat thing?

Nah, it’s a pure brat cat move by the Merkitty.

Fortunately, Pepe eventually recovered his property.

(c) Copyright 2023, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

Outsmarted by the Merkitty Once Again

Let’s be honest and acknowledge that the human isn’t very bright — not compared with the kitties. Still, it has taken the Merkitty a year to figure out a way to flood the floor since the human switched to the heavy, straight-sided water bowl in the kitchen. While the Little Mischief quickly learned to climb up on the lip of the bowl and stick both forepaws in the water (and taught Pepe to do the same), when she scooped water up in her paws and attempted to toss it out of the bowl, the tall straight sides of the ceramic crock frustrated her efforts. The human would walk by and note the multitude of water droplets still clinging to the inside walls of the container and chuckle under her breath. The Merkitty clearly heard and finally has figured out a way to get revenge.

The human isn’t sure if the reason she’s been outsmarted is that she’s gotten overconfident and started filling the water level up higher or if the Watery One modified her scoop & toss technique. Regardless of how she’s doing it, she’s been flooding both the boot tray with dish-drying mat as well as the kitchen floor multiple times every day during the past week. In fact, just to rub it in, after a flooding session, she seeks out the human seated at her computer typing away frantically and hops up on the desk surface, forcing the human to move her keyboard out of the way. Then she head butts things off the desk while standing there with soaking wet paws and at least one foreleg wet all the way from toes to chest and shoulder. She is such a Merkitty!

The human is not sure what strategy to adopt next but she really does need to focus on solving the problem, as Miss Macaroni will not stop her mischief. Still, this has been the longest period of time the human has managed to outsmart the little monster, so at least the 2-legged has that going for her.

It is possible to outsmart a cat, at least for a little while. <<<Don’t let me hear you say or even think things like that!>>>

(c) Copyright 2022, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

Watering Can Inspectors

The human had filled her watering cans prior to going outside to give the tropical plants on the deck a drink. It was just too tempting indeed for the Water Monster not to stick her little head into the can and drink unfiltered water. There was a big ceramic bowl of freshly changed filtered water nearby, but that was no where near as interesting as the watering can. And since Mac the Merkitty had her head in the container, Pepe, who of late has become a water monster himself, had to join in and have a little drink.

(c) Copyright 2022, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

One Bad Human

Our very bad human has not posted on our blog for over 90 days. We’ve tried guilt, punishment, acting cute, acting stern, bringing her toys, pouncing on her when she’s trying to sleep, walking across her keyboard when she’s trying to work, yowling when she’s on a conference call, and much more. Still, all she does is complain about her incredibly heavy workload. What does she think we do all day?

(c) Copyright 2022, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Image courtesy of Dreamstime.com. File ID 176510470 | © Yasir Khan.

Little Toy Mice Practice their Yoga Skills

Over the last week, the kitties have brought down more and more toy mice and distributed them around and on the yoga mat during the night. The positions change, the color of the mice change, but the general trend is for there to be more rather than less toy mice arrayed around the yoga mat each morning. The record, to date, is 5 mice. Why do they do this you might ask? Because, in this house, everyone and everything needs a toy mouse or two for good measure. <<<Such thoughtful kitties!>>>

(c) Copyright 2022, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

Wet Foot Syndrome

Mac the Merkitty is spreading her odd eating and drinking behaviors to the other cats.

Early on she taught Fireball that the best way to get access to the food bowl when Caesar was hovering over it was to pull the bowl out from under his mouth with a paw and then quickly scoop up a pawful of food before Caesar moved forward to hover over the bowl again. Even with Caesar gone, Fireball still eats crunchies, raw freeze dried food (rehydrated in water), and even soft food with his paws rather than directly with his mouth. And since Mac has long drunk water from her paws, Fireball does too.

Also, because Mac mucks up the water so often by playing in the bowls with her feet, Fireball has taken to sticking his own feet in the bowl to check that the water is acceptable before drinking.

However, wet foot syndrome has spread even further. In recent months, the human has observed Pepe stick one or both of his forepaws into the big water bowl to check that the water is there before bending down to drink. He will subsequently come lay down on his favorite chair and, when the human pets him, she finds wet feet. What is it about cats and water bowls in this house?

(c) Copyright 2022, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

How Could You Let this Happen?

As you can see from Mac’s exasperated look, during the night the evil human failed to respond to multiple kitty pleas for more crunchies, since there was plenty of other kinds of food around the corner in other bowls. By refusing to wake up and refill the bowl, the 2-legged servant has let a catastrophe unfurl once again. There are only 3 pieces of kibble in the crunchy bowl. How it happened that Mac and Corky were able to eat kibble out of the bowl when the sides and bottom started becoming exposed is a mystery in itself. (Perhaps all the food was eaten by Pepe and Fireball, who don’t seem to have such qualms about eating out of a partially empty bowl.)

Still, if the human knows what’s good for her, she’d best get that bowl replenished — and fast! The kitties are not quick to forgive such malfeasance.

(c) Copyright 2022, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

Cats as Energy Harvesting Devices

Humans struggle to engineer photovoltaic cells that are more efficient at harvesting sunlight and converting it to energy. They really should talk with cats — especially cats who are largely black — as they’ve got the situation nailed. Here is Pepe demonstrating how efficiently he converts sunlight into energy that then causes him to run around like a banshee is biting his tail. Mac, in the background, takes a more passive (and dignified) approach to energy generation and storage.

(c) Copyright 2022, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

How to Sit Like a Lady (Kitty)

Sit up straight, use good posture, arrange your forelegs just so. Don’t forget the sardonic glare lest the human think it’s okay to try and touch your paws.

(c) Copyright 2022, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

Why Human Fingers Require Extra Washing

Everyone knows that humans are stinky creatures.

That’s probably because they have so much naked skin and also because they wash with soap and water. It’s clearly inferior to a spit bath.

Although it’s a thankless job, Fireball long ago took on the task of rewashing the human’s fingers and hands. In fact, he used to scoop up a finger in one of his soft little orange paws, clamp down with his claws, and scrub for all he was worth while the human howled in fits of laughter, since it tickled so much.

Fortunately, the human always tries to express appreciation after her bath.

Fireball feels satisfied about having contributed to the greater good of the human and household.

(c) Copyright 2022, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

The Inspector

Few appreciate the skills required and the responsibilities involved in being a box inspector.

First the outside must be completely sniffed. Then the inside must be completely sniffed. It’s important to know where the box originated and what it contained. How else can the house be kept safe?

Lastly, the box must be considered for its potential for sitting and snoozing. Is the bottom a bit springy? Do the sides have enough give to expand upon contact without collapsing? How hard will it be to turn around in and will all our body parts fit? This particular box, although a bit on the small side, does have potential.

(c) Copyright 2022, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

A Change in Technique

The human has been noticing that Mac the Merkitty has been walking around lately with not just a damp paw but two sopping wet paws. <<<What in the world is she doing?>>> the human wondered. Well, now the human knows.

During breakfast this week, the Mer came to get a drink in her splash pool. Instead of doing her usual routine of climbing up on the rim of the big bowl, then reaching a paw in and swishing it around to make sure there’s water inside, then stepping down and putting her face in the bowl to drink while running one then the other of her forelegs around the outside curve of the bowl, the Girly Girl has developed a new technique.

She still climbs up on the rim of the bowl, but now she puts both forepaws in the water and stands in the bowl while drinking. Maybe it makes her feel one with the water. This may also explain the puddles in front of the boot tray the human has been finding. Perhaps it’s those dripping paws leaving the water behind as the Mer swims away from her splash pad.

(c) Copyright 2022, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.