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.

Mac Steals Pepe’s Box AGAIN!

Macaroni is famous for her brat attacks. Nearly every night, she chases Pepe off the human’s pillow. She spends at most 5 minutes there, then goes off to find other mischief. Meanwhile, Pepe has lost the comfy spot he’d held for several hours and the human has been woken from her sleep. Mac also is famous for chasing Corky out of his kitty bed only to walk away and not even lie down in it. And she chases the Tiger Babies away anytime they dare get near her or happen to be laying in a spot she decides she wants. Why the bigger cats let the Merkitty boss them around and chase them from their rightful places is anyone’s guess. Another thing Mac is famous for is stealing whatever box Pepe happens to currently be favoring. It doesn’t matter if it’s a big box or a small one. If Pepe plays or sleeps in it, Mac steals it from him. In disgust, Pepe plops himself down right next to the box that Mac is illegally occupying and waits for her to get up and leave.

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

What do You Think About…?

<<<What do you think about the annoying and noisy youngsters the human brought into our home?>>>

<<<She never asked, although I clearly expressed my displeasure every chance I got. You really can’t trust humans. They need constant supervision.>>>

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

Kitten Avoidance Strategy (KAS)

The Tiger Babies have yet to be brave enough to climb up onto the big bed despite having explored (and wrecked havoc) on nearly every other area of the house. Still, while the Terrible Twins don’t venture here, The Foursome is taking advantage and getting some shuteye.

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

Tiger Babies Settle in

The tiger babies are settling in and even have names now. The male is Shah Jahan and the female is Mumtaz Mahal. Although you see only one face, this image shows both kitties in one of the kitty beds. That’s Jahan looking very grumpy. He looks remarkably like Caesar, who also made faces at the human to show his displeasure.

Fortunately, while Mac and Pepe still occasionally hiss when the babies run up to them and try to make friends, no blood has been shed, no limbs have been shorn off, and a great amount of silliness has ensued. In the nearly 30 years the human has lived here, there have been no kittens, at least none this young and energetic. Winter promises to be a lot of fun this year.

Copyright 2022, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

The Evilness of Humans – Part 2

A feral female started bringing her 3 kittens by this spring. She’d eat, nurse them, rest, and then the whole crew would depart. After a few weeks, she started leaving the kittens to play on the deck all day. They scrambled up the human’s plant stands knocking pots off all over the place, then shimmied up the trunk of the ficus tree and cuffed each other. They pulled clotheslines down and dragged them into the yard (including into poison ivy, which the human is very sensitive to), and they gladly chased toys in which the indoor kitties had never shown interest. By early summer, the mother abandoned her kittens, who have spent the time growing fat and silly on the deck outside.

The human waged a slow and patient campaign to tame the kittens so she could capture them and find them a new home. Unfortunately, she got rather attached to the two that remain, and they had gotten fairly comfortable with her, nuzzling her hand, letting her pet them, and even venturing inside the kitchen. Three of the 4 inside kitties had come nose-to-nose with the interlopers. After several unsuccessful attempts, the human finally captured them 3 days before they were due to go to the vets for their checkup, initial shots, and bloodwork to check that they were kitty AIDs and leukemia free. They were. They have since been mixing with the foursome, who cannot understand what the crazy human was thinking about bringing babies into this household.

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

Oh Human, What have You Done?

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

Twinkies

Fireball and Mac were enjoying watching the goings on in the yard. The mean squirrels were chattering at them from the trees. Good things there was glass separating squirrels from cats.

(c) Copyright 2021, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

A Thoughtful Afternoon Gift

Caesar, being the polite and thoughtful cat he is, likes to bring his human little toy mice as gifts several times per day. In the early morning hours, he hopes his gift will encourage the lazy human to exit the kitty nest and get going with her day (and the feeding of the meows). During the afternoon, when the human is often on conference calls, he likes to bring toys to the edge of her office in the hopes of getting her to wind up her day and feed the meows their dinner. The fact that his gifts are usually preceded by loud moaning sounds just adds to the interesting things that humans on the other end of the call get to hear.

(c) Copyright 2021, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

Distressing Things that have Happened

It’s been so long since the human has posted that many things have happened to us that our fans don’t know about.

For instance, after inviting our neighbor’s cat to stay with us for 5 days — did anyone think to ask if we were okay with this arrangement? — a few weeks later, the human brought a small kitten into our house.

Granted, the kitten was only here for a few hours while the human arranged to bring it to a shelter. Still, she held it in her arms and cooed over it in our presence. We were not amused. At our age, we do not want to have to start all over and train a kitten.

Fortunately, the human took the tiny kitten away and the tiny kitten was eventually adopted. You have to stay on top of that two-legged every minute because, when you’re not looking, she’ll bring anything into this house.

(c) Copyright 2021, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

Almost Made it…

We got to day 4. The human even managed to clip Cocoa’s front claws without bloodshed. However, late that evening, the human stepped out of the big bedroom for a nature break and was a bit too careless when returning to bed. Fireball made a major jail break and spent that night and the next day out. First thing he did was run across the hall and start pushing first his nose and then those clever red paws under the door. Fortunately, Cocoa must have been in her kitty bed and not watching. If there were any altercations on opposite sides of the door during the night, the human didn’t hear them…and she didn’t fall asleep until after 1 am, so upset was she that she’d let Fireball escape. The next day, the Little Red Bee was missing his best buddies, Mac and Caesar, but there was little chance he’d let the human pick him up and return him to the bedroom, so he had to live with the choices he made in the spur of the moment. There were 5 happy cats when Cocoa’s family returned and she went back to her house.

(c) Copyright 2020, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

No One is Happy in this House

<<The human has let another cat in the house. It’s in the other bedroom right across the hall. Corky made a jail break for 30 minutes and confirmed this arch betrayal. We also feel resentful that we should all be locked up. It’s our house. Whatever was that human thinking?>>

This is Cocoa. Her humans next door had to go out of town for 5 days. The easiest and kindest thing was to bring her here. However, no one is happy about this situation, Cocoa included. That’s a bit scary, as Cocoa is a big girl with all of her claws. She has a fearsome growl too.

(c) Copyright 2020, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

Détente?

It took a day and a half, but Cocoa is now purring as well as growling when the human walks in the room. <<Conflicted?>> She doesn’t know her humans family is away. She’s just mad at THIS human for catnapping her from her home and bringing her to a strange place where she knows…where she can hear and smell…there are other cats.

In the meantime, the attempts at jail breaks by the other 5 seem to have slowed down and they are being remarkably well behaved, all things considered. That should probably be worrying…

(c) Copyright 2020, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

What has the Human Done?

<<There is another cat in the house…we can hear it and we can smell it, but we can’t see it. Why not? Because we have been jailed by our captor in the big bedroom…all of us. What in the world has that crazy human done now?>>

(c) Copyright 2020, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

Intruder Alert!

Over the many decades that the human has lived at this house, she’s known some pretty cheeky wildlife.  In the old days, it was quite common to look out on the lower deck and see a woodchuck, a couple of squirrels, and some birds all sitting in a circle eating seed. For a few years, a woodchuck unaffectionately called El Destructo traumatized the plants growing in big pots on the deck. Nearly every day he’d walk past and pull over every pot that was light enough for him to move to see if there was anything good to eat in it. This repeated behavior caused enough transplant shock that some of the plants gave up the ghost. And then there are the deer that reach their necks over the deck railing to nibble some of the hottest peppers on the planet down to the soil.A few weeks back, the human happened to be in the kitchen eating lunch on a dark, dreary day when she heard a thud outside on the lower kitchen window. Looking over, she couldn’t believe her eyes: a young and smallish woodchuck had jumped up on the window ledge. This is something the human had never seen before, although it shouldn’t have come as a complete surprise. Several bird feeders hang just above this window and there is always seed on the deck below the window and sometimes on the window ledge itself. <<Those birds are such messy eaters!>>As the human stood up, grabbed her phone, and started shooting photos while walking toward the intruder, he or she looked in and decided it would be advisable to jump back down on the deck.  This intruder wasn’t terribly afraid, as he / she didn’t go far…at least not right away. Of course, was there a single cat in the kitchen at the time keeping watch for intruders entering the property? <<‘Fraid not. Bah!>>

 

 

 

(c) Copyright 2020, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Image my own.

Pepe has a Girlfriend

One of the feral kitties the human feeds outside has figured out how to jump up on the outside window ledge and look into the kitchen. Last week, she did this when Macaroni was sitting on the boot bench looking out, and Mac just about tore the glass out of the window frame trying to get at the interloper.  The outdoor visitor also hopped up when Pepe was on the bench, and received a better welcome. Pepe just stared at her through the window.

 

 

(c) Copyright 2020, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Images my own.

What Laying Down on the Job Does

This is what happens when Pepe is caught laying down on the job and not defending the deck from intruders.  On the other hand, this is what happens when the intruder also lays down on the job and stops foraging for snacks.

 

(c) Copyright 2019, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Photos my own.

Invader Alert

This is what happens when the kitties are not vigilant.  You just never know what kind of creature will show up and visit the deck.

 

(c) Copyright 2019, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Photos my own.

The Trio Keeps Watch

 

The trio were sitting on one of the coucheswatching wildlife out the window when the silly human walked by and stopped to say hi.
Fortunately no creature worth mentioning crossed their territory. The birds and squirrels are safe for another day.

 

(c) Copyright 2018, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Photos my own.

Cat Bodies per Square Meter

Yes, it’s the trio modeling just how many fully-stretched-out cat bodies you can comfortably fit in a single kitty bed at one time.  Of course, when the human and her camera got too close, The Big C put on his scowly face.  Even the Smirky One looks a bit aggrieved.

 

(c) Copyright 2018, PeggyMalnati. All rights reserved. Photos my own.