Pepe has Crossed the Rainbow Bridge

After 4 months of struggling with diabetes, during which time he lost almost half of his previous body weight and his rear legs and hips got so weak he struggled to walk, Pepe’s quality of life had gotten so poor that we said goodbye yesterday afternoon. He had a peaceful passing and we’re sure he’s in a much better place now.

Pepe had an outsized personality that was far larger than his normal 19 pounds. He had the softest cutest paws that he categorically said were off limits whenever the human stroked them. Pepe was the official household greeter and had to check out any human who entered the premises. He splashed water all over the floor with Mac, harassed Fireball and Corky, wasn’t sure what to make of the Terrible Tiger Twins, and only Caesar could moderate his behavior. He spent an hour or more each morning sitting on a chair next to the human as they both ate breakfast and she journaled and planned out her day. He often joined her for her lunch as well.

In recent weeks, as he had more trouble walking and navigating stairs, Pepe spent much of the day sleeping in a kitty bed in the human’s office. In fact, in brat cat fashion, if his brother was sleeping there when he arrived, he chased Corky out of the bed and took over himself even though there was a larger bed two feet away that he could have occupied.

Pepe and Corky have lived here for 9 years and the human knew them for 5 years before that when they lived next door at her former neighbors’ home. She not only played with them when she visited, but often cared for them when her neighbors were away. It seems no matter how much time you get to spend with them, with each leaving they take a chunk of your heart with them. And perhaps that’s fitting, since they give so much of their hearts to us.

Rest in peace Pepe and know you were deeply loved and are missed terribly.

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

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.

Training Tigers

Fireball has taken the Tiger Babies under his care and is teaching them not only how to be adult cats but how to be proper tigers. Just as Fireball followed Caesar everywhere and did everything Caesar did, including posing exactly as Caesar posed — whether sitting or lying down — Shahjah is Fireball’s shadow. And just like Caesar sought brief respites from Fireball, Fireball now seeks a bit of peace and quiet from the gregarious and chattery Shahjah and his slightly less clingy sister, Taz Bird. Then all the tigers are off racing around again, running on the cat equivalent of their tippy toes, or they’re all curled up together getting a bit of shuteye.

By the way, the tuxedo cat peering at the cuddling tigers is Mac, who appears a bit miffed that her pink puff and her sleeping buddy Fireball are occupied with cats other than her.

(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.

Languorous Lions

While they sleep most of the day, laying around in comfy beds full of soft blankets in the sunlight seems to utterly exhaust the meows. Fireball (above) and Pepe (below, after taking a spit bath) are shown catching some Zzzzzzs.

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

Cold Weather Cuddles

In addition to hiding out from the Tiger Babies, Mac and Fireball stay warm and cozy by being cuddle buddies. Note that even in sleep, there is paw dangling going on.

(c) Copyright 2023, 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.

Cold-Weather Cuddles

It’s been pretty chilly of late and the human has been leaving the far-infrared heated mattress pad on all day for the kitties and all night for herself. When you combine that penetrating heat with the soft pink puff, it’s kitty heaven as Fireball and Mac recently demonstrated.

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

When Your Sister Steals Your Box

Leave it to the Merkitty to know just how to irritate another cat. While Mac’s favorite kitty beds are the pink and beige puffs upstairs, which she’d sleep in simultaneously if she could, she doesn’t usually have a favorite spot on the first floor, preferring to flit like a butterfly from one location to another.

Of course, when another cat shows a preference for sleeping in a particular spot, the Little Mischief has to plunk herself down in that location just for the annoyance factor. And so it happened that Pepe left his box for a while and Mac took over Pepe’s favorite bed. When he returned, an exasperated Pepe parked himself right next to his box and waited hours for Mac to exit.

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

Box Inspector Confiscates a Box

Pepe is the official box inspector in this house. No matter how large or small a box is, he insists on sniffing it inside and out and then standing in it — even if just with his forepaws.

A few months back, a large box arrived that was packed with big blocks of foamed styrene to protect the contents. After it passed the sniff test and the standing-in-box test, Pepe decided he really liked this box and climbed in and laid down. The human moved the box to an out-of-the-way location, and added blankets and a pillow to make it even more comfortable. It’s become his favorite downstairs snoozing location. In fact, some kitty has been putting toy mice in the box.

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

Blanket Sculptor

The bed really was made when the human left the room early in the morning. However, it’s getting quite chilly of late and Pepe the blanket sculptor likes to dig down and sleep on the softer, warmer blankets. And notice the twinky twins in the pink puff?

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

Afternoon Delight

Here are Mac, Corky, and Pepe enjoying an afternoon sun-soaked snooze. There was lots of paw dangling going on, but the human restrained herself and didn’t go near. Mac hasn’t figured out yet how to occupy both puffs at the same time, although she does hop between the two of them. Fortunately, at that moment, Corky was able to enjoy use of one of the fluffy beds as well.

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

Twinkie Twins

Mac and Fireball were chillin’ in the big pink puff when the human walked in. (Apparently, the Merkitty was feeling generous and decided to share the puff with the Little Red Bee.) The 2-legged started snapping photos in her usual annoying way.

Fortunately, no one was dangling their paws out of the puff, so the human and her camera posed little threat. (Note Fireball’s prehensile curled tail?)

A while later the human came back upstairs and found that the twinkie twins had changed places. However, this time someone had brought a little green mouse up on the bed and left it right beside the pink puff. Neither kitty looked like they were welcoming of attention, so the human left again.

(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.

Blanket Sculpting for Beginners

Nearly every day, the human finds that Pepe has dug down through the layers of blankets on the bed, slipped underneath, and can be found in a dozy dreamy state enjoying a wee nap. When it gets a bit too warm, he extends limbs out to cool down.

(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.

Happy 10th Anniversary Trio

A decade ago this afternoon, Caesar, Macaroni, and Fireball made the journey from their foster mom’s home to the new human’s. The poor kitties were so skittish at first, but eventually they figured out the two-legged was a big pushover and they could easily boss her around, which they’ve done ever since. While the trio is now a duo (with Caesar’s unexpected passing last October), Mac and Fireball are still a cuddle pair. Happy anniversary kitties!

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