Friday Cat Blogging: Every Mountain Edition

Here we see the felis overjoyedicus at play on the four-foot ladder. Note that both cats attempt to assume the deceptively placid roaster position. This offers both stability and the opportunity to paw your sister's head.

As you may have guessed, the humans belonging to these pussycats responded to this week's cold weather by taking down the bronze organza summer curtains and hanging Grandma's sturdy, draft-stopping drapes. The cats, covered with fur, tolerated these changes in their environment with great patience.

Crooked pictures in the background? Guess who!

The four-foot ladder has been with me a long time. It has helped me reach things for many years I would otherwise point at and whine, "Ehn ehn ehn!" I love this ladder. It lives in my kitchen because I am too petite to reach above the plate shelf, which raises an interesting question, I guess: people used to be a lot shorter than they are now. When these apartments were built after World War II, adults hadn't grown up gnawing on beef at every meal as subsequent generations have. There are all kinds of charts and history out there somewhere about this. I looked for them but all I could find were charts about obesity screwing up our manhood, and since I'm not worried about mine, I gave up. Sometimes, when I'm standing in the kitchen with the eight-foot ceiling and cabinets that go all the way up, I wonder how the grandmas of the 1950s coped without stilts. It seems like a dirty trick to play on women especially, though I have no problem climbing on the counter to grab the powdered milk.

Here, Drusy is stalking me. Apparently, I am delicious prey she can nap next to, then chase for a diverting interlude. In the last week or so, Drusy has become enamored of my toes in a new and exciting way: she bats at them as if they might roll away. My toes do not roll, not like the myriad round cat toys littering the living room floor. Half a dozen times a day, I jump up and howl, "Dooo not bite Mama!" Promise, she will not. My toes are delicious! And she cannot resist their yummy allure.

The pussycats are fascinated by Pete's every move, especially when he's not making one. Topaz, my little bear cub, rushes to the door when she hears his bicycle outside, and throws herself against the door to keep him from leaving. In between, Topaz spends a good deal of time sitting at his feet, staring at him. It's like a Sandra Dee movie without a beach. Drusy, meanwhile, discovered that cats enjoy cushiony reclining and that she is, in fact, a cat. So, we're good there.