Things are still quiet in home, so I'm always trying to attract the other cats to my side at non-feeding times. "Spend tiiiime with meeeeee!" Then I go back to petting my stuffed cat. We bought Sherry a new cat dancer, and found a great laser pointer for Haley... bribery for the children.
But Nombly lives on in at least one way. When the cats wanted me to wake up and feed them, Nombly was the most effective cause he would walk back and forth across my pillow, pulling my hair in the process. And now Sherry has taken up the torch.
And I've thought of one advantage to Nombly's death. He won't have these friggin' cats chasing his tail all the time!
In fact, Haley has started attacking Sherry's tail! Heh heh heh. Nombly must be enjoying that one up in Kitty Heaven after all these years of being The Favourite Cat Toy.
Once per night, like clockwork, Haley attacks Sherry. She looks bored without Nombly, so I let her. She and Nombly used to chase each other around, but Sherry doesn't seem to differentiate between Game! and Attack! (Hard to blame him, considering Haley's insane behaviour.) But I guess he's going to have to learn, so now I don't intervene as quickly when she bugs him.
This is how Haley torments Bones (Sherry's other name):
- she stalks him around the living room for a bit, hiding behind things, sitting low, ready to pounce
- she waits til he's sitting somewhere, minding his own business - preferably above her
- then she POUNCES! She whacks him with her claws, or attacks his tail or something
- he turns and tries to whack her back, and then he gives her...
The Alpha Cat Stare
and
Swishes His Tail Ominously
- she swishes her tail in return, and meows this weird, long, prolonged meow at him (which is how I know she's stalking him even if they're not in the room with me) and attacks him again
- then she repeats the process until he finally jumps down on her and gives her a smackdown (usually a full body smackdown)
- she screams Murder! Murder! and that's when I check on them to make sure we're not in danger of a serious cat fight, and often after this she'll go sit somewhere "safe" even though she started it. And I reassure Bones that he's a good boy and I know he didn't start it.
IN OTHER NEWS
Poor Fernando how some weird sickness. Some gastro-ee thing, so you can guess what that means. I'm washing and alcoholing my hands all the time so I don't catch it!
IN OTHER NEWS
I've continued researching and plotting my next book. I might do Nanowrimo this year as a way of jumpstarting the actual writing of the book. Just a rough rough draft. I've never done Nano when working full-time, cause Nov is a busy time of year in retail, but I think I can do it. It just entails cutting out the internet-ahj.
