I won't lie to you, these past couple weeks have been tough. My cats, who are unaccustomed to being told "no" have suddenly found themselves being told "no" quite a lot. They can't go in the guest bathroom because I'm repairing my contractor's shitty renovation work. They can't go into the storage closet because I'm temporarily storing some tools in there. And they definitely cannot go outside because the wildfire smoke has been dangerously unhealthy...

I'm still doing my best to keep them entertained indoors. The bird feeder has been the gift that keeps on giving. Except for my wallet, because the critters consume huge amounts of seed. The cats love it though. Especially when the birds land on the window to get at the food which lands there...

When not watching birds, Jake likes to wander around squawking to go out. Jenny, on the other hand, has resigned herself to her fate and prefers to stare at me with sour looks all day...

Earlier this week I had set some jeans down so I could fold them. Jenny took this as an opportunity to crawl around in them. Happy to have found something new for her to do, I just left them there...

And while my cats have been trying to get out, it seems as though every bug in town is trying their best to get in.

Yesterday after feeding the cats I look over and see that they have stopped eating. I wasn't sure what that was all about, so I walk over and... THERE'S A GIANT SPIDER ON THE FEEDING STATION RIGHT BY JENNY'S FOOT!

Yes, I realize the spider looks like a speck in this photograph,
but you can't see his GIANT LEGS!! He's at least 2 inches across!

Jenny ignores it and goes back to eating. THEN THE SPIDER CLIMBS ON HER DISH!!! At this point, I'm dying (again) but she carefully eats around the spider until she's done with breakfast. Then I get to TRAP A GIANT SPIDER. GAAAHH!!

The smoke did end up tapering off enough yesterday that I finally let them play in the catio when I got home. Which they did. And they were so happy to be out there that they stayed out there all day.

From morning...

Until night...

Hopefully the smoke is under control for a while so they can spend time outside having fun instead of inside wanting to go outside and have fun.