Cats are weird.

As you're about the find out, I am usually petting the cats one-handed because I need to be working on my laptop with the other. Usualy it's fine. They get belly rubs. I get a jump on my work day. Everybody wins.

Except when it comes to Jenny, my spoiled little princess. If I have to stop petting her for a second because I need both hands to type or need to flip pages of a document, she gets frustrated and starts meowing to be petted. If I don't pet her how she wants, she gets frustrated and starts meowing to be petted differently. And if that doesn't work, she gets up and comes over to demand it. Sometimes I try to recover before she gets all the way up off the bed, which leads to awkward situations like this...

My sweatshirt sleeve is the same color as the blanket so my hand is a ghost!

Yesterday I start work around 5:30am because I have to respond to emails before Europe ends their work day. My cats know this. They hear me typing away and used to just come up and hang out on my electric blanket while I work until it's time for their breakfast. But now every morning is drama. When I wake up and the cats hear me clicking away on the keyboard it starts a chain of events...

1. Jenny will uses the Litter Robot downstairs, then start crying. Loudly.
2. I'll holler down for her to get her fuzzy butt up here, then hear her dashing up the stairs.
3. She'll spend five minutes wanting to be petted, then plop down wanting belly rubs. I've gotten real good typing one-handed.
4. Jake finally wakes up, moseys upstairs, then sits on the bedroom floor staring at us.
5. He'll then leave to go use the upstairs Litter Robot.
6. Eventually he'll come back so he can use his night vision to stare out back from the bedroom window perch.
7. When he's had enough, he'll jump on the bed and annoy his sister, demand pets for a few minutes, then lay down... hopefully not on top of Jenny.
8. Eventually they both fall asleep and I can go back to work.
9. At around 6:30, Jake goes to the stair banister cat shelf and stares at me through the door until the breakfast alarm goes off at 6:55.
10. Jenny runs down stairs at around 6:45 so she's ready for breakfast ten minutes later.

This happens every morning now. Same routine. Day after day. Why does Jenny cry her head off when she could just come up? Why does Jake think going to the cat shelf is essential to get breakfast? Why do cats do anything they do? Nobody knows. They're cats.

And speaking of cats...

When Jake is wandering around with Mufasa in his mouth, he'll drop him in random places. Often times in the middle of a walkway. Which makes going to the bathroom in the middle of the night a hazardous prospect from time to time. It certainly was last night when my foot dragged across Mufasa because it was dark and I couldn't see him...

I knew it wasn't my cats because they were on the bed with me. But it could have been anything else... like a dead rodent they dragged in from the catio... or, even worse, a live rodent they brought in from the catio.

So I turned on the lights and, yep, it was just Mufasa. Which should have been my first thought. But it wasn't.

Because cats are weird.