As I mentioned a bunch of Caturdays ago, Jake has been acting like he's got a bit of arthritis or something that has him looking like he's having a tougher time moving around. I'll be discussing it with his vet, but in the meanwhile I'm building some things to help him out. Now that Spring is here, I can park outside and set up my garage wood shop.

I'm starting with stairs. The first of which will be to get up to my bed so he might have an easier time getting in and out. I've already built the stair frames and painted them. All that's left is to add the steps and screw in the rubber feet...

After this I've got a long list of "Cat Accessibility Measures" that I'll be working on. Mostly constructing small staircases for places that Jake likes to frequent. Like my desk, the stairwell shelf I built, and small storage room that he and Jenny hide in when people are here.

I am not, however, building stairs up to the kitchen counters. That can stay off-limits.

Before I get to it... this Facebook video of a cat getting its butt wiped at a cat show is about as cat as it get.

Most every morning I have some kind of video conference call. Jenny avoids them like the plague. At most she will go running behind my desk at top speed to get back to my bedroom. Jake, on the other hand, is one of those cats that end up in viral TikTok videos because he has absolutely zero problem asking for attention during a call. He will walk across the desk and put his butt in my face. He will flick his tail while walking back-and-forth. And he will sometimes start squawking because he's still hungry after breakfast.

But most of the time?

He just sits on the shelf I built on top of the stairwell (the one I made after Jake had fallen off and hurt his foot) and... stares at me.

Sometimes in a more entertaining way than others...

The reason I have this photo is because I took it in order to show it to the other person on my call.

I fully realize that the crazy things my cats do sound unbelievable, so I always make sure I have the receipts.

As I'm writing this, my cats have once again taken over the bed. I have about 1/4 at the very edge. I took a photo before Jake spread himself out to full length and kept pushing on my right leg until I moved it...

15 minutes later, the automated feeders triggered to dispense their 9:00pm snack and the bed was mine again.

For a while, anyway.

On Friday morning I drove over the mountains.

On Thursday I had to pack. And deal with my cats, who do not like the idea of me leaving. At all.

When I woke up in the morning and rolled my suitcase into the room, my cats were riveted to my activities. When I looked on the bed, there they were staring at me...

Jake, as usual, was on top of me when I got back from work. Sometimes literally. As you can see here when he was playing "foot warmer" and fell asleep on me...

And so now I'm feeling bad that my cats are back home wondering where I am.

Or taking a dump in my shoes.

One of those things.

Tonight I'm packing for a trip over the mountains tomorrow.

Of course the cats know what's happening. The minute they hear the suitcase rolling out of the closet they know. And they're all over me wanting attention, which I'm guessing is a way to keep me from packing so I don't leave. Or maybe they just realize that the automated cat feeders can't dispense wet food, so they're upset that I won't be here to give them the good stuff?

Either way, I will miss the knuckleheads while I'm away.

For the most part, my cats leave me alone while I'm sleeping. I've left my bedroom security camera on a couple times to see if my cats wander in at night, and they definitely do. But if they see I'm sleeping, they turn around and leave. Especially Jake. Jenny will sometimes wake me up, but when I investigate on the downstairs cameras I find that it's because Jake has taken her spot on a warming pad... or he's sat on her... or she's had a bad dream (this has always happened since I first brought her home, and she will start kicking so hard that she'll waker herself up and be upset) or whatever.

But when I'm awake? Yeah, they are going to want attention.

Usually, Jenny is first to hop on the bed in the morning. But today it was Jake, and Jenny came later...

At which point Jake promptly stood up, then hacked up a hairball all over the blankets, then looked at me like it was my fault. After carefully stripping the bed so the cats could get out of the way, they both fell asleep...

After checking my email and all that, I went downstairs to work on the couch so I could watch television. Jake followed me so he could lay across my legs...

Fortunately he didn't puke up a hairball on me.

Yet.

My cats are fairly well-behaved. They scratch where they're supposed to (scratching posts, not furniture), they (mostly) stay off the counters, they (mostly) don't puke all over the place, and they (generally) don't give me any grief. They have gotten considerably more clingy as they age, but that's not a bad thing.

Jenny wants attention on her terms. Pet her when she wants you to, where she wants you to, and how she wants you to.

Jake, on the other hand, wants attention. Period.

When I get home from work, he comes running to get petted. When I sit down, he comes running to sit on my lap. When I sleep, he usually sleeps on the bed somewhere with me (Jenny will scamper away once I turn off the lights). He's not annoying about it... he leaves me after he's reached his limit... but he's persistent.

As I've mentioned many times, Jenny loves television. Jake has zero interest.

But before I left for vacation, I did run a "video for cats" on YouTube that had a non-stop parade of birds eating seed off a picnic table. Jake was on my lap and I thought he might find it entertaining...

The stereo sound on my laptop confused him because he kept looking around, but once he figured things out... he was completely obsessed...

Still from the video 8 Hour Birds Bonanza

The video goes on for 8 hours. Jake was good for about 15 minutes.

Maybe if they had included some lizards or something he could have made it to 20.

I don't know about y'all, but the height of anxiety for me is giving my cats a new brand of cat food. The odds are 50/50 that one or both of them won't like it. THEN... once I confirm that they both like it, the odds are then an additional 50/50 that they will stop liking it the minute I order a case of it. Fortunately there' little sample packs you can get for foods that cost a little more, but at least I'm not paying lots of money for food only to have it end up at the shelter.

Jake has turned into a total lap-cat.

The minute I sit down he's all over me. Not for hours, mind you... but he'll lay there to get petted for a good 20 minutes. Sometimes less if if not paying him enough attention...

To give Jake something to do while he's on my lap, I found a bird video made for cats on YouTube...

And he was 100% invested from the minute it started...

Jenny is not a lap cat at all. But she'll still sit next to me and insist on attention just the same...

To each their own. Even for cats, I guess.

Weekdays are packed with work at my job... weekends are packed with work at my home. And I'm overwhelmed with stuff to do at both, so I'm having to pick between blogging or napping. Lucky you...

Yesterday I sat down to work and it took all of ten seconds before Jake decided to crawl on top of me. Of course he never wants to sit on my lap when I'm just watching television. Only when I have something important to do...

But it's not like I can ever refuse my cats anything, so I let him fall asleep while I continued my Quentin Tarantino marathon.

Not that Jenny is innocent when it comes to demanding my attention. Both of my cats are demanding attention lately...

Oh well. Who needs sleep?

I feed my cats small meals throughout the day. For breakfast and dinner their meal is split between wet and dry food. The dry is always the same... the pricey "urinary care" food I buy so Jake hopefully doesn't end up with problems peeing again. The wet food varies. I like to give them different foods so they don't get bored. Jenny will not bite or chew anything wet. She'll only lick it. So I buy a lot of "broths" and "soups" and "purées" and such that don't require me to mix waters into her dish.

The wet food that seems to go over the best is "Lil' Soups" by Friskies. I rotate through all the flavors they offer, and the cats love them. I started buying them by the case to save money.

And you know what happened next.

Jake, all of a sudden, has decided he doesn't like the chicken version. A flavor I was surprised that Jenny would eat in the first place because she needs stronger-smelling foods to recognize them as food. No idea what happened. Jenny is still yumming it up, Jake won't touch it.

Tonight I thought I'd make it more appealing for Jake by sprinkling some dried fish flakes on it.

He still wouldn't touch it.

But Jenny did. She blew through hers then waltzed right over and ate his too.

I figured that this wasn't the worst thing in the world since Jake could stand to lose a few pounds, but nothing prepared me for what happened after dinner was over and the dry food had been eaten. Jake was laying on the table next to the auto-feeders so he could be nearby when their 9:00pm snack dropped.

He's never done that before, and I felt awful.

So I snuck him a treat to tide him over for the next three hours.

And now I've got a case-and-a-half of Lil' Soups chicken to get rid of.

I had a huge list of chores I needed to get done today, but have been so exhausted from lack of sleep that I didn't really have the energy to do any of it.

So what did I do instead of working around the house? I sat on the couch and veged out in front of the television. I was hoping that would lead to me falling asleep and getting a nap, but that wasn't to be.

The good news is that I had company. I looked up and saw Jenny staring at me from the table...

And next thing I know, I have a television buddy snuggled up next to me...

Which, let's face it, is a lot better than sleep anyway.