This morning I had just sat down on the couch to eat some Cap’n Crunch when I heard a woodpecker pecking at a metal vent on the roof. Jake was on the couch next to me and Jenny was upstairs. Both of them went running to the front of the house to investigate. A few minutes later the woodpecker started pecking again and... bedlam. The cats went absolutely nuts. But then the woodpecker must have flown away, and the cats went back to their respective corners to go back to sleep. So that was an adventure.

Earlier this week I had to clear space on my personal backup drive to make room for transferring some work stuff. I was about to delete a folder when I thought to open it and found this video inside. Jenny was able to climb stairs and the cat tree before Jake, so she often ran circles around him until he caught up...

Adorable.

And then...

I happened upon a Facebook Group called My Orange Cat is a Little Shit, and immediately felt the need to join. I decided it introduce Jenny to the group with my favorite photo of her. It's from when I was remodeling the guest room and she was examining the new mirror I had installed...

I love my little orange shit.

My cats have completely reversed their position on food. Jenny will eat whatever I put in front of her whereas Jake will refuse to eat things he used to eat and rarely enjoys trying something new. And he's really funny about how he displays his displeasure. He will come up to the bowl, sniff it a bit, watch his sister eat it, then turn and sit in front of the bowl to stare at me in the kitchen like I'm supposed to come do something about the travesty put before him.

It's at this time I say the words he's been dying to hear.

"Want me to thrown some stank on that?"

Then I go get some dried fish flakes and sprinkle them on his dinner so he'll eat it.

This is a trick that I came up with for Jenny which has now been passed on to her brother.

And speaking of her brother...

I've made a vet appointment for him and his sister because something seems off about him. He's been incredibly clingy like something is wrong. From the minute I get up in the morning to the minute I leave for work... then from the minute I get home until I fall asleep... he's all over me.

And, as you probably saw over the last several Caturdays, this is my life now...

When my legs aren't down for him to lay on, he's near... finding a substitute...

And, oh... there seems to be a second Fake Jake in the neighborhood!

Any time I see a cat that looks like Jake outside, my heart skips two beats. I have a flashback to when he escaped, and go into an immediate panic. Except when I got this visit, Jake was asleep on my lap.

I still had a moment of panic because I forgot he was there.

I'm learning to live my life around him being clingy.

Jake likes to make kitty-biscuits and slow-blink back to me. Jenny rarely does either of these things. She prefers to kick me when I pet her wrong and look at me like I'm insane. Not that this bothers me... Jenny is so endearing because she defies expectations like this.

But Friday morning when I decided to stay in bed on my holiday day off and work the afternoon. Jenny was apparently thrilled, because she hopped up on the bed... and started making kitty biscuits on me! How nice is that?

Jake decided he didn't want me going outside to clean up my messy yard, and pinned me down...

For a second there, I thought Jenny was going to join him...

This morning Jake crashed out next to me, which means he might as we'll have jumped on my legs, because I didn't want to move and wake him up...

Now that it's Saturday, I get to do all the things that I put off yesterday. Yay.

Of course, there's always Sunday...

Last Thursday night I was so tired that I was nodding off on the couch at just 10:00. I finally decided to take advantage of it and head upstairs to bed. This was fine by Jenny, and she went tearing upstairs at top speed to be petted. She ended up performing this spectacular leap over her brother, made even more impressive because he was in motion.

After brushing my teeth, I climbed into bed where Jenny was impatiently waiting.

I reached out my hand to start petting her, then turned away to put my Apple Watch on the charging stand.

What I didn't realize was that something must have caught Jenny's attention, because she looked up while my gaze was temporarily diverted.

Which is to say that instead of petting her head, I wiped my hand across her nose.

Which wasn't fun for either of us.

This lead to a deep dive into a simple Google search... Why are cat's noses wet? Turns out that it helps them smell better by trapping scent particles, and acts like a cooling system because they can sweat through their noses. On top of that? Cats lick their nose frequently and have tear ducts which drain through their noses.

Which is to say I wiped my hand across snot, sweat, saliva, and tears.

Great.

Tonight I am not home, I'm over on the coast. This is always stressful for myself and my cats. Me because I worry that they'll get into trouble. Them because they wander around the house wondering where I am.

Take Jake, for example, who sat on the bottom step waiting for me to come home. I saw him there last night and again this morning...

Hang in there, buddy, I'll be home tomorrow morning!

My cats are being absurdly fickle again.

I always grab a few random cans of food when I go to the pet store, just so I can know which foods I can get if the food I normally buy for them is out of stock or discontinued.

One of the foods from my last haul was so favorably received that I decided to buy some of it to add a little excitement to their lives.

You know what happened next. They turned up their nose to it.

And so... the cans are going to the back of the cupboard. This is what I do when this happens, because many times when I try it again later, they're obsessed with it again. And if not? I give it to the neighbor's cats, because they aren't at all picky like my spoiled little kittens.

In other news, Jake has gotten so comfortable laying on me that he now has no problem at all giving himself a bath...

Not only that, but he makes for a great foot-warmer on cold days...

And of course both of them are still sleeping with me. I regularly wake up to find them somewhere on my bed...

Now it's time for me to try and sleep. A task my cats excel at.

Jenny is a spoiled little princess. Furthermore, she knows it.

She is very aware that if she starts fretting or crying, I'll do whatever it takes to make her happy. And the older she gets, the more she exploits it. Wednesday night, for example, I moved her warming pad on my bed because it was cold and I wanted her to have a comfortable place to lay while she got her nighttime pets.

She did not like this!

She stood in front of the pad and started crying. But I couldn't move it because she was in the way. So she went from unhappy to frustrated and tried to walk around it. But there wasn't enough room, so she started meowing while I tried to move it around her.

It was an ordeal, to be certain.

And she was most put out over it.

Last night I went to bed with a headache. The cats, who care nothing about my bullshit, followed me up so they could get petted and sleep next to me. Eventually they both left, at which point I fell asleep.

Then, at 1:22 in the morning, I was awakened by both cats running into my room and jumping on me. A part of me wanted to go downstairs to try and figure out what got them so upset, but my head hurt too much. I figured I'd wait until they calmed down and left so I could go back asleep. Except they didn't leave.

So I did.

I took my pillow and went downstairs to sleep on the couch.

And when I woke up, this was my view...

Jake sleeps on top of me every chance he gets. Today I've been working on the couch, and he's been sleeping on my legs all day. So I'm not surprised that he sleeps on me at night too.

On my Immich photo manager there's a "ten years ago" section which has been displaying pictures of Jake & Jenny when I got them a decade ago. Which means they're over ten years old? It doesn't seem possible. It seems like yesterday.

I took a lot of movies back then. And all of them are adorable. To me. Probably not to many other people though. I mean, look at this...

But it's the photos of Jake with Mufasa that are my favorites...

Even when Jenny wants to take Mufasa away...

Awwwwwwwww.

In world news... "In Sweden, new legislation has made it illegal to leave cats alone for long periods of time. This law is designed to improve the welfare of cats, ensuring they receive social interaction and care. It is part of Sweden’s broader animal welfare policies, which aim to protect pets and ensure their well-being." — This is interesting to me. I mean, I don't like leaving my cats, but there are times I have to. At first I was hiring a pet sitter to come take care of them, but that traumatized them more than being alone. They would hide when the sitter showed up, then not come out... even after they left. So I stopped doing that. Instead I make sure there are feeding robots and litter robots and water fountains and warming pads and the like. It's better for them.

I saw this and it reminded me of Jake...

Cheesecake eventually got switched to a new food that deflated her gassy tummy and helped her lose weight. Jake's just fat.

Well, Jake's clinginess is apparently here to stay. Usually after I get back from a trip, it will last four or five days... maybe a week. But it's been two weeks since I got back from Kansas City, and he's still all over me whenever I'm home.

Not that I can really complain. Who doesn't like having a warm kitty on their lap when it's cold out?

But now that it's getting warmer every day?

One day soon, when it's hot out and I'm too cheap to turn on the air conditioner, I will likely feel different about Jake sleeping on top of me.

Though I should probably enjoy every minute while I can. Boo-Bear won't be around forever.

And neither will I.

I talk to my cats... like... all the time. Especially when they talk to me.

They answer back but, don't worry, I'm not pretending I can understand them. At least not yet. It's entirely possible that sometime in the future I'll finally have that mental break that will take me all the way.

Because I reply to my cats when they talk to me, they are talking more and more. Jenny will alter how she meows based on whether she's mad, happy, hungry, wanting to be petted, or is frustrated. Her "mad" meow is very noticeably different than everything else she says. So she's fairly easy to decode.

Jake, on the other hand, just squawks. He can't meow for some reason. Which means I have no idea what's going through his furry little head and have to guess. Usually he wants attention. But sometimes he is looking for a toy or wants food... and it's a matter trial and error to get him figured out.

Ever since I got back from Kansas City, Jake has been spending a lot of time sitting on me. Assumably because he doesn't want me to leave again...

Fortunately, the only "leaving" I will be doing for quite a while is going to work. But I'll be back at the end of the day so I can be pinned to my couch.

Welcome to another Caturday Pupperday!

I am in Kansas City, far from my cats, so I'm having to make due with Aaron and Henry's dogs this time. It made for a nice change given how adorably enthusiastic dogs are to see you when compared to cats. Especially when you find out just how little dogs seem to care about respecting personal space. I had dogs all over me, and it was pretty great...

The first lapdog was a (relatively) small poodle who was very polite. Just wanted to sit on my lap for a while and be petted...

Fortunately, when my lapdog left, there was a backup lapdog to take their place...

Then a backup to my backup lapdog entered the picture...

And then a backup for my backup's backup lapdog entered the picture. Absolutely no understanding of physical space. Climbed right up on my lap, my chest, my face, and eventually my head...

Then it was a big change in a small package. I had met Asher when Aaron and Henry were living in San Francisco. She patiently waited her turn for pets as a replacement backup lapdog...

Then it was time for a brief return of one of the backups for belly rubs...

Meanwhile, back at home, the home security system alerted me that Jake and Jenny were sleeping.

No worries I'm sure when I return on Sunday afternoon they will be upset that I smell like dog, but eventually wanting lap time of their own.