As I mentioned a few posts back, I ended up ordering a new Nerf gun. My intent was to shoot darts for the cats to chase. I thought it would be something fun for them.

So I take it out of the package, and shoot a dart from my kitchen... expecting that it will end up in the dining room, which is not so far away. Instead the dart flies the entire length of my home and smacks into the rear window. I was more than a little shocked. Isn't this a kid's toy? How many people have lost an eye because they didn't gauge the amount of force those darts get shot.

But anyway... I never picked up the two darts I fired (it had to be two because I wanted to verify that the first dart wasn't a fluke). And Jake noticed...

So maybe the Nerf gun will end up entertaining the cats anyway.

But carefully.

Odd weather lately here in Redneckistan.

This afternoon rain started pouring down and I heard Jake hop off the bed upstairs and run down the stairs crying all the way. After he jumped on my lap, I distracted him with a Cheez-It. Usually he loves them, but he was so nervous he just made it wet.

Jenny never made an appearance. My guess is that she ran and hid in the closet.

Though she did come out for belly rubs when I went up to check in on her. Though she did end up falling asleep, trapping me there...

Soon enough she got hungry enough to head back down for her lunch that dispensed from the auto-feeder while she was hiding out.

Jenny has pretty much recovered from my being gone for vacation. She's back to her demanding self and only gets clingy when it suits her.

But Jake? He's still clingy any time I'm home.

I wake up in the morning, and this is what I see...

Needless to say, any time I'm laying on the couch, he's going to be on top of me...

The only time I get a break is when there's something new to explore. Like the tray I bought to put my little INSTAX photos in on top of the coffee table...

Guess the tray is his now. If I buy a second one for my photo books, will Jenny take that one?

After returning from vacation, Jake and Jenny have been all over me. They do that for about a week, then kinda go back to their normal (though Jake still likes to lay on me more and more often).

It makes me feel bad to leave again, which is why I'm thinking seriously about hiring a cat-sitter next time. I've always resisted it before because they are so anti-social and have robots to take care of them, but at least with somebody in the house at night, they wouldn't feel quite so abandoned maybe?

This happened when I got home last Saturday...

And every night Jake has been like this...

And Jenny has been like this...

Essentially making sure I don't leave again...

Today Jake threw himself on my Instax photo collection as I was trying to find out how many mini albums I needed to buy. I pushed him aside to finish counting, but he still held on the entire time...

And now I get to go back to work so I can take tomorrow off. Which is great, because I need a vacation from my vacation.

Here it is... Jake getting pets. Jenny waiting for her turn...

And the minute Jake goes, Jenny jumps down...

And it works the opposite too. When Jenny heads up to bed with me, Jake waits patiently for her to be done with me... then he hops up to get petted.

It's tiring for me, because I never get a break... but better than them fighting over me.

Jenny is a dangler.

She loves hanging off of any surface she can fit on, and does so all the time. And some of the time when they're particularly impressive, I will snap a photo... and I've accumulated quite a collection over the years.

This past week I found a Facebook group called THIS CAT HAS D A N G L Y A R M B S. Which is a group devoted to cats like Jenny. And so I joined and started posting my photos there because images like these needs to be seen. I mean...

It's the blerpy tongue that makes it...

So many dangles...

But her favorite place to dangle is the catio. These two photos are months apart, but you can see that the dangle is the same, but the background has changed...

And these are too...

Now all I need is a catspreading group, and Jake will have a place for me to post in as well.

I'll write all about it on Monday. But for now all I can say is that my cats didn't appreciate my old ones, and they don't appreciate the new one either. Jenny is outright terrorized by the thing, as she always has been. Runs away the minute it starts up.

And Jake?

Jake is just annoyed. I filmed his reaction when it started up, and this is what I got...

This model is quieter than my old one, but he's still irritated. Just glares at the robot as it goes about its business...

Eventually it won't be new anymore. Jake will ignore it. Jenny will walk away instead of run.

And life will go on.

Albeit with cleaner floors.

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...