I have a very long day ahead of me, so let's get to it!

I will invite Jenny to smell whatever she wants to, including any food I might be eating, because she's just being curious. She is picky about whatever stinky cat food I give her, and has zero interest in anything that doesn't stink like fish strongly enough.

Jake, on the other hand, is also curious... except he will eat just about anything. So the only food of mine he's allowed to smell are things I know he won't eat. Like applesauce. For everything else, I just move it away from him and say "Mine!" which he understands perfectly. Once he hears me say that, he stops seeing how close he can get to my food, and sits down and watches me eat it. Very carefully.

Sometimes I will set the plate down in front of him if there's a tiny piece of cheese or a small smear of mayonnaise on there he can eat which won't cause major problems. But it's a rare thing.

Not because I don't want him to have it... but because boy oh boy is he a beefy bear now. Over 17 pounds, because he's forever digging into Jenny's leftovers. It's starting to worry me enough that I've been hovering over the cats while they eat, then I'll jump in and remove Jenny's food when she's done eating it. I mean, just look at my chonky little bear when photographed from behind...

Still a handsome kitty though...

And because I've got another very long day ahead of me tomorrow, I think it's time for beddy-bye.

Whenever Jenny has had enough of me petting her or holding her feet or whatever... she just starts kicking at me to get away while she makes her escape. It's a hilariously cat-like. They manipulate you into getting what they want. And if they don't want you around, they leave.

I can't help but feel I should be learning from that.

In other news... Jake puked on the warming pads I had put on the bed. Both of them!

After I took the covers off the pads to toss them in the wash, I went back upstairs and Jake was sitting on the warm spot left by one of the pads. I crawled back into bed to work for a while, at which point he plopped down next to me and fell asleep...

I think I mentioned how my cats are "talking" a lot more as they get older.

I've decided to talk back.

Jenny was hanging off the cat tree looking at Jake running down the stairs. I was on the couch and started meowing at her. She turned her head to look...

I kept talking to her, at which point she shifted her body more towards me... still hanging off the cat tree...

She doesn't talk back like Jake does. Instead she just looks at me like I'm a moron.

Which is also hilariously cat-like.

This morning I was awakened by Jake hacking up a hairball on the bed. He's been sleeping with me most every night, usually passing out at the blanket I have folded at the foot of the bed. All I could do was say "Good bear, you're puking on the bedding on bedding wash day!"

After wiping up the hairball and stripping the bed to toss everything in the washer, feeding the cats breakfast, and heading back up to get some work done, it started pouring down rain. This caused Jenny to run into the closet to hide, and Jake to hop up on the bed to snuggle up next to me...

And, oh yeah, now that it's colder out I unpacked the warming pads...

This makes them two very happy cats, even though you can't really see it on Jenny with her adorable resting bitch face.

Jake doesn't have a resting bitch face. But he does have a snaggletooth. Some of the time. But lately I've noticed that it's out of his mouth more and more... looking longer than it has in the past...

Weirdly adorable, I think.

There have been a few heart-attack-inducing moments over the years when it comes to my cats.

The one which haunts me most is from 2017 when Jake escaped from the catio. The contractor who attached the roof used screws which were too short. It was made worse because I was flying out for work the next day. What if he had gotten out then?

So imagine my absolute terror when I looked out the window this week and saw that Jenny was looking at me from outside the catio.

Except it wasn't actually Jenny.

From the front, she (or more likely "he" since most orange cats are males) looked exactly like Jenny. It was a Jenny clone. From the side it's a little different story. Jenny has a whirl pattern and longer legs. Though the tail markings are the same...

I mean, just look at those gams...

And speaking of Jenny...

Early in the week, I decided to be a little late for work because Jenny had jumped on the bed for me to pet her, but twisted around to sit on my hand!

Apparently she was very comfortable, because she laid down and eventually fell asleep...

When I came home, Jenny didn't sleep on my hand while I was working on the couch, she instead rolled into the crack between the couch cushions and passed out...

Cats can sleep anywhere. But that doesn't mean they don't try and find the most comfortable place to sleep.

And now, this.

I saw this video of a cat bringing a mouse to get fried up, then being disappointed when it's removed...

I tried to find the original so I could use the video which originated it instead of somebody who stole it. Instead I found loads... loads... of AI slop videos which hasve been made. So now I'm questioning whether or not the one above is even real.

Jake is so not bothered by most anything. Especially when it comes to the litter box. I have one downstairs in the hall closet and another upstairs in my bathroom. I can't tell you how many times I've been in the bathroom and Jake will come in and do his business without giving it another thought.

Jenny couldn't be more different.

She is bothered by just about everything. Especially when it comes to using the litter box.

I woke up early in the morning, stumbled to the bathroom, turned on the light... and... bedlam.

Jenny was in the litter box and went tearing out of it. Since I was in the doorway, she ran to the shower. I felt bad for disturbing her and got out of the doorway so she could run out. Which she did at top speed. Fortunately, she didn't stay mad at me long. An hour later and she was waking me up to be petted and have her feet held (don't worry, I wash my hands after because I know where those feet have been). But she wouldn't look at me...

Or she was bothered by the light out the window that was keeping her awake. Maybe that.

A couple weeks ago I ran down stairs while Jake was in the Litter-Robot (which is near the bottom the the stairs). Didn't phase him a bit. But afterwards, he did climb up on the cat tree and stare at me, like he was saying "What was that about? I WAS ON THE TOILET!"...

Though he did take the time to cover his waste first. That's something.

There are many things frustrating about owning cats. But at the top of the list would be giving them a new food to try... having them absolutely love it... then, once you buy a case of it, they no longer want it. Second most frustrating is when they will eat a certain food for three years then all of a sudden decide they don't want it any more. A could go on. Most of my frustration with my cats are food-related.

Recently I ordered some of the #1 cat food as voted by veterinarians... Smalls

It arrived yesterday, so I served it for dinner.

Jake wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. I sprinkled some stinky dried fish flakes on top... he just licked it off and left the Smalls untouched.

Jenny was excited by the smell and started licking it up immediately. Except she couldn't lick it up because the strange grainy, dry texture just got flattened to the bottom of the bowl.

This morning I knew better than to force it on Jake, so I didn't even bother. I gave him something else. To help Jenny be able to get it into her mouth I mixed it with water so she could actually eat it. And eat it she did. I left them to their breakfast and went back to bed to read some emails.

After a bit I came back downstairs to the living room only to find puke all over the coffee table, the floor, on the side of the couch, and splashed on the side of the entertainment center. The color of the vomit made it very clear that Jenny was the culprit (victim?), because watered-down Smalls was everywhere.

Not that I cared about puke everywhere, that's just part of having cats. But I cared very much that poor Jenny had vomited repeatedly (or one long puke in five locations)...

And so... guess I'll be giving their Smalls to the neighbor cats and see if they handle it better.

Now that it's not so hot out, the cats are loving being out in the catio all day. At least on the days that there's not so much wildfire smoke that I close the door because I'm concerned about their little kitty lungs.

In addition to being outside where they can look at the world, the main reason the catio is so appealing is that they get to visit with the other animals of the area. Mostly cats. An occasional dog. Sometimes a deer or a raccoon.

Right now Jake's favorite visitor is Rusty.

Rusty is actually a very sweet dog from next door that plays in the field behind my home. But she does not like cats. And if my cats are out there, she's perfectly happy to bark and howl at them. Something Jenny is terrified of and will run back inside immediately.

But Jake? Despite how loud and scary Rusty might be, he somehow finds the courage to confront her (in the second half of the video, you can see Jake swiping at her through the fence as she's reflected in the door window)...

And Jenny?

During one of the times Jake was outside hissing and swiping at Rusty, she was happy to just sit next to me on the couch and watch the madness from a safe distance...

My guess is that she's just not up for the drama.

I have completely given up trying to manage my cats.

They do whatever they want and I don't even bother trying to restrict their behavior because now that they're old and cranky (like me) they just don't care. About anything. Fortunately, there are some rules that have been in place since they were small so they don't misbehave because it's engrained into them. Things like scratching furniture or jumping up on the kitchen counters. Sometimes they "forget," but it's rare because they still remember aluminum foil covering the countertops and sticky tape on the furniture legs.

But then there's the dining table.

For whatever reason, they categorically refuse to stop jumping on top of it. No matter how many times I shoo them off, they will hop back on... sometimes minutes after they've been removed. No idea why this is one of those things that they're so intent on doing, but nothing seems to work that keeps them off.

So now I just put a towel on the table and that's that...

If I ever need to actually use the table, I still scrub it down with anti-bacterial scrub... but the fact that Jake and Jenny always stay on the towel when they're on the table is enough to keep me from losing my mind.

So I'm chalking this up as a win.

Even though everybody knows I'm taking the L here.

With the catio closed all week because of my wildfire smoke allergy, the cats have been depressed. Jenny hasn't been dealing with the situation well at all. Sure she doesn't sit in front of the cat door and cry like Jake. But she checks several times whether the door is open.

Just Jenny... contemplating her life choices that lead to the catio being closed for business...

As usual, there's almost zero chance of taking her photo without her noticing...

Jake has been frustrated indeed that stuff is going on outside the window and he can't go investigate...

He's mostly been sleeping. He can sleep for hours...

Then one day when I got home the smoke wasn't terrible. So I opened the catio door. Jenny went out for five minutes and came running back in. Jake waited a few more...

Oh well. I just had to close the cat door again the next morning.

After taking yet another massive allergy pill so I could get a whole four hours sleep last night, I'm exhausted but recovering. My lungs don't feel itchy and I can eat real food.

But it's a different matter entirely for my cats. Who want to go out in the catio. Bad.

I keep showing Jake the air quality reading on my phone and telling him "It's too smokey for little kitty lungs outside!" But he sits there looking outside and crying because I've blocked the door to the catio...

It's particularly upsetting at night, because he sits there and howls because he can't get out. While I'm trying to wind down and rest. Fortunately I can call down to him and he'll come up and fall asleep next to me, because... yikes.

Jenny was upset at first, but resigned herself to the fact that she can't go out.

Which is good, because there's so much smoke out that you wouldn't know it's Summer. If not for the heat, you'd swear it was an overcast Winter day. And I really, really don't need my cats going in and out and brining smoke in with them.

In July they don't want to be outside in the heat very often any way. But September? Prime catio season...

Reeeeeeally hoping that this fire gets under control soon... but at over 9,000 acres and counting, it's not likely. Which means come Monday I'm going to have to leave my house for work and get sick, sick, sick again.

Which is nothing compared to the suffering by my cats not being able to go outside, of course (just ask them!).