My cats are feral rescues.

Despite all my best efforts and all the visitors that have been to my home, they still cower from strangers. And everybody but me are considered strangers. Sometimes, if there's not a lot of noise, they will venture downstairs and eventually say hello to an unknown person. But that's rare. Most times it will never happen.

And you can just forget about holding them, carrying them, or trying to get them to actually do just about anything at all.

Which is why I see videos like this and am just dumbfounded...

That would never, ever happen with Jake and Jenny.

First of all, you couldn't pick them up to put them in those chairs. Second of all, they would bail out of those chairs immediately if you were to actually get them in them. Third of all, the idea that they would in any way look like they are paying attention to anything happening that's being done by humans.

Sooooo... sorry. No funny cat videos from me.

Jenny is a very smart cat. Very.

This poast week Jenny met me in the kitchen and was complaining about something. I didn't know what until I went to sit down in the living room. Jake was in her spot. She likes the warming pad that's next to me, and Jake usually takes the heating pad on the loveseat across from that.

And I was like "Well, he beat you to it, so you can sit on his spot." BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT SHE DID? Something she's done many times, but I never realized it until now. She scratches on the scratching post behind the loveseat knowing that as soon as she starts, Jake will come running to investigate and start scratching himself. And as soon as he did, she came running around the corner so she can get petted and take her spot back.

I know this is unbelievable, but heeeeere's the video...

Note how Jake wanders off, not even knowing that he's been played.

Speaking of Jake. He's finally started going outside to see the snow, though he doesn't seem to know what to make of it...

Sometime soon, I need to shovel some snow into the catio so they can play in it.

It's snowed a little bit this week, but yesterday is when it really hammered us. This is a confusing time for my cats, as they don't have very good long-term memories. To them, they've never seen snow before, so this is something wild and new.

But first... I've been playing with macro photography on my iPhone, so here's a macro photo of Jake...

And now back to the snow.

Jenny was a brave little girl and charged outside right after breakfast. She shook her little feet with each step because she did not like them getting wet. But then she decided to dig a hole in it to see what it was all about...

Jake, on the other hand, prefered to view the madness from the safety (and warmth) from inside...

Maybe later this week I'll shovel more snow into the catio so they have enough to play in. That's always good for big fun.

And speaking of big fun... it's almost their dinnertime.

My cats have been fending for themselves while I've been over the mountains for the holiday Weekend. Fortunately their food, water, and litter-box are all automated, so all I have to do is check in on them with the security cameras and make sure they aren't eating each other's food.

Although automation isn't always guaranteed.

Earlier this week I came down to feed them breakfast when I noticed that there was a pile of poo outside the litter-box on the litter-shield shelf. I didn't have to watch the security cameras to know what happened. Jake used it, then it didn't self-clean for some reason. Jenny, who refuses to use a dirty litter-box, schooched as far back as she could, so her little butt was hanging out the opening. Poo poo for you.

Then I checked the playback and, sure enough...

Guess I officially know my cats too well.

My Litter-Robots keep track of Jake and Jenny's weights. Every time they use one of them, their weight is recorded. Originally, when I bought the Version 4 robots, I was promised that you could personalize the app with your cats' names so that it could keep track of how often they go to the bathroom and monitor their weights. That feature still isn't here... you have to manually look at the history and keep track yourself... but it's pretty easy to spot which cat is which because Jake has five pounds on Jenny, his more petite sister.

Jake is a big boi.

Not just overweight... he's big. Like he's got some Maine Coon in his genetic makeup. Jenny is smaller by a third, but she's also not as tiny as average cats I see. And both of them have large primordial pouches (abdominal flaps) and excess loose skin on their bellies which make them hang a little lower to the ground than other cats.

When it comes to their weight, I've never been overly-concerned because it's well-distributed. When viewed from the top they are not protruding on their sides. They are slim like regular cats. And you can feel their ribs. Neither is obese. But Jake is heavy, and his vet said he could stand to lose some weight, as it might help with the urinary problems he had back in the day.

When I changed to the new vacuum-sealed feaders, they measure in 1/12th cups instead of 1/10th cups of the old feeders. Since I spread their feedings out to avoid Jake doing a scarf-and-barf, I simply eliminated one of their feedings to see what would happen. Instead of getting .45 cups a day, they now get .42 cups. Not a huge amount, but it's making a difference. Mostly because the cats complain... but partly in their weight.

In the month since the change, Jake has lost 1.9 pounds. Jenny has lost .3 pounds. Probably because Jenny is so close to her target weight and Jake is... not.

But my cats are weirder than most in a number of areas, including how they eat, so this kind of progress with Jake could not be guaranteed. Jake will sometimes skip a feeding or two. Then sometimes he will eat all his feedings and skim off his sister as well. Sometimes Jenny will eat both her portion and Jake's if he doesn't show up. Sometimes she will eat only hers. It's a total crap-shoot. All I know is that if I put down a giant bowl of food, Jake would gorge himself several times. I can imagine him easily eating twice his usual amount of food because he doesn't have any self-control. He'll eat his entire dinner... then come watch me eat mine, hoping for a treat.

I think so long as he's not losing weight too quickly... and he stops losing weight once he's closer to his target weight... this will be a good thing. More healthy for him. But most importantly? He doesn't seem to notice now that he's adjusted to the feeding schedule that's minus a meal.

That's healthy for me... because my cats won't murder me in my sleep.

Don't mind me.

I'm just hanging out in bed.

Listening to the rain with my buddy here...

Jenny would rather hide in the closet.

In celebration of Captain Marvel's second feature film, Marvel Studios took out an ad on The Sphere Las Vegas. And it stars her alien flerkin, Goose!

Out of all the characters in the Marvel Universe, I have to say that the way they've handled Goose is my favorite. This is epic.

And, lastly, here's a kitten that loves corn more than you do...

Or maybe it's the butter? Hard to tell with cats.

Tomorrow is my cats most hated day of the year... Daylight Saving Time starts. The clocks fall back but, from their perspective, they're just getting fed an hour later for some random reason. When it ends in Spring, they're thrilled because breakfast is coming an hour early. But until then? Yikes.

The difference this year is that I'm over on the coast, so I'm not home to deal with it. But to make things easier, I did add a small 6am feeding in addition to their regular 7am feeding in the hopes that they won't be going too insane. But otherwise? It's going to be a tough couple of weeks before they adjust.

I think the bigger problem with me being gone is that there's nobody to turn on the electric blanket for them...

Before I left for Seattle, I was downstairs watching television with Jenny. Then I heard Jake crying upstairs. He does this sometimes. I don't panic like I used to, because it usually means he's found a toy he likes or something. But this time it didn't stop, and pretty soon he was wailing. This worried me quite a lot, so I went running upstairs to see if he was dying or something. Turns out he was mad because the blanket wasn't on. So I turned it on and went back downstairs.

About ten minutes later, he ran downstairs and hopped on his warming pad...

I guess he wanted company and warmth, and was mad that I didn't stay upstairs with him? Impossible to know.

When I put the teaspoon of wet food down before the automated dispenser drops the dry food, my cats have very different reactions. Jake lunges for his bowl like he hasn't eaten in days. Jenny always... always... rubs up against my leg as if she's saying "thanks" then saunters over to smell the food so she can act disgusted before she starts eating it.

Like I said, different.

And now there's this added element of the hissssss from the new automated feeders as the air seal breaks and the food is due to be dispensed. The cats act like a snake dropped from the ceiling. The good news is that they are getting more and more accustomed to the air pump them removing the air from the food bin again. Thus keeping everything fresh and delicious. Well, fresh for sure, but I don't know about the delicious part. I've never tasted it.

I've reduced the amount of food that actually gets dispensed in a day because Jake is looking especially fluffy. They both are. Realistically I know it's because their fur is getting thicker because the cold weather in the catio (and the colder weather in my home) is making them actually fluffier. Plus the scale in the Litter Robots are showing that they haven't gained any weight... plus they each have lots of loose skin which makes them look bigger than they are. However... just look at this guy right here...

That's not a cat. That's a bear. It's a bear-cat. It's Jakey-Bear.

Hence the reduction in food.

But nobody tell my cats.

I live alone. I have casual friends in the area, but all my close friends live nowhere near me. It's for this reason that I live in constant fear that I'm going to crash and die or be hospitalized, leaving my cats to starve and dehydrate because the friends who can do something about it may not find out about my predicament right away.

I have a water fountain, but also a water dispenser which can hold a full gallon to tide Jake and Jenny over until help is dispatched.

But food-wise I have these small auto-feeders which I never like to fill up very full because the food goes stale very quickly. There are "Desiccant Packets" you can buy to put in an interior holder that keeps the food fresher, but they wear out quickly and are expensive to replace.

Which is why I was excited to see a new kind of automated food dispenser being promoted that has an air pump which removes the air to keep the food fresh...

Look how huge that thing is!

This is the large capacity model, which means I could put in enough foood to last a month and it will always stay fresh! The units are huge, but they still fit on the kitty feeding station I built.

One small problem, however.

When the seal is broken to dispense the food there is a hissing noise. Then the food drops out into a metal bowl which makes a clanging noise. Then the air pump activates and makes a whirring noise (it's not loud, but it's frightening to my two scaredy-cats who are not used to it).

I am confident that they will get used to the noise... even welcome the noise because it means that it's feeding time... but for now? Terrorized by it. Though this morning Jake eventually came back to it, which is an improvement over the past couple days when I had to call them over and assure them they wouldn't die each time...

That video is sped up to 4× speed. As you can see, I can tempt them back to finish their breakfast now. Even Jenny, which used to be impossible.

There is a small problem for me, however. My old feeders used to allow dispensing as little as 1/20th of a cup. This new one only goes down to 10/12th of a cup. I used to dispense breakfast in two 1/20th feeding so there's no scarf and barfing. That's no longer possible. Which means they no longer get second breakfast. Which is probably a good thing since they both need to lose some weight. BUT DON'T TELL THEM THAT! They get upset when they wait for a second meal which never happens! They used to get .45 cups a day. I didn't want to go up to .50 cups, so now it's down to .42 cups a day. Oh well.

The app to run these PetLibro feeders is not great, showing me errors that make no sense because everything seems to be working. And while the actual scheduling of feedings is far easier with the PetLibro app, they don't tell you how much total food you're dishing out as you schedule like the PetKit app did. You either have to add it up by hand while you enter everything or wait until the end of the day to see how much total food was dispensed. This should be an easy fix, so I think I'll suggest it and see if I get anywhere.

My old PetKit feeders had internal clocks which tended to drift. Most times it's a small discrepancy. But every once in a while there's a long delay between Jake and Jenny have their food dispensed. This was madenning, because Jake is aggressive and will push Jenny out of the way if his food doesn't come out at the same time. Then his food will eventually dispense and he'll eat that as well. He gets double. Jenny gets nothing. The only way to resolve this is to adjust the feeding schedule so that the clock re-syncs. So while I was traveling, I log in and make tiny changes so that I know they will both get food since I'm not there to keep Jake from eating everything. So far, I'm not seeing this with the PetLibro feeders. They dispense at the same time every time. Hopefully it stays that way.

In conclusion...

Despite how huge these things are, I'm glad I went with the large version because it will give me peace of mind when I'm traveling away from home. The cats could be fed for a long time, the food will always be fresh, and the timing is synced so they both get food. The only con is the sound. But eventually they will get used to the strange sounds (just like they did with the old feeders) so it's pretty much a better solution for me all around.

If you want to try these feeders, I'd advise you to wait for one of the many, many sales that PetLibro has throughout the year. I had a new sale start just a few days after previous sale I missed had ended. Their website is here.

Today started off good enough.

Woke up. Fed the cats. Handled my emails. Did some work. Read my news feeds. Then waited for Jake and Jenny to come hang out on my electric blanket so I could chill in bed for a while. A long while, since I had no plans of going into the office since I've been working my guts out all week...

But then I done fucked up by getting out of my comfortable bed to watch the (partial) eclipse that would be happening.

Which I should have investigated when I left my bed the first time, because then I would have seen that the skies were completely overcast and I wouldn't be able to see a fucking thing.

It's all been downhill from there.

The only way I even knew the eclipse was happening is that it got dark enough to trigger the light sensor and turn on my lights because my house thought it was night time. I really, really need to get a time range set on that automated routine. Especially now that the weather will blot out the sun at random moments as the weather gets darker and darker.

The good news is that my grocery delivery arrived.

Yesterday I saw an advertisement for Sour Patch Kids and had a craving for the watermelon-flavored candies they came out with. Except the mini mart didn't have them, so I placed a grocery delivery. My local store had the watermelon candies mixed in with regular Sour Patch Kids in a Halloween bagged assortment...

So that's something, I guess.

As for my cats? They've moved on without me.