the wombatcave

The Shadowcat figured out how to turn our inside doorknobs when he was about 2 years old. We have to lock any of the internal doors for rooms we don't want the cats to get into or out of.

As of last night, he has figured out how to open the FRONT DOOR. This is really, really bad.

Among other things, he and Spot have pretty much lived their whole lives as indoor cats, other than a few weeks of early feral kittenhood before they were weaned. Also, the prospect of them blithely escaping and leaving the front door open while we're out is just... really, really bad.

The door does have a deadbolt with a separate locking lever, but it automatically unlocks when the doorknob is turned from the inside. There's somekinda separate thingummy in the doorknob itself that increases the turning resistance, but possibly not enough to prevent a determined Evil Genius Cat.

On a separate note, I think he's also figured out how to open the latch on the airtight kibble bin.

Guess I'd better check out Orchard Hardware's selection of toddler-proof doorknob accessories. And/or get a short door chain and a drill, though cats' notorious ability to squeeze through small openings-- even these 18-pound bruisers-- may make this latter option largely useless.

Over the past few months, the Shadowcat has occasionally gotten into really weird moods where he'll nuzzle up behind my head and then start burrowing into or even chewing on my hair; in extreme cases, he'll even try to start chomping it out of my scalp. This isn't a completely new thing for him-- when we first we got him and Spot as bitty semi-feral kittens, we kept them shut up in a small room where we never even saw them for the first few weeks, but I'd sleep inside there and occasionally I'd wake up because one of them was apparently trying to suckle on my wet hair hanging over the edge of the cushion-- but it's certainly weird for him to've started back on the habit some years later with such sudden vehemence.

I recently commented on this to the wombat-consort, who made a jocular reply along the lines of "Did you start using cod-liver oil as conditioner?" ...which made me suddenly realize no, not exactly, but my conditioner *is* labelled with an "Ocean Mist" scent.

(Though I still don't know what's sparked off this behavior from Shadow, since I've been using this conditioner for a while now; the first few times, it might've been because I was sitting around with my hair still wet from the shower-- normally I shower just before bedtime and let my hair dry overnight-- but yesterday he got really determined to scalp me in mid-afternoon when I was just sitting around with my hair not only dry but not having been washed for the past day or two.)

(initially posted as a comment elsewhere)

A few weeks ago, after one of the resident catbeasts insisted on accompanying me into the bathroom, he pawed open the medicine cabinet so that the mirrored door swung open, resting nearly parallel to the main wall mirror. And then he stuck his head up between the two mirrors and his tail went FWOOF to many times normal size.

OMG INFINIT KITTEHS.

For a while, he kept ducking back and forth, peeking up at the INFINIT KITTEHS and then checking the back of the cabinet door to see if they were "behind" the mirror-- it was almost identical to the first time I showed him a freestanding mirror, except that this time he didn't end up dashing around the room to search every crevice where the Mirror Cat could've gone to hide whenever Original Cat checked the back of the mirror. Eventually he got bored, but then apparently went to go fetch his idiot brother to come look at the INFINIT KITTEHS; after one look, the idiot brother dashed under the furniture and wouldn't come out until bedtime.

I will be so going to hell because of the chorus from Hounburnd's "Catalanta in Colliedon". (I'll send postcards.)

I iz tyg4r burn1nz br1t3
In yr f0r3stz 0f t3h n1t3
WHUT da m4x l33t h4ndz 0r 3y3z
Fr4m3z0rd mah f33rfl 5mmtryz?( Read more... )