Good Morning – with cats

The alarm rings at 6am – time to hit the snooze a few times. I need my snoozes. Fortunately, the cats understand the significance and vital importance of mom’s snooze time, and rarely bug me. They do know what it means when I grab the phone and turn off the alarm 10-15 minutes later though, and come leaping up on the bed to say their hellos.

We walk down the hall towards the kids’ rooms… I shuffle groggily, they scamper and swirl. I turn on lights, radio, and get each child to acknowledge my presence and purpose for trespass… then I go out to allow them another 10-15 minutes sleep. This snooze ‘alarm’ works very well for them and it’s very easy to get them going when I wake them like this. Often I take advantage of the time and go back to bed for a few more minutes myself. Yes, I do set the alarm again, and amazingly enough, the cats ‘get this’ too, and while they follow me back to bed, they still don’t bug me.

Oh, but soon enough, it’s time to get up, for real, and the cats throttle up the excitement level to the highest notch! Off we parade down the hall again… one shuffling, 3 racing… and I let the cats determine who gets up first. They leap on the chosen bed and snuggle, rub, head-butt and purr. Then we have fun pulling clothes out of the closet (yes, they can balance on the clothes rod), catching (stealing) socks, digging through drawers, etc. Ninja loves the ‘toe attack game’ and considers it her daily duty to pounce on toes as the kids attempt to extricate themselves from the blankets.

“One kid successfully awakened… next!”

Getting dressed, shoes on, teeth brushed and hair brushed are all closely cat supervised. Sometimes too much so. It’s dangerous to brush hair when a cat is trying to grab the brush from your hand. And it’s hard to brush teeth with a cat in the sink wanting to play with the water… despite the distractions though, getting ready with cat help tends to be a lot of fun.

Eventually the kids make it out to the breakfast table. Pumpkin generally leaves everyone alone and has his breakfast, but Pixie believes it is her job to bother the kids, as much as possible, at the table. She is especially interested when milk, or Kiri cheese (cream cheese), is involved, but also loves the effect she can get by diving at the base of a cereal box to knock it across the table, cereal flying! (brat!). Ninja meanwhile, helps me with the kids’ lunchboxes and backpacks. I set the boxes on the counter, go find snacks, remove a toy rat from a lunchbox, start packing the box, go get water bottles, remove the cat from the box, turn around to put everything in backpacks… remove cat and/or rat from backpack, etc.

Finally, we make it out of the door and the kids get out to their bus. Some mornings we can hear Ninja meowing forlornly from the living room as we wait outside. What never fails though is, as I come back in the house, I will hear Ninja calling desperately for me from inside the door. I suppose minutes are like hours in cat-time. She wheelies up, meercat style, on her hind legs for love and pets… then she brings me her toy rat. Rat fetch is the BEST. GAME. EVER., especially with a big long living room and marble floors to slide across. I’ll toss her rat for as long as she brings it back, or until my arm gets tired… usually she gets distracted by her sister joining the game and I can make my escape.

Next on my agenda is making coffee. That routine is very similar to packing lunches… get the pot, remove the cat from the sink. Remove the rat from the sink. Fill the carafe while preventing the cat from playing with the water. Pour the water into the coffee maker and insert a filter. Go get coffee. Stop the cat from placing the rat in the filter, (or coffee tin or whatever is handy), toss rat across kitchen, spoon in coffee grounds, etc. Then, get the rat from the counter, again, remove the cat from my shoulder, go in living room and play round two of rat fetch, the BEST. GAME. EVER. It probably would not surprise anyone that I often forget to turn the maker on… 

Eventually, I sit down for a few minutes to check the news and my email. It’s about this time that Brad comes out, ready to leave for work… and often has to remove at least one fast asleep, worn out cat from his chair so he can sit down and put on his shoes! The cats will often sleep most of the day too, unless I go shopping and bring home exciting groceries (doesn’t matter what I buy.. groceries are always interesting), and they will only wake up when it’s time for the school bus to bring their kids back home again. The cats need all day to rest because homework play, evening play, and bedtime rituals tend to be just as wild as our mornings, with cats.

(btw… I sure hope the grocery store has more furry toy rats back in stock… the ones we have left are about played out!)

Bird of Peace? Ha!

I heard this thumping sound against the balcony window and wondered what was up. I walked into the living room in time to see Misty run face first into the window, repeating the 'thump' noise I'd just heard, so it obviously was not an accident. Silly cat.

Usually he is the coordinated one. Misty plays soccer with toys, chases a laser pointer dot, etc. He's the sporty feline in the family... Ramses, well, he tends to be the one who leans over too far and falls off the edge of the couch. The only sport Ramses enjoys is riding in the laundry basket. Misty ... usually.... has all the grace and style. So, why was he repeatedly ramming his nose into the glass? The glass is dusty (yay sandstorms!) and covered in safety film, with a sheer curtain right in front, not exactly invisible!

It was a bird. We do not have anything on the balcony to attract birds... no seeds, no water (I'd like to have feeders, but do not want to attract rats).... the balcony itself is rather useless. Barely a foot and a half deep. Nothing for anybody to do out there. Definitely nothing for a bird to do... except bug the heck out of our cat...little instigator... and the way he was hopping around on the floor. Coming right up to the window. Jumping from floor to railing and back again.... this was definite purposeful harassment.

The bird was inches away (through the glass) and Misty couldn't resist jumping at him... I do not have too much sympathy for his bruised nose though. He knows better.
Sitting up there on the railing, looking all innocent. Oh yea... we know what you are up to.
Now, Misty will be plotting and scheming and checking the windows for the rest of the day. He does not give up easily. Every once in awhile he searches around our freezer, and you can tell he is remembering his rat... he sniffs around, looks up to the top, meows some questions, and that was over a year ago. He has also been known to hunt earthquakes... he's been through a few good-sized ones and after each, he'd spend the rest of the day patrolling every inch of the house... sniffing and searching... trying to hunt down the invisible house-shaking monster. Good thing I watered the plants yesterday - I don't think I want to open the balcony now. A distracted cat on the edge of a 3-story balcony? Not a good idea.

Oh, and here's a question for those with cats. Does your cat have radar? I can always tell Misty is hunting something when I hear this particular clicking noise.... (and no, he usually does NOT signal his hunts with window thumps! He was just being a goofer today).... The noise is an open-mouth, kinda vibrating/rattling, "tch tch tch" sound. He's done this, instinctively, since he was a kitten. Funny thing is, when Ramses was younger and willing to join Misty on 'hunts', he learned how to use this click noise, that we call "radar", too. He doesn't do it anymore though. I have no idea what this noise is called or if it is common. I'm curious if others have seen this behavior?

Why he's a housecat

Misty was born in a barn. A old stone structure somewhere out in the dales in North Yorkshire. He's a big strong cat and would have made an excellent farm cat. Note, I said 'would'. That's past tense. He has always been our mighty hunter... for things he could get after in the house. Bugs, toys, insects, the red dot from the laser pointer, his brother, etc. He even made a huge effort to get our rat! He will even still play a mean game of soccer, and believes nighttime is the perfect time for yodeling. But after many years of living the easy life of a globe-trotting, but strictly indoor, cat, he's lost some of his instincts. Like the concept of stealth, or camouflage!

I was trying to get the kids in bed, and as Honor was brushing her teeth, I herded Brian into his room to brush his hair. Misty, all 20+lbs of him, snuck in after us, and although he were looking right at him, stealthily (he was quiet, but we did notice him!) snuck up on Brian's bed, and burrowed under a pillow... "They'll never find me here!"... oh yea? Nevermind that he is too big to fit under a standard pillow, he also forgot to pull in his tail.

oh yea Misty - you are so busted.

He was determined to play hide-n-seek though. We stole his pillow, but as soon as we opened the bed, he was burrowing in the bedcovers at the foot of the bed!

There's a rat in mi kitchen...

We had to deal with something yesterday I have never faced before - a rat! I have never even had a small mouse in a home, but this rat got in somehow. We're not even sure how and we've looked all over. We think it may have pushed through a window. It wasn't here long because we found no chew marks, and droppings were confined to 2 small areas.

Brian saw 'something' on Saturday. He thought it was big enough to be a mouse - but was not sure. We fight ants when they decide to march on us from ?? some other place, but we usually do not even see roaches in this building. Not to pick on Cairo, but this is a big polluted city, lots of garbage, etc. I am actually surprised that we do NOT see roaches... but we are cleaning fanatics. There are a lot of rats too, and it is very common to see them scurrying about. I have even seen a mother mongoose (weasel?? ferret?? - not sure which it was, but definitely one of the predators) carrying her babies from nest to nest. Enough rats to support a family of rat eaters!

Anyway, our building and apartment facilities are kept clean and the trees/litter is picked up etc. but it should still not be surprising to see a rat - but we were ;-D Anyway, on Sunday, our big cat was after the freezer. We assumed he had found Brian's 'mouse' - which we were still assuming was probably a large roach. Misty is too old to jump that high anymore though so he had to just growl on the floor (he's a dramatic hunter - even with flies). Well, yesterday afternoon, I walked by the freezer, and back between 2 boxes I had up there, was the rat.. sitting there washing his whiskers. Creepy, but cute.

Well, I've caught and released birds in the house (they say to leave doors open and the bird will fly out, but with cats, mirrors, etc, I find it is safer to catch the poor thing), I've caught and released big spiders, I've caught and released lizards (I actually like lizards in the house, but as I have cats, I usually end up with half-lizards that I find at night with barefeet - ew! - so out they go, when I can get to them first!), and I have even caught and released snakes from my (Florida - of course) home. I didn't know how to handle a rat! Definitely didn't want to chase it out - it might have gone elsewhere in the house, and I didn't want it getting to my neighbors' homes. I didn't want to leave a trap or poison - because of the cats and my kids. So I called our facilities guys. They managed to move the freezer and trap it in a corner, but couldn't get to it. So we called our bawwab - the building 'jack-of-all-trades'.

Ahmad first tried a baited trap, and came back in an hour to check. No luck. He went in the kitchen - with all the doors closed and blocked - and we heard all sorts of moving and banging! Finally he called me in. I saw that he had moved all of the major appliances and he told me he thought the rat must have gotten out somehow - we banged some more on things, and I was about to agree with him (we thought there must have been some hole somewhere) - then the rat popped out from under the freezer - I had to lift my foot or it would have scurried right over my bare toes! Ahmad was swinging a stick, I had a mop (what i just happened to be holding when the rat jumped out), we were blocking and jumping (as the rat ran under us ;-) !). BOTH of our cell-phones picked this time to go off - so we had a 'soundtrack' of 'The Mexican Hat dance' and some Middle Eastern tune, combined. Brad was outside one kitchen door asking if we were all right. Honor (our biggest cat) was at the other door, demanding to know if we'd got the rat yet, she wanted to see it! It was insane - but it ended quickly. Alhamdullah - for us, but not the rat. Ahmad struck the rat once and killed it. Probably suffered less than if our cat had got it or had we had to poison it.

Ahmad helped us straighten the kitchen again - how often do you get to clean under/around ALL of your big heavy major appliances anyway?? - and even insisted on mopping. You know I tipped him well, although he tried to insist that catching the rat was his job, I made him take it for all the cleaning! (which was not his job!) He even humored the kids and showed them the dead rat.

Anyway - checkmark beside another Cairo adventure/learning experience. Now, if I can only stop singing UB40's "There's a rat in my kitchen, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna fix that rat, that's what I'm a gonna do.."