I reserved one of the shelves on our bookcase for the cats but I think maybe I should have reserved two shelves.
We will be away again next week so I probably won’t be posting anything until we come back except for next week’s Photo Friday which I will schedule today. The boys will have their favorite cat sitter, Lynn, stopping by to feed and play with them.
Lately, Frankie is on my lap almost as much as Chris is. One of the things he likes to do is nap with his face pushed into my stomach.
Coincidently this is what is happening as I write this.
Frankie’s nose tends to drip when he is happy which explains the wet spot on my shirt. Our cat Vinny did the same thing.
I am scheduling this post a week early because my wife a I are leaving on a week-long cruise on the 14th. We will have internet but probably won’t spend much time online.
When we moved to our new home the cats gained some indoor space but lost their outside catio. Before we built the catio I would take Frankie for a walk on the harness once or twice a week then let Chris out for 10 or 15 minutes while I watched him. Since moving, and before last week, Frankie has only been outside a couple of times and only because he escaped.
Frankie hangs out under vehicles when I am close so I can’t catch him.
Chris escaped a couple of times too and I let him out once or twice because he has been much more demanding (and annoying) about going outside.
I hesitated to let Frankie out because he didn’t make a big fuss at the door like Chris and I wanted to keep it that way but I also wanted him to have some outside time. In addition, I wanted him to get used to where our house is in case he escapes again and loses his way. This will be important because we will be on vacation next week and I don’t want the cat-sitter to have problems.
I let him outside for the first time on October 1 and he was so happy.
Of course, he has to stop and smell the bushes.
Getting him home was a nightmare. He tends to walk in one direction so I have to pick him up to get him home but he has learned to be more aggressive and he hisses, growls and struggles to get out of my grasp. I couldn’t hold on to him for more than ten seconds at a time. I just tried to get him to walk in the right direction. When He changed course I would pick him up again until he broke free.
As usual, when Frankie returned, Chris went outside. 
And also, as usual, he did his happy roll where everyone could see him.
That scene repeated the following week but I haven’t downloaded the photos from my phone yet and I am a bit too rushed to do it now but I’m sure you get the idea. Frankie has now become like Chris and both have become extremely annoying about going outside.
I saw Chris napping with his arm around Floki yesterday and thought it would be the perfect photo so I grabbed my camera and quietly walked toward them but not quiet enough because Chris pulled back his paw as he looked up to see who was making all the racket. He then went back to sleep leaving me still a very good photo but not the one I wanted.
My son recently moved into an apartment with a female roommate that is not his girlfriend (further Stymieing my desire to have a grandchild). His roommate recently got a black kitten that she named Binx after the cat from the movie Hocus Pocus. When he told me about the kitten I asked where he was but he didn’t know. “He’s around somewhere,” I was told.
We talked for a few minutes and then the kitten showed up. I was amazed at how small the kitten was and I asked if he was old enough for adoption. “He is almost eight weeks old,” Chris told me (My son, coincidentally, is also named Chris). He said his littermates were twice as big as him.
I suppose he is right about his age because he gets around very well. He uses the litter box and goes up and down the stairs with no problem. I will be interested to see how big this little fellow gets.
Chris is the most affectionate cat I have ever seen and that affection is not limited to humans. He is equally affectionate with the other cats in the house and he always has been that way. Because of that, all of our cats, past and present, have thought of Chris as the annoying one. Rose and I would sometimes call him Baby Huey. The other cats would tolerate Chris but none of them would seek him out for attention.
Recently things have changed. A couple of months ago we saw Floki go to Chris and push his head into Chris’s face. Chris then washed him and the scene repeated many times after that. Now it is common to see Floki join Chris for a nap and not the other way around.
Does anyone else have a cat that seeks out attention to the point of annoyance?
Frankie has a bit of a shoe fetish. Leave shoes lying around and there is a good chance Frankie will lie on them. Sometimes he will even fight with them, although I have never seen a clear winner.
Our cat tree has a cubby with a small window. It is a place where a cat can go and get some privacy, as long as someone with a camera is not bothering them.
I will never understand why cats like lying on things that are seemingly uncomfortable. Here, Chris decided to lie on pictures that I was getting ready to hang in our new house. We are both lucky that his weight didn’t break the glass.
