Thursday, September 29, 2016

9/29/2016: Fixated on the "roundy-round"

Hi, all!  Sorry I haven't written in... over four months?!?  Wow.  A lot has happened here:  I was a vendor in a huge bead show, and making a bunch of new kits was very stressful.  At the same time, Pixel was sick and had a biopsy.  We feared it would be cancer, but it turned out to be a form of Irritable Bowel Syndrome.  We've changed his food, which means we now do scheduled feedings instead of everyone eating whenever they're hungry.  That has been a huge change.  Right after the bead show, I got Bell's Palsy on the right side of my face (I've been saying that all the stress froze my face).  The eye strain was debilitating, but fortunately it didn't last too long.  In trying to recover from and deal with all of that, this blog has slipped.  I'm so sorry.

But today our Clinchy was being especially cute, so I've come out of hiding.

Some days he fixates on a particular activity.  There's something he hasn't done in weeks or months, like go up in the cubbyholes in the dining room, then all of a sudden he's all over it.

Today's fixation appears to be the "roundy-round" (Does this thing have an actual name?) under the end table:


This is the scratching/ball toy that we brought home with Clinchfield.  We have another one in the dining room (flat on the floor) that he plays with sometimes, but today this one has intrigued him.

A long time ago, we put it on top of the bed to get it out of the way of the vacuum and left it there after one of the cats played with it.  We shrugged and figured that was a good enough place for it.

That has led to a few interesting sights, including this one of Fe:


I don't know how she crawled in there without disturbing anything.  She's a big girl.

Today, I was sitting in my studio with Pixel on my lap, and I kept hearing this weird sound.  I knew Clinch was up to something, and after a while I decided to check it out.  The roundy-round had slipped, and he could only push the ball up a few inches.




After he left, I fixed the toy so it was straight on top of the bed and came back to my studio.  A few minutes later I heard the ball roll around, and sure enough, he was back under there:



He left again, and a few minutes later he was back:



He's so lackadaisical, isn't he?

Just so Pixel doesn't feel left out, here he is playing with our other roundy-round as a baby in 2005:


Goodness, was he a little thing back then.  Here he is today, after gaining back most of the weight he lost when he was sick:


He's a little overweight now, so we're adjusting his food and Prednisone to help him lose weight safely and to keep him healthy.  We're so glad he's doing better!