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!

12/24/2015: Merry Chr... Oh, no - not again!

I was all set to do a quick "Merry Christmas" post from all three cats, but Clinchfield, as usual, had other plans.  He does like to make work for me.

I wish I had posted the archive reports of Clinch getting trapped inside our dining room table.  We can take care of that now.  If you're friends of mine on Facebook, you've probably seen my posts about Clinch being "in jail."  To refresh your memory, or if you missed my posts, here are a few pictures:

Picture taken 8/29/2015 by Steve

Picture taken 8/31/2015 - yes, he did it again two days later

(I got to get him out this time)

Here is what Clinch would have written in his diary if he could hold a pencil:

Dear Diary, I have found a perfect hiding place, one where I can see and hear everything but where no one can get at me, especially that pesky female the authorities call "Fe". I cannot get to my favorite toy, the large male called "Pixel", but that is a small price to pay for this perfect location. However, the authorities don't think I can get out of this "TAY-ble" just because I jumped down in here from up above, where the bars are farther apart. I'm sure I could jump back up there. Maybe. Possibly not. Either way, I never get the chance to try. The authorities have cathandled me out on my two attempts then pushed the chairs back so I cannot get back to the hideout's entrances. Why do I never get to have any fun?

We kept the chairs pushed back until my Mom and stepfather came for lunch late in September, then, figuring he wouldn't do it again, we pushed them back in.  How wrong we were:

Picture taken in the wee hours of 9/27/2015

(he was lucky I was up so I could extract him)

Again, we kept the chairs away from the table until we had company, which was this past Sunday when Dad, Barb (my stepmother), Uncle Howard, and Aunt Pat came for dinner.  Clinch showed no signs of jailing himself again until today.

Steve gave me this adorable solar-powered elf that dances:

The best sunlight was on the dining room table.  The elf danced away, and his "click click click" drew Clinch over to investigate:

I swear this table was clean just a few days ago

When he walked away, I could tell he still wanted to play with the elf, so I thought, "Oh!  I should shoot horizontal like everyone says you should," and turned the camera.  I started shooting, moved to turn the dining room light on so the video would hopefully be clearer, and realized that Clinch batting at the elf from underneath the table again was all he could do.

I did cut out most of the window's glare, but right before that, if you look carefully on the left side of the screen, you can see Clinch climbing in the table.  There is sound later in the video, but you'll have to turn your volume up a fair amount.  I should figure out how to fix that.

Sorry it's not all that clear and is a bit jumpy.

Now we have the chairs pushed back away from the table again and are likely to keep them pushed back indefinitely.

So, now I'm to where I thought I was going to be at the start of this post.

Merry Christmas from

Pixel, who didn't want to pose by the tree

Fe, who is making her first appearance on this blog

and, of course,

 Clinchfield, who has thankfully not tried to climb the Christmas tree (yet)