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!

1/13/2016: Nap time!

Clinchfield and Pixel love hanging out on the bed at any time of the day or night.  Usually they don't lay near each other, but sometimes I catch them being cuddly like I did on Monday:

I was going to nap this afternoon, and Clinch joined me.  He's been enjoying roaming around under the covers lately, so I threw a corner of the comforter over him to see if he'd burrow.  He decided that he'd rather settle in like people:

It didn't last too long because he heard a noise.  Or maybe he was just irritated with all my moving around and turning the lights on and off.

I tried going to sleep, but Pixel jumped up and trod on my legs.  He does this a lot, circling around and around until he settles down on top of my legs.  It's not bad until I roll over (which I do a lot), then it gets a little pretzeley.  In mid-trod, I got a phone call, and when I was done (with the call and with what the call was about) it was too late to nap.  I checked in with the boys and found them like this:

They had been wrestling, and it looks like Clinch got tuckered out mid-bap.

12/27/2015: Sweet Clinchfield with Papa (and Pixel, too)

Shortly after I got up from my nap this afternoon, Steve sat on the bed to pet Pixel, who had been lying on my legs while I slept, impeding my movements.  Clinchfield came up to investigate, Pixel left, Steve pulled the kitten on his lap for some petting, and the rarest thing happened:  Clinch stayed.

We've been trying to get him to cuddle and be a lap cat, but he's still so much of a kitten that moments like this are few and far between.  Yeah, he'll come up between our pillows after I've been up in the middle of the night, and I can hold him for a while, but it's always almost at arm's length.

While I was watching them, Steve said, "I really should get up and do something."  I replied, "This is the most important thing you can do right now."

I grabbed my phone and took a bunch of pictures to commemorate the occasion.  I was expecting Clinch to dash off when I stepped fully into the room, but he didn't.

He likes a lot of petting behind the ears

(but stomach scratching invites nipping)

Say cheese!

Constant petting is required to keep a lap kitten happy

Within a few minutes, Pixel came back and was jealous:

"Hey!  What's going on up there?"

Pixel claims the bedpost as his (for the 100th time)

while Steve strains his bad shoulder to pet him.

I apologize for the state of the covers.  Like I said, I had just gotten up from a nap.  If I had known there would be a photo shoot, I would have straightened up a bit.

Here's my favorite picture of the whole affair:

My three boys!

Shortly after this, Clinchfield got all bitey and scratchy and ran off.  It was very nice while it lasted, and I hope it won't be too long before it happens again!

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)

10/28/2015: Brand new evidence supporting chew toy theory!

(This is an addendum to yesterday's Companion or chew toy? report.  Also, this is the second post of the day.  If you missed the first one, click here.  Thanks!)

I was chatting with Steve during his lunch break, and he asked, "Going to nap this afternoon?"  I replied, "Cats willin' and the crik don't rise."  Well, the crik ain't rising, but the cats are not willing.

It took me a long time to lie down - Facebook has been particularly distracting today - but when I finally did and was getting settled, elephants started thundering around the bedroom hissing.  I thought that was odd, because elephants usually don't hiss.  It turned out to be our boys.  Pixel just wanted to come nap with me, but Clinch was having none of it.

Since I was also having none of my napping, I thought I'd turn on the light and shoot some footage for you.  Because I care.  And because the Clinchfield Report would not be complete without it.

As soon as I turned on the light, though, all elephant-like-thundering ceased.  It's like they were elephants in the dark and innocent kitties in the light.

However, it wasn't long until Clinch decided that Pixel's tail was too tempting a target:

Turn up the sound a lot if you want the full Pixel response.

I mean, really.  Pixel knows what's going to happen.  Clinch does this all the time!  But does he jump up on the bed?  No.  Does he leave the room?  No.  Does he beat the crap out of the kitten because he's ten times Clinch's size?  Baffingly, no.

They stayed in that position for a good four or five minutes.  I trimmed the video because you don't need to see all that.

You also don't need to see my shoes, so I stashed them in the closet, sat back on the bed, and waited.  I was not disappointed:

Again, you'll probably have to turn up the sound a lot to hear Pixel's whining and tail-thumping, which he should not be doing because it looks like he started it!

I was going to record more, but my phone decided that I had run out of video space.  I'll have to clean that up.  Just as well, because the video file was too big for the blog, so I had to trim it using Adobe Premiere Elements.  I don't use that much, so it took a while.  The things I do for science!


I really hope you can view both videos.  The first is an MOV, and the second is an MPG.

I know Pixel's belly looks funny - he has been over-grooming it.  I'm hoping it's not due to stress of kittens jumping and chewing on him for the past two years.  I have never seen him actually licking there, though.

Since I never did nap, I'd better go to bed early tonight!  Wish me luck!

10/27/2015: Companion or chew toy?

(This is another hybrid report from July through October.)

I don't know what it is about Pixel, but kittens like to wrestle, chew on, tail-chase, jump on, and jump over him.  I'm not sure if Pixel likes it or hates it - he makes weird whiny meows with some intermittent hissing, but when I look over, Clinch is on his back pawing up, and Pixel is sitting or standing over him, batting back.  When Pixel gets a chance, he'll hold Clinch's head down and lick his head or in his ears.  I call it "forcible grooming."  Occasionally there's also some cuddling.  It's a very odd relationship.

It's hard to catch some of it in pictures, but I've been partially successful.

Here's some tail chasing from 07/31/2015:

From another angle:

You know, if Pixel wouldn't twitch his tail, Clinchfield wouldn't try to catch and bite it.

I was able to catch actual wrestling on 10/22/2015, but it's a bit blurry:

We call this Neko-Koneko (kitten on cat):

I don't have any pictures yet of Pixel grooming Clinch, but I do have one of Clinch digging for gold in Pixel's ear:

Taken 08/19/2015

Pixel didn't seem to mind, so I let it continue.  Clinch did this for about five minutes until he started sneezing.

Every once in a while we catch them cuddling.  I really like that, so I take lots of pictures, and that's where we'll end today's report:

Taken 08/02/2015

Taken 08/29/2015

Taken 09/06/2015

And my personal favorite so far:

Taken 10/20/2015

Come back tomorrow for a really quick archive report on Clinch's DIY bed.