2/1/2016: Clinch's magic carpet ride

One of my first posts in this blog was about Clinchfield's fascination with messing up the bathmats.  If you missed that or need a recap, you can catch up here.

A few nights ago Steve and I were getting ready to go to bed, and I noticed that Clinch had messed up the mats again, but this time instead of pushing them both against the wall, one of them was sticking out in the hall.  That was new, and while we pondered it, Clinch walked up and plopped down:

He didn't budge as I walked around him, taking pictures.  He didn't even twitch when I turned on the light to get this slightly blurry picture:

Steve decided to see what would happen if he straightened the mat out with Clinch on it.  Would he jump off, or would he enjoy the ride?  Let's take a look:  (The video was done with my phone, so if you want to hear the few things said, you'll have to turn your speakers up a lot.  Sorry about that.)

It was nice of him to point out that the other mat was disheveled, too, wasn't it?

"Thanks for straightening things out, Papa!"

Since then, I've had to fix the mats no less than four times.  He sure likes to keep us busy!

12/31/2015: Elf OFF the Shelf!

Remember that dancing elf that Clinch loves to play with?  If not, check out my Christmas post for pictures and a few videos then come back here.  I'll wait...

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne

All caught up?  Great!

I thought I'd get some work done before tonight's festivities (well, before the nap before the festivities).  I need to retake pictures from some free instructions on my jewelry/crafts blog to put into a regular document.  I'm going to demo the technique soon and want to print it out without using all of my cyan ink.

I got everything ready, turned my task lights on, which caused the elf to dance, and his "click click click" drove Clinch inexorably to my desk, right on top of my work surface:

"I've been here the whole time."

"Why do you sigh?"

Steve was able to get him off of my desk by calling him, but he came right back to play with the elf:

The elf looks at the kitten askance

Steve suggested I move the elf to the windowsill in the dining room.  He didn't stay there long:

Let's try that again:

Third time's a charm?

How about #4:

Nope.

Despairing, I cried out, "He's too fast for me to take a picture!"  Steve recommended I shoot a video instead.  That worked much better.  I used my camera this time instead of my phone, so you shouldn't have to turn the sound up (although you may miss what Steve says at the end):

After I took the elf away for good, Clinch ran around the house chasing a milk jug ring like a lunatic. I threw it off of my desk, and he brought it back (he's a good fetcher!) at high speed, pushing things around on my desk.

He has finally tired himself out and is napping somewhere, and he's tired me out, too.  It would seem that the instructions will not get finished today.

Happy New Year!  Be safe and come back in 2016 for more of Clinchfield's antics!

12/10/2015: My poor (lace) heart

Sorry I haven't written in a long time.  I've not been feeling all that great, and Clinchfield has been a relatively good kitten.  He still has his crazy streaks, but usually they're short-lived and non-chaotic.

Then came today...

We have Cappuccino, my mother's dog, again for a few days.  I think Clinch is excited, because he kept trying to play tag with her when they first arrived yesterday.  This morning he was frisking around the pup trying to play as well as running all around the house.

When I took my shower, I decided to close Cappuccino in the bathroom with me.  I latched the door (which we usually don't do), so Clinch was reaching in under the door and playing under/with/around it.  A few times he got pretty loud, so I yelled out, "Clinch, knock it off!"

I guess he took me literally, because when I opened the door, this is what I found:

This is the stiff lace heart from the bathroom door.

"You did tell me to knock it off, Mama!"

Here's how the bathroom door is supposed to look:

See how high up the heart is?  Clinchfield is quite the jumper.  I have a video of him jumping that I'll have to show you soon.

"Honestly, I was just following directions."

And here is poor, beleaguered Cappuccino trying to hide in the bedroom:

It's quiet in the house now, so I'm hoping Clinch has gotten it all out of his system.

Archive: 08/20/2015 - Bath mat destruction

(This archived Clinchfield Report was originally posted on Facebook on 08/20/2015.)

We can either have bath mats where they're supposed to be or a kitten, but not both. I don't know if you can see in this picture, but there are Q-tips on the floor as well. Walking further into the bathroom I saw that the garbage had been tipped over.

(Note: This is before we replaced the waste baskets that I mentioned in this report.)

Here's the culprit after I straightened the mats, planning his next move:

As I'm fond of saying, he's lucky he's cute!

After I posted this report, one of the comments that came in was, "Not up on all things cat, but can't you just close the bathroom door?"  I replied, "What's the fun in that?  :)  Yes, I could, but he'd probably bang on it trying to get the toy that he batted under the door. There's quite a gap there."

Steve and I staged this picture so we could post it as an example.  I said, "Picture this but with noise."

Then Steve commented, "This morning in the bathroom I tried to startle him out of my way by nudging the bathmat against his hind leg. If he were Pixel, he would have jumped three feet. But Clinchfield didn't even turn around, just lifted his leg like "meh." I realized: He's not Devil Cat, he's DAREDEVIL Cat, the Cat Without Fear!"

Tonight my mother and stepfather are bringing their dog, Cappuccino, for us to watch.  Goodness knows what kinds of things I'll be posting about tomorrow and for the next week or so!

Archive: 08/16/2015 - DIY bed and other random bathroom chaos

I don't know what it is about cats and bathrooms.  I suppose since we spend a lot of time in there they feel it's a very important room and want to spend a lot of time in there, too.  Or maybe it's because they want to be where we are, because most of Clinchfield's chaos happens when I'm in the room and usually unable to stop him.

Since that whole water incident after our first trip to the vet, I have to take my medicine very carefully.  I'll fill the water glass, put it on the counter (we have a long, low counter in the bathroom supposedly for putting makeup on), and gather my pills.  Clinch is fond of bounding into the bathroom and onto the counter when he hears my pills rattle around.  He'll stick his little face in my glass and sometimes a paw if I don't grab the glass quickly enough.  A few times I was really slow, and, with his paw in the glass, he pulled it toward himself, knocking it over.  That's probably his way of telling us that the counter needed to be washed.

Within a few weeks of his arrival, it was extremely apparent that we needed to purchase some new equipment for the bathroom.  The wrappers of various monthly supplies (ladies, you know what I mean) are very crinkly, and Clinch absolutely loves anything that makes a crinkly sound.  New ones placed in easy reach for me were also in easy reach for him, so they were being dragged around.  Fortunately, The Container Store just opened at our mall, so Steve and I went shopping there and at Target.  We bought new waste baskets with lids (because used crinkly wrappers of all kinds were fair game in an uncovered waste basket) for the bathroom, my studio, and the living room.  We were also able to find a white tin with a secure lid for me to use one week a month.

But I was able to get pictures of his DIY bed.  I was, er, indisposed, as one tends to be a number of times a day, and he pulled down my towel and plopped down:

He doesn't stay in one place for too long, so less than thirty seconds later he switched positions:

Shortly after I was able to shoo him away, shake my towel off, and hang it back up.

He hasn't done it again.  I find that very odd considering how comfortable he looks in those pictures.

Tomorrow I'll share more bathroom antics!

10/26/2015: My desk is continually under attack

(This is a hybrid report lumping a bunch of chaotic activity from 07/30/2015 through 10/26/2015.)

My studio has an awesome built-in desk with a beautiful frame around the window and a shelf underneath, perfect for all manner of things.  I keep a small tube of E6000 glue up there for my crafting projects, and my grandmother's pin cushion for extremely bent needles that I can quickly grab while I'm beading.  I have rocks, a slice of wood from one of my mother's trees that was cut down, a few small stuffed animals, a beautiful Fenton bowl I bought at an antique store, pictures of pets I dearly miss, and much, much more.  Basically, anything little that I want to see while I work (or procrastinate) that I love or that inspires me goes on this shelf.

When we moved in, our cats (Steve's Katy and Fe and my Simoon and Pixel) left that shelf alone.  The desk itself is popular, but none of them were interested in the shelf.  Kittens are more curious, so Frisco loved jumping up into the window and knocking things off of the shelf.  Once he got over the worst of it, I put breakable stuff on the right, less accessible side and the rocks and stuffed animals and such on the the left side.

I blogged about my new and improved clean desk in April, 2014 in my other blog (you can read the exact post here if you'd like), so I have proof:

So clean!

You should be able to click the picture to see an enlarged version.
The shelf stayed pretty much just like that until six days after Clinchfield came to live with us:

Picture taken 07/30/2015

Do you see the culprit on the bottom right part of the picture?  He looks so innocent.  I quickly learned to catch or deflect items tossed at my head, and I just calmly put them somewhere else.  From time to time Steve puts things back, but for the most part I've let it go.  I'm waiting for him to lose interest.

Picture taken 07/30/2015

You can see he's reaching for something black at the bottom of the picture.  That's a Darth Vader Pez dispenser that had just gotten thrown at me not two minutes before.

Now, I can't blame him for the mess of papers he's lying on, but I spy four things in that picture that should be up on the shelf: the Pez dispenser, the glass vial just to the left of it, the slice of wood to the left of his head, and the purple turtle that's right next to the wood.

Here's how that shelf looks today:

Picture taken 10/26/2015 in the wee hours of the morning

While I was preparing to write this report about him messing up my desk, he decided to wreak more havoc:

Fortunately, he doesn't do this very often

 

"What can I knock down next?"

 "Hey, you!  Come here!"

 No, Clinchfield!  The stamp is not a foodstuff!

I just looked at the time stamps of those four pictures.  They were taken between 12:53a and 12:54a.  Here's the sequence of events:  he knocked down the train stamp (that picture just shows him watching it fall - I was too slow), he batted at glass ornament, I put train stamp back up, he looked over the edge to survey what to destroy next, he pulled over the Japanese cat-watering-flower stamp, he started nomming on said stamp, I took the stamp away.

A note about those irises:  they have been jumped over, trampled on, laid upon, batted at, and chewed on.  They're looking pretty bedraggled at this point, and I'm going to have to see if they can be fixed up or if I should just make more space for the kitten.

The other part of my desk that Clinch loves is my task lamp.  It used to have ChapStick, a thumb drive, a few pieces of jewelry, and some business cards on the base, but they have all been pushed off:

Taken 09/12/2015

I have paper taped to the light because my eyes are sensitive to light peeking out from underneath the shade.  You'll see it better in this next picture:

Taken 09/12/2015

He likes to wear my light as a belt:

Taken 10/09/2015, while I was trying to prepare for a show

and pretend he's getting his hair done:

Taken 10/25/2015

Or maybe he thinks he's the Pope.  It's hard to tell what's going on in his little head.

Tomorrow's report:  Another hybrid of Clinch "playing" with Pixel.