u has fluffy literachur

*************

oh, hai. we were just going through your library, looking for some good books. it's important to start reading to the youngsters early on.

can't have them growing up to become illiterates who es-chew [es-shoe?] the classics.

On the bright side, they've all moved out of the bedroom [yesterday], completely, which means that I can shampoo the carpet, move the bed [now that it's not sheltering terrorists], and put up the last set of bookshelves. Also, mom cat has eschewed the kitten-sized litter pans I had put out, and has them using the big-cat litter boxes that I've installed in the library [which would be the breakfast nook in a normal person's abode].

Allowing them to scatter their toys and my books all over the library floor seems a small price to pay in return for the increased efficiency in toilet training and and the fact that the dog, curmudgeon cat, and I can finally sleep in peace and quiet with the bedroom door closed.

On an entertaining note, mom cat has also introduced them to the dog-and-big-cat water bowl, which is now serving double duty as a tiny-cat wading pool.

13

Two kittens in the foreground, three-and-one-half pairs of eyes in the background.
It's official: I have become the cat lady.

Counting kittens

How many? I can't tell. Still. Even though I think there might be only four, this place is getting a distinct air of St Ives about it. If I start collecting wives next then maybe I'll at least have somebody to do the vacuuming for me.

I've started "taming" these little guys early. Mom cat believes strongly in benign neglect as a kitten raising philosophy and it seems to be working. I almost never see her in the same room with them, but they're always clean, dry, well-fed, and sleeping in a pile whenever I reach under the bed as far as I can and lay hands on them.

Today was a big day for one or two of them. Yes, that one kitten's eyes are open in the picture. And that one or another one crawled out from under the bed and out into the hallway in search of breakfast early this morning, squeaking as loudly as it could [which wasn't very].

I and almost-cats thing1 and thing2 were standing in the hallway, at once bemused and entertained by squeaky kitten. The dog, ever the auntie-of-helpless-kittens, was trying to gently steer squeaky kitten back in the direction of the nest, but squeaky kitten's motor skills, while admirable, are still uncertain and resulted in a complete tour of about one square foot of carpet.

Eventually mom cat moseyed on over, but she just sat down and watched the rest of us, with a bit of a Mona Lisa smile on her face. Curmudgeon cat has taken the approach If I can't see them, they don't exist and offered advice, loudly, from another room.

I eventually restored order in the fiefdom by picking up squeaky kitten myself and putting the little wanderer back under the bed. Mom cat sighed, rolled her eyes at me, and slipped under the bed. All squeaking stopped abruptly, so presumably breakfast waas served.

Hipparchia's cat

The original Hipparchia is famous for having sex on her front porch. Or maybe it was somebody else's front porch. I couldn't say for sure, I wasn't there.

What I can tell you is that if you're going to try this at home on your own front porch, either you'll want sturdier furniture [that's not my lawn chair, but it sure could have been], or you'll want to be the one on top.

Given this heritage to live up to, it shouldn't be a surprise when I tell you that almost exactly two months ago, just days before luring all the porch cats into the house, I came home one afternoon to find mom cat entertaining gentleman callers on the front porch.

I started a post about it, but decided to wait and see what developed before reporting on the event. I mean, breast-feeding is supposed to be an effective form of birth control, right? The kittens you've been reading about were still heartily bellying up to the milk bar every day at the time. It should have worked.

Well, if you were paying attention in biology class you know what developed. More kittens. Born just about 48 hours ago. At least four of them, maybe five, but I can't tell for sure. They're under the bed, surrounded by the dog's blanket. It's unclear whether mom cat dragged the blanket under the bed, or the dog, self-appointed kitten guardian that he is, donated it and pushed it under there. Both are equally likely.

It's not true that one cat will produce 400,000 420,000 kittens in her lifetime, or whatever the scare tactics number is that feral-cat haters use, but this one sure seems to be trying to. Sigh. I seem to be harboring an unabashed patriarchy enabler.

3 out of 4 kittens agree:

• Whataburger makes the best chicken fajitas and picante sauce.


• Hard-boiled eggs are edible, but you have to play with them first.


• Liverwurst tastes better if you smush it into the linoleum before you lick it up.

The one food all eight of us have agreed on so far: canned Bumble Bee Prime Fillet Atlantic Salmon.

An update in the battle to win over their fuzzy little hearts and minds:

Tiger kitten, ever the seeker after truth, eschews such mundane activities as trying out new canapes and prefers to reach for the stars. This is the one who interacts the least with other species, giving curmudgeon cat a wide berth, only occasionally taking a swipe at the dog's fluffy wagging tail, and running out of the room every time I get up from the computer. I did trick this one into taking some of that yummy salmon right from my hand once. Once.

Patches kitten sits off to the side and observes. And takes notes. I still can't touch this one either, except to get my fingers licked if they taste good enough, but like the two blues, this one runs expectantly to the kitchen at food time, and follows me around the place if I'm carrying a plate of something.

Blue kitten 1 is the half-cuddler, going so far as to jump up in the chair with me, so long as I keep both hands on the keyboard, or snuggling briefly when I'm lying on the sofa or the bed, but only if I'm reading a book. This one likes being brushed but bare hands are still suspect [unless they're holding food].

Blue kitten 2 has crossed over to the Dark Side and become a pest, snuggling up to me, to the dog, to curmudgeon cat, even when we want to be left alone. This one purrs non-stop, loves sitting in laps, being carried, being brushed, helping with the blogging. Which is all very funny, because blue kitten 2 is the one who wouldn't be taken alive a few short weeks ago.

All four of them still attack feet [and dirty socks and catnip toys] and all four have discovered the joys of racing across the bed at 3am [humans are so entertaining when you wake them up like that].

Also, all four of the kittens find strange humans fascinating... so long as said humans stay on the outside of the front windows. Once they come into the house, the only thing any prospective adopters ever get to see are some furry streaks leaving the room. And my neighbors are all getting a little tired of being pressed into service as kitten desensitizers, especially when I try to smear them with canned salmon.

Green Goddess

Curmudgeon cat is in his last week [one hopes] of pills and shots for flea allergy. I've never really had any trouble giving pills to cats, in part because I use the Yummy Food technique.



So, what is this magic procedure? you ask. It's very simple, I say.

1. Announce that it is pill time. What? Your cats don't come running when you tell them that you are about to shove horse pills down their throats? You're doing it wrong.



2. Get the can of Yummy Food out of the refigerator and set it next to the cat's food bowl.



3. Grab the cat's head, pull back gently [just until the lower jaw drops open], put the pill on the back of the tongue [far enough back that the cat can't spit it out, but not so far that you shove the pill down the airway].



4. Immediately plop a spoonful of Yummy Food into the cat's food bowl.



5. Go around the house, distributing Yummy Food into all the other pets' bowls too. This is an important step. Leaving it out creates resentment in the household.



6. Put the food and pills away until next time.

This works best if your cat is a Glutton Cat, but will work for almost all cats [dogs, horses, gerbils, goldfish... ]

So what constitutes Yummy Food? Only your cat [dog, hamster, goldfish, horse... ] can tell you, but for best results it should be something that your animal companion doesn't get as a regular part of its diet. Gotta be something special. Around here, that usually means the smellier the better. Last week it was Kozy Kitten canned fish dinner. This week it's Green Cow canned beef tripe.

Green Cow is everybody's very favorite around here [not me, but I don't count], and they all, even the little wild heathens who won't let me touch me them at any other time, follow me through the house like I'm the Pied Piper, the cat's whiskers, the Goddess of Yummy Food, when I bring out this stuff.

That's me, Goddess of Tripe.

The City of Gulf Breeze is a meanie.

The city known as Gulf Breeze, [Santa Rosa county] Florida, being a rather-better-off-than-you-and-me bedroom community for Pensacola and Escambia county, has also long been known as kind of a snooty, stuck-up place with [fortunately] a slight leavening of surfer kids, since they're both rich enough to afford the hobby and close enough to the beach that they can skip only part of the school day and still get some surfing in.

It's a nice little community: clean, quiet, articulate even [also very white]. It's surrounded by water, making it a great place for boating and fishing and just hanging out in some wonderful parks. Used to be you could even hang out at the parks with your dogs. But some truly cranky types got it into their heads that dogs were going to be the ruination of the place or something, and some fairly draconian and dog-unfriendly ordinances were drafted and passed.

I've been boycotting Gulf Breeze businesses ever since [that would be years now]. Not that it seems to have made an impression on them. Then again maybe it did make an impression, because now the city is on the warpath against cats. The cats of Wayside Park, to be precise.

Wayside Park is at the foot of the Old Fishing Bridge, as it's known locally. There's a Wayside park on the Escambia county side too, where the other end of the old bridge was. What's left of the bridge at each end is now used as fishing piers, and we all know what kind of trash ends up at fishing piers. Dead fish. The ultimate in cat food. The el primo of cat food. All cats should be so lucky.

But the good luck is running out. Time is running out too. Come July 1st, the city is going trap and kill the cats. Actually, they're not even going to do the killing themselves. Gulf Breeze is in Santa Rosa county, which has its own animal shelter, but the cats are going to be carted across the bay into Escambia county, to our animal shelter, to be killed.

Did I call these people snooty? That was too kind of me. Hypocritical comes to mind. So do some other words.

Stepping off my soapbox for now. If you can donate to help the kitties, please do so. If you can make it to the June 27 city council meeting, do so. If you live far away, write to the mayor, the city council, the city manager, the parks department, and tell them [preferably politely] that if they start killing off cats, you will elect to spend your tourist dollars in some other [kinder, gentler, saner] town. Tourist dollars count for a lot here in Florida.

Also, if you could work in a few good words for TNR, that would be cool. It [public pressure] worked in Wisconsin, it can work here too.

nice website about the cats
http://www.waysidecats.com/

blurb at the City of Gulf Breeze website about the cats
http://www.cityofgulfbreeze.com/Cats.pdf

contact info for mayor, city council, etc
http://www.cityofgulfbreeze.com/govt/index.html


Apologies for the do-it-yourself linkages. Computer difficulties.

My Dog Has Fleas

eine kleine background music while you read
more

The dog has fleas.
Curmudgeon cat has fleas.
Mom cat has fleas.
The weightless balls of fluff all have fleas.
I have fleas.

That last was confirmed yesterday. I was driving to work, waiting for the red light to change, when I noticed some little black specks merrily hopping around the front of my crisp white shirt. Oh, great. Now my car has fleas.

The front porch has fleas. I stepped out there yesterday afternoon and immediately my nether limbs, from knee bone to toe bone, were covered in little black specks. Little black specks that jumped on me faster than I could brush them off. Nothing to be done for that except step back into the house to brush them off. Great, now my carpet has fleas. I've always hated this carpet anyway. Maybe I can talk the managment into replacing it. With linoleum. Lemonade, right?

The Fab Five have only recently, in the past 2 or 3 days, expanded their range to include the bedroom. This afternoon when I got home I found patches kitten and tiger kitten sleeping in the folds of the squunched-up blanket. Oh now this is just dandy. My bed has fleas.

The dog kept me awake most of last night, squeaking and whining and panting in frustration as he tried to pick all the fleas out of his chow-thick fur. Curmudgeon cat and I will be spending Caturday morning at the vet, getting shots and drugs for his flea allergy.

Yesterday I stopped at the vet's on the way home from work and picked up enough Advantage for all of us. $107.

The vet asked first how old the kittens were [they have to be 8 weeks for Advantage]. I can only make educated guesses, but I fibbed and said they were 8 weeks old. Based on their eyes being fully open and their coordination being pretty good when first I spotten them, I'm thinking they're very close to 8 weeks, and very definitely no younger than 7 weeks.

It doesn't matter. They're getting dosed now. Even if the rest of us were willing to wait another week, just to be sure [we're not], the risk of flea anemia is just too great with an infestation like this.

Applying the stuff to curmudgeon cat and the dog was easy. Did that last night, no problemo. Squirt squirt, here's a bite of chicken for your cooperation. The Fab Five, on the other hand, are a challenge. They will let me get very close to them now, and in turn will get very close to me, but touching them is iffy. Stealth is called for.

I fed them well last night, but a bit lightly this morning. Then I heaped the plate full of yummy kitten food and set it right next to the chair where I'm sitting now, blogging all things flea. I opened all the tiny-cat tubes of Advantage and propped them on the keyboard. As each furry body approached and fell to eating with abandon, i slowly reached down and squirted out part of one tubeful onto each pair of shoulder blades I could reach.

Three down, two to go. Mom cat wasn't too too difficult, skittish though she is, mostly because she's a slightly larger target than the weightless balls of fluff. Thing 1 and Thing 2, the two tailless blues, are tamer than all the others, and can actually be stroked while chowing down. They were easier than I expected.

Tiger kitten and patches kitten are another kettle of fish.
-- what did you do all day saturday?
-- crawled around the apartment on hands and knees, ambushing wild kittens.

I [heart] global warming. Global warming?! What's that got to do with fleas? ok, make that global climate change. Fleas don't like dry weather, and the past few years have been very dry here, unusual for this area, which used to have an annual rainfall of 60 or 70 inches. The trees are stressed and everybody's lawn is green only where the touhghest weeds are growing.

But the lack of fleas has been lovely. No more. It rained buckets not very long ago, and all those formerly dormant, now hungry fleas have come out to feast on the rest of us. I haven't mentioned yet that I still have flea spray to buy, for the porch and the car. And then I'll have to move the 8 of us to somewhere before I can flea bomb the house.

This was not in the budget. Not any of it.

Oh, well. Y'all will just have to avoid this part of the state until I can save up enough money again for that brake job and CV axle I'd been saving up for. The roads in my immediate vicinty are going to remain unsafe for a bit longer.


Update:
Tiger kitten and patches kitten have finally been gotcha'd. I can go to sleep now.

Herding kittens

you're not blogging about those darned kittens again, are you?
why, yes. yes, i am.

It's possible that I'll find myself filing this one under Be careful what you wish for at some later date, but for now, Mission Accomplished!.

The porch cats have all moved indoors. Finally. They're a bit confused by the door that won't open. Curmudgeon cat has resigned himself to accepting the whole situation with bad grace. The dog is beside himself with joy. I've put out 3 litter boxes and now I'm going to bed.

Meanwhile, here's a charming little time waster for you. I made it to 263 while I was waiting for all the cats to work their way far enough into the living room for me to sneak past them and close the door when they weren't looking. If I ever remember which blog I found it at, I'll paste the link Aha! Found it here.

It's ok to be feral

If I were to assemble the Anarchist Cat Manifesto, it would include this:

Being feral is OK. The goal is NOT "No More Feral Cats". The goal is "No More KILLING of feral cats".

[snip]

... how many feral cats are out there? Some say 60 million, others 100 million. To [TNR advocates] that's 60 million ferals who need TNR. To anti-cat zealots, that's 60 million feral cats eating birds.

[snip]

... all pet cats belong indoors. What a loony idea.

and this:

Claim: Cat licensing will help raise the status of cats.

In our view, this claim is on a par with the suggestion that licensing poor people or the homeless will help raise their "status." Of course, cat licensing proponents aren't making a comparison to people, but to dogs: if cats are licensed like dogs, they will apparently enjoy the same "status" as dogs. Unfortunately, dog licensing doesn't confer any beneficial "status" on canines: it was and is a tool for protecting livestock, enforcing rabies laws, and ridding the public streets of the perceived threat posed by unowned, free-roaming dogs. Indeed, since 1933 California dog licensing laws have explicitly authorized the impoundment of of unlicensed dogs, and millions of dogs have been impounded and killed by animal control agencies throughout the state as a result of these mandatory licensing laws.

This is the precedent to which proponents of cat licensing appeal when they claim that licensing will raise the "status" of cats. We doubt, however, whether cats would choose such a status for themselves. They might well prefer to retain the unlicensed status they now share with humans. And the dogs may want to join them.

home page for Best Friends Animal Society
t-shirt [no longer available] from don't shoot the cat

Climbing lessons

The kittens are getting large, and rambunctious, and toothy. They've got claws too. Mom cat, seeking respite but still wanting to watch over them, spends hours resting on the top of the porch fence.

Yesterday, the two blues sat just underneath, trying to figure out how mom got up there, and what they could do to get there too. You can't really see them in this photo [shot through the screen door], but they're the darker blurs at the bottom.


Last night, tiger kitten, the champion climber in the clan, decided to give lessons. First pupil: blue kitten 1.


Ever the iconoclast, patches kitten wants to start from a different place, and aim higher too.


Tonight? The sky's the limit, or perhaps the porch ceiling is. Dude! How're you gonna get down?!



The management recently provided me with a new one-size-fits-all screen door, which means that it doesn't [fit, that is], but since I had to ask repeatedly to get this one, I've been putting up with it. I'll say one thing though, all four of them have been practicing their new-found skills on it, and have left nary a claw mark in the screening material. Tough stuff.

Ask and ye shall receive.

T'were Mustang Bobby and Bryan who first turned me on to Friday Cat Blogging.

I [heart] Snowball, but had also noticed that Bryan has a link in his sidebar to Alley Cat Allies, and he has ever since been enshrined in my heart as a good and worthy person.

Bryan's worthy character notwithstanding, I've warned him that I was going to blame him for these kittens. As you can see here, I was grousing, not too long ago, about not having any kittens of my own.

What followed was that a week later I discovered a whole passel of kittens on my front porch!! Kittens in grayscale. Kittens with a blue mom cat who is a dead ringer for Ringo. I'm just sayin'.

In all fairness, I should tell you that shortly after discovering said kittens, I sent Bryan a panicked e-mail, asking him [in rather more decorous language] WTF do I do now?!. He very kindly sent me back a link to these folks. Manna from heaven! A TNR group right here in my own little corner of the Redneck Riviera!

A TNR group whose website I then perused with growing dismay. It looked like they could help low-income people who needed to have their pet spayed or neutered [phone number 438-FIXX] and it looked like they could help someone who wanted to become caretaker of a feral cat colony. I'm none of the above. Still, I finally, a few days ago, decided to suck it up and send them an e-mail asking for whatever help they can give me. I hope they answer soon, because these kittens are probably going to be old enough to go to new homes in another couple of weeks.

Good news, bad news.

The GOOD news is: all five cats are using the litter box.

The BAD news is: all five cats are using the litter box.

This is good news because one of the reasons that otherwise perfectly good, healthy, lovable pets are given up to animal shelters is euphemistically called inappropriate elimination [no, Emily, you cannot have one of my kittens]. This is bad news because cat pee is noxious stuff, even when eliminated appropriately, and even when four of the five cats are weightless balls of fluff [holding nose].

bonus linky: lolcats

brief kitten update

One of the blue kittens [hard to tell Thing One and Thing Two apart at night] has become terribly interested in all things indoors over the past couple of days, including running up to touch noses with the dog this evening. Of course, all this bravery is exhibited from the other side of the screen door.

This slight amendment in open door policy, leaving the porch door open, but the screen door closed, has come about because curmudgeon cat is pissed about being locked away in the bedroom every evening for hours on end. Curmudgeon cat, when sufficiently motivated and left unsupervised for long enough, can open most of the doors here. I suppose I could always lock him away in the dishwasher, it's brand new and has a sturdy latch that can only be operated from the outside. This strikes me as a too-permanent solution to the problem.

Detente, part 1

When last we blogged on all things kitten, a couple of nights ago, the dog had enthusiastically joined in the kitten games. Over-enthusiastically, in mom cat's opinion. As a result, relations at last night's open door policy session were a tad strained.

Mom cat gives dog the evil eye.

Dog wisely decides that retreat is the better part of diplomacy.
Blue kitten 2 and patches kitten are brave enough to play at ground level.

Tiger kitten, mom cat, and blue kitten 1 watch from above.

Help! We're being invaded by kittens!

Actually, that was my nefarious plan all along.

These kittens are not receptive to people. The dog has been very patient, and after many hours he has convinced them that he is [mostly] harmless. They will now all, mom cat too, walk up to the dog, even going so far as to touch noses with him.

Me, they run from. And hide. For ages after I walk out onto the porch, bearing food and water. Tiny fluffy cute little ingrates. But every evening, as I sit here in front of the computer blogging all things kitten, or lie on the sofa reading all things Agatha, I've left the door open between the porch and the living room. Mom cat was the first to cave. Because of this, I think it's possible that she's not truly feral, but a pet that was dumped when the owners moved.

Anyways, Mom cat has made several forays into and around the living room, streaking out of here in a flash of blue-cat lightning if I so much as turn the page in my book. Ttyping doesn't bother her, though. Maybe it's because reading is quiet, punctuated by a sudden move [hand reaches up to corner of page], accompanied by a sudden sound [sound of page turning]. Typing on the other hand, is a steady[-ish] stream of white noise [punctuated by the occasional muttered four-letter word], accompanied by a steady stream of white-noise-like movements.

Difficult to know what goes on inside their furry little heads, though. Probably Schrodinger equations [forgive the lack of umlaut].

Patches kitten was the first to follow mom cat's lead and step foot over the threshold. Got both front feet inside, planted on the carpet, and froze, as though wondering how the heck to get one's feet back off the carpet. Evidently, picking up one paw to return it to the outdoors puts too much weight on the paw that's still on the carpet. Careful, dude! That paw might sink irretrievably into those fibers!

The problem was solved by rocking back on the hindquarters and simultaneously lifting both front paws, followed by a pirouette to freedom.

Sofas are irresistible though, and patches kitten was back last night, bounding over the threshold, around the door jamb, and behind the sofa. Then out from under the sofa. Then around the legs of the coffee table, under the sofa, back our from behind the sofa, around the door jamb, followed by a final leap from the carpet of the indoors to the concrete of the outdoors. Do... While...

What signal is it that travels through a school of fish, a flock of birds, a herd of horses, where all individuals suddenly move as one organism? I don't know, but I saw it in action tonight: all four kittens burst through the doorway, all at once, all lined up for the start of the Preakness, and stampeded into the living room, heading for the sofa.

The dog is thrilled. The kittens have now come to see him! All those hours he has patiently lain here just inside the door, or slowly and gently stepped out onto the porch have paid off. Unfortunately he got into the spirit of things a bit too enthusiastically and ran out onto the porch when the kittens did. Mom cat took this badly and fluffed up to three times her size. I've called the dog back inside, and closed the door, but I can still hear mom cat's fur crackling from here.

No photos tonight. Too much fun just watching.

Reserve yours now.

mom cat: _____________
tiger kitten: upstairs neighbor
patches kitten: DragonTat2
blue kitten 1: _____________
blue kitten 2: _____________
dog: mine
curmudgeon cat: mine, and he wants his porch back. yesterday.

subversive

The kittens are home again, all four, safely corraled. Until they get their climbing legs under them, which should be in just a few days. With luck the new containment [and my nerves] will last through the rest of this work week. Mom cat continues to sneak over the wall for now.

Speaking of work, I went off to it this morning not knowing the fate of any of the five furries. Not knowing what to expect from the animal control side of the issue, I took off from work early today and went by the pound, just before they closed, just in case they had any new additions. None that I recognized, thank goodness.

Three long narrow rooms of just stray cats, floor-to-ceiling cages on each long wall, every cage filled, almost all of them with mom cats and their kittens. I wanted to take them all home with me. Not home home, just out of there. The survival statistics are grim and I will leave it to you to do the arithmetic, should you be so inclined.

The visit was heartening in one respect: the employee who took me on the look-for-your-impounded-pet tour is sympathetic to the plight of feral cats, and took down detailed descriptions of mom cat and the four kittens, promising to keep a special lookout for them and detailing everything I could do to maximize the chances for survival of my Fab Five, as I've come to think of them. Stray cats get 24 hours here and then pffft! that's it for them.

So now I feel like I have my very own mole in the animal control department. This appeals to the subversive in me. In keeping with the theme of subversion, I include this photo: dark, grainy, hard to make out. There really are five cats in there. The quote stenciled on the mat they're sleeping on: This is not a joke. If you ever want to see these people again, leave 5 lbs of fresh tuna in a plain brown bag. Signed, the cat.

I was afraid this would happen.

The kittens have been getting out and about and drawing lots of admiring attention. Neighbors have been dropping by more and more the past few days [it's a large and busy apartment complex], and ooh-ing and ah-ing over them. I'd almost managed to lure them into the great indoors by last night, but Momcat moved them off the porch late this afternoon.

The dog and I went out looking for them just a little while ago, but didn't find them anywhere nearby. I've left out food and water [and hiding places] for them, hoping they'll sneak back under cover of darkness, but I'm none too sanguine about this.

The weather is mild, we're surrounded by dense scrubby woods full of prey [why there are so many ferals around here in the first place], and several of the residents leave food out for the "neighborhood" cats. Their chances of survival are better than many, and certainly better than if the management had called animal control and had them taken away.

If they don't come back on their own, the dog and I will be taking longer and more frequent walks through the neighborhood, but this evening we're both sitting around the place moping, feeling sorry for ourselves.


UPDATE! I hear mewing from the front porch!
oh... i hope... i hope...

Updated update: A momcat-sized shadow and three kitten-sized shadows [one of them definitely black and white patched] were visible in the dark when I peeked out the window just now. Okay, I can sleep now.

It's right here in black and white.

mom cat: supervising is the hardest job




tiger kitten: who knocked over the food bowl?




patches kitten: what food bowl? where?




blue kitten 1: not me! i'm way over here by the water bowl and my doppelganger is ... somewhere.




blue kitten 2: you'll never take me alive!




dog: i can clean that up for you.