Yesterday marked a first for me. I have never been sick on the couch while having to attend to the attentional needs of a kitten. For the first few hours, he slept on my knee, burrowing down into a nice patch of my favorite duvet, occasionally stretching and blinking very sweetly. Totsi the Dog, napping at the end of the couch, would wake up for a second and nudge him, and he would drift back off. I thought maybe he would stay calm like that all day, and marveled at what a mellow little kitten Jupiter has turned out to be.
To hell with that, though. Once his batteries were recharged, he hopped off the couch for a round of havoc wreaking fit for a tasmanian devil. For a warmup, he retrieved a series of kibbles out of Totsi's bowl, batting them around the kitchen floor like mad until they zipped under the refrigerator. When one was lost, he would go back for another. I tried taking them from him, but he only scored another replacement. This went on for a good while. Once he bored of that, he teleported into the living room and hurled himself against the paper over the fireplace repeatedly. This had the effect, somewhat, of a drum. He seemed to enjoy that immensely, resulting in a few well-aimed sprays from the Evil Kitty bottle.
Jupiter sought revenge for the spraying by getting up under the slipcover on the couch and running sideways, back and forth, along the back. He would wind up by my head, and go back down, finally winding up so confused I had to get him out. And then the little so-and-s0 pounced right upon my head, bounced off, landed in the middle of the coffee table, and tried to sink his teeth into the power cord for my computer. Back we went to the Evil Kitty bottle.
And back he went to seeking revenge. Totsi left the room. She had been trying to distract him, but finally could take no more, trotting very purposefully right down the hall to the bedroom. I tried to get her to come back out, and she refused to move, giving me the same look she does when I am trying to get her to relieve herself in the rain. Left to Jupiter-sitting on my own, I was treated to everything from him getting back up under the slipcover and biting my big toe to him popcorn jumping all over me with his claws fully extended.
He polished off his performance by hopping down, running a few spinny circles around the living room, hurling himself into the paper over the fireplace again (more Evil Kitty bottle), and finally, FINALLY, deciding it was time to climb the wire shelf known as "Mothercrap", (which is now totally bare and waiting to be taken elsewhere):
I couldn't stop him. For at least half an hour, he tried to scale "Mothercrap" while I panicked and hopped up to stop him. The best he could do was make it to the second shelf, where he would hang, swinging, until falling flat on his back. And then he would get up to do it all again after a period of seeming to rework his strategy. I almost lost my mind, because if you study that picture, you will see the mini lights trailing away from its side that are wound through all the stuff on the mantle. Breakable stuff. Antique stuff. Irreplaceable stuff. Holy hell. I'll stop before I upset myself. (Note to self: Take those lights down.)
I'm back in the bedroom today. I think that says it all.
No comments:
Post a Comment