Wednesday, August 30, 2006
A Day in the Life Of...
Thanks to the magic of camera phones, I bring you a photoblog of the difficult tasks in the daily life of my cat, Lex:
This is Lex, an American Standard. He adopted me a year ago and is almost a year and a half old. His main trick which he used to lure me into his furry clutches is called Monkey Tail--he'd curl up his long tail and hook it around my arm and purr like a motorcycle. Now he only does it when he's sleepy or scared from the yard crew outside. Typical.
Lex starts his weekend days by watching educational TV like, "K-9 To Five," "Top Breeds," and "Backyard Habitat." His favorite show, however, is "Planet's Funniest Animals." All in all, this is about 3 hours of programming, during which he sleeps, watches, pats the TV, and looks for the various animals behind the TV. He also enjoys the commercials, especially when they involve waterfowl or helpless woodland creatures.
Here is Lex guarding my to do list for the day, saying, "Achtung, baby!" I said, 1. you're not German, and 2. we're not listening to that album again. And he was like, "Yeah, Mysterious Ways is good but they mostly phoned it in after Track 6." And I said, "Good point."
Here he is being of tremendous assistance in organizing the first aid cabinet under my sink. This involves hooking his paws under the sill, stretching out on his back to full length, and twisting around at high speeds. Also, I am not actually allowed to touch the first aid items.
Here he is helping me with situps. Obviously I am not allowed to do the actual situps, but he says the purring will just melt the calories right off. I think he means of his own waistline, but he refuses to discuss it further, saying that it works, so why break it.
This is our nightly routine: I eat my dinner, Lex reads my paper by osmosis. It can take some time, given that he is furry and illiterate. For example, these are pages 2 and 3, containing celebrity gossip, weather, tide tables, and a Rooms To Go ad. It took him an hour, and after that he had to ...
threaten the marauding neighborhood cats. This picture is not from my camera phone, but because it is an integral part of any evening, it must be included. Generally this involves screaming through the screen like a banshee while the other cat looks in quietly confused. Occasionally the cat swats the screen, telling him to please shut up. At this point I go outside to shoo the cat away, for which Lex promptly takes credit.
After that stressful task, Lex likes to be combed and unruffle all that fur. Here he is combing his own teeth.
You can see how lovely they are, thanks to the combing.
Finally, Lex kicks the living daylights out of Mr Bun, whom he swears he did not then give a very nice bath and fall asleep on him. He is guarding him from getting up and menacing the place. And you know how stuffed bunnies are, so it might take all night. But he is NOT hugging him, so let's just get that straight. If Mr Bun is taking the night off, he also would NOT hug Lamby instead.
There are countless other tasks not pictured here, such as standing up for the oppression of cat litter by freeing it from his litterbox, securing the foyer by staring threateningly at nonexistent bugs, webconferencing by sitting directly in front of the webcam, and phoning my mother to complain about my parenting skills. As you can see, it is not easy being my cat.
This is Lex, an American Standard. He adopted me a year ago and is almost a year and a half old. His main trick which he used to lure me into his furry clutches is called Monkey Tail--he'd curl up his long tail and hook it around my arm and purr like a motorcycle. Now he only does it when he's sleepy or scared from the yard crew outside. Typical.
Lex starts his weekend days by watching educational TV like, "K-9 To Five," "Top Breeds," and "Backyard Habitat." His favorite show, however, is "Planet's Funniest Animals." All in all, this is about 3 hours of programming, during which he sleeps, watches, pats the TV, and looks for the various animals behind the TV. He also enjoys the commercials, especially when they involve waterfowl or helpless woodland creatures.
Here is Lex guarding my to do list for the day, saying, "Achtung, baby!" I said, 1. you're not German, and 2. we're not listening to that album again. And he was like, "Yeah, Mysterious Ways is good but they mostly phoned it in after Track 6." And I said, "Good point."
Here he is being of tremendous assistance in organizing the first aid cabinet under my sink. This involves hooking his paws under the sill, stretching out on his back to full length, and twisting around at high speeds. Also, I am not actually allowed to touch the first aid items.
Here he is helping me with situps. Obviously I am not allowed to do the actual situps, but he says the purring will just melt the calories right off. I think he means of his own waistline, but he refuses to discuss it further, saying that it works, so why break it.
This is our nightly routine: I eat my dinner, Lex reads my paper by osmosis. It can take some time, given that he is furry and illiterate. For example, these are pages 2 and 3, containing celebrity gossip, weather, tide tables, and a Rooms To Go ad. It took him an hour, and after that he had to ...
threaten the marauding neighborhood cats. This picture is not from my camera phone, but because it is an integral part of any evening, it must be included. Generally this involves screaming through the screen like a banshee while the other cat looks in quietly confused. Occasionally the cat swats the screen, telling him to please shut up. At this point I go outside to shoo the cat away, for which Lex promptly takes credit.
After that stressful task, Lex likes to be combed and unruffle all that fur. Here he is combing his own teeth.
You can see how lovely they are, thanks to the combing.
Finally, Lex kicks the living daylights out of Mr Bun, whom he swears he did not then give a very nice bath and fall asleep on him. He is guarding him from getting up and menacing the place. And you know how stuffed bunnies are, so it might take all night. But he is NOT hugging him, so let's just get that straight. If Mr Bun is taking the night off, he also would NOT hug Lamby instead.
There are countless other tasks not pictured here, such as standing up for the oppression of cat litter by freeing it from his litterbox, securing the foyer by staring threateningly at nonexistent bugs, webconferencing by sitting directly in front of the webcam, and phoning my mother to complain about my parenting skills. As you can see, it is not easy being my cat.
Labels: Lex the Cat
