A Warning About Cheetos and Cats

For some reason, opening a bag of chips is a surefire way to get Cleo to appear out of nowhere and sit at your feet. She loves Cheetos. She loves them so much that she thinks any bag of chips is Cheetos. It all started when I let her lick my fingers after eating some of this addicting snack. Cleo the Kitten took one lick of my fingers and she was hooked. Now an adult Cleo harasses me until I let her lick my fingers or even give her one of the small, thin Cheetos. And if I set the bag down for more than a few seconds...

Kitty and her addiction.

Lights on the Wall

Some cats chase just about anything that moves. Sometimes it's a string. Other times it's a laser pointer. Cleo liked to chase the thin band of lights that a headlight makes through a crack in the bedroom curtain. It slid around the top of the wall in the bedroom, constantly taunting her as it slid from one end of the wall to the other. Eventually she couldn't stand it anymore. That light had teased her for the last time. Cleo waited patiently on the edge of the bed for the light to reveal itself. Finally, the moment had come. In a giant leap, Cleo sprung up from the edge of the bed, smacking the light near the ceiling with her paws...then realized she couldn't grip it and slid down the wall to the floor.

You would think that a 7 foot drop would deter a cat. It didn't. Cleo would still go after the lights. She just got smarter about it. Instead of jumping off the edge of the bed, she would jump from the head of the bed. It was positioned right up against the wall, thus ensuring that Cleo had a shorter drop (and a nice cushy landing). However, this made sleeping rather difficult, since the lights appeared at night and that's when my husband and I would try to sleep. There were many instances of Cleo landing on our heads in her attempts to get the lights. Those attempts were promptly followed by "Honey, YOUR cat is at it again."

Cleo and Water.

For a cat that does not like to take a bath, Cleo loves to play with water. I guess as long as getting wet is her idea, then it's ok. We used to have a tiny water dish for her, but she thought it was a fun game to flip it over and spill all the water on the floor. Eventually, we got her a water fountain. For some reason she prefers moving water over still water. I guess it's due to her animal instincts. If there was water dripping anywhere, Cleo would be there to lap it up.

After a while, the water fountain broke and cleo was back to her water bowl again (this time properly secured in the corner so she couldn't flip it). It was at this time that we moved. The faucets in our new tub were hard to turn off completely so there was always some water dripping. Cleo loved it. She completely ignored her water bowl and focused on drinking solely from the faucet. It made for some great entertainment. Especially when she would get water all over her head and rub up against Jerry. She seemed to think that Jerry was her own personal towel. She was so used to drinking from the faucet that when Jerry turned the water off completely, she sat in the bathroom and yowled and yowled until I came and "fixed" it. Now if only I could convince her that me giving her a bath isn't a bad idea...

Litter Love

Seeing as how I had to hand raise Cleo, I'm a little surprised that she litter trained so easily. She has never gone outside of the litter box except for a few incidents where she couldn't help it (poor kitty got sick). However, over the years, I have learned that when Cleo has to go, she HAS to go. For example. Jerry was changing out her box. Since it had been a while, we decided to dump out all of the litter and spray it out. Well, Jerry was finished with the cleaning and was in the process of pouring in fresh litter when Cleo decided that she couldn't wait anymore. She jumped in the box and right in the middle of the stream of litter and did her business right then and there. It was not fun giving her a bath afterwards. Another time, Jerry was cleaning the box again and had dumped all of the litter into a trash bag. Jerry started spraying out the box when suddenly he heard scratching and litter started to fly everywhere.  Again, Cleo could not wait and decided that since the bag was open on the floor that it would suffice.

Sticky Situation.

I wrote previously about Cleo's little escapade with the fan, where she got her revenge. Cleo is a very smart kitty who is very good at plotting. For example....

One day, Jerry and I went out and about. We stopped by one of our favorite places and walked around, then came home after several hours. As usual, Cleo had missed us while we were out (although it was more likely that she missed our hands since they fill her food bowl) and she proceeded to shower us with love and affection. After a bit, we settle down into our seats, then tried to figure out what to do with the stickers that our favorite spot had given us. I had proceeded to stick mine on my computer, but Jerry was in a fun mood and decided to stick his (very lightly!) on the cat. Cleo took one look at this strange thing that was stuck to her and quickly decided that she was not amused. She eventually figured out how to get it off of her hind end, but then had to figure out what to do with it. Mischievous Cleo suddenly got a brilliant idea. She took the sticker in her mouth, walked over to Jerry , placed it ON HIS ARM, then gave it a good smack with her paw to make sure that it stuck.

Kitty's revenge

Jerry hasn't stuck a sticker on her since.

Heart Attack Kitty

Some of you may be familiar with the series "The Walking Dead". It's a zombie show that airs on AMC. My husband Jerry is a big fan of the series and loves to watch it when he can. Even late at night. However, he has learned not to do this ever again when Cleo is around. Cleo has a habit of reaching around from behind the recliner and tapping Jerry on the arm. It's her way of saying "Hey. You're in my chair." In fact, both Jerry and Cleo have been fighting over who's chair it is ever since Cleo could climb into it. Jerry is winning so far, but only because he's bigger. Cleo is persistent. One night, Jerry was sitting in his chair in the dark and watching his show. Cleo decided that she wanted to use the chair, so she snuck up behind Jerry and reached her little furry paw up, tapping him on the shoulder. Jerry jumped and yelled, extremely startled by this sudden tap from nowhere. All he could see was a little white blur running off to hide under the bed, since poppa's yell had scared her.

"That's Not Tuna!"

From time to time I like to do some embroidery projects (assuming I have a free second to myself). Embroidering when you have a kitten is not an easy thing to do. You take out your embroidery floss and you INSTANTLY have a kitten magnet. I start my stitches and as I am trying to get the thread pulled through to the other side, the kitten attacks (with rather sharp claws, mind you) so the task suddenly becomes impossible. I almost had to give up. Suddenly, Jerry comes to the rescue. He calls out to her and offers her food. However she gets half way across the room, then see's the string and comes back for it. Food didn't work, so he offers her something more enticing. "Does Cleo want Tuna?" He asks her. Instantly she runs to her food bowl, excited about getting something special. Then Jerry does the unthinkable. He puts down regular cat food in her bowl. She takes one look at the food, looks back at him, looks at the food, looks at him, then walks back to me, huffing. She was angry at poppa. Jerry would reach out to pet her and she'd snub him. It was clear that little kitty was upset about being stiffed some tuna. This went on for about an hour, Cleo sulking near my legs and giving her poppa the stink eye. Eventually, Jerry relented and gave her the real deal. He put tuna in her food bowl. And poppa learned his lesson that day. Never stiff the kitten.