sad & wet

I had to wash parts of Learned Claw the other day due to a litterbox mishap. This displeased him.

a huge backlog

I have a huge backlog of kittenheads paraphernalia to get through. But first, a recounting of my morning so far:

• Wake up with Erik the Red AND Learned Claw sleeping on me.
• Dress in skirt, nice top, and rainboots--I'm going to the Philharmonic tonight with Former Roommate!
• Eat sausages for breakfast.
• Putter around apartment.
• Notice out of corner of eye Learned Claw scratching rather ferociously around the litter box.
• Pungent smell of poo juice.
• Realize the reason for the obsessive scratching. Simultaneously resign self to changing into ratty tshirt to wash the hind end and all paws of said poo-juice covered cat.

As I write, we are still forgiving each other for the wetness and the hissing:

a thing of magic and wonder

Learned Claw, who is possibly the sweetest cat known to human- and felinekind, got washed today. Except it was a special washing, because I made him take a bath with me.

Yes, with me. It actually went pretty well. I think he was very appreciative that I was in the tub with him and, though he wasn't happy about being in the tub, he wasn't too freaked out, either. It was, in sum, a rather painless bathing experience. He wasn't even pissed off with me afterwards (though this may have had something to do with the copious amounts of kitty treats I fed him afterwards). He's not even scared of the tub! And now he smells like flowers.

We took a nap afterwards and he slept on my head, which was damp but nice.

My cats hate me, part 2: Erik the Red

Poor Erik. He had no idea what was coming. There he was, sitting on my shoulder, purring happily along, when --*plop*-- he's in a sink full of warm water. It was much easier to wash him than it was Learned Claw, simply because he is so much less fluffy. Erik, however, is not as good at being washed as Learned Claw is--he meows, he tries to climb out of the sink and up my neck, he tries to hide in my stomach (aw). Now he's clean, though.

My cats hate me, part 1: Learned Claw

I had to wash both cats. They were just too dirty. Learned Claw went first and got water all over me. He's not too bad about being washed--he just tries to escape every now and then, but is otherwise relatively zen. Sadly for him, he was wet for about three hours afterwards.

Les deux chatons grisâtres

You may not realize this, but when you are very low on litter it's not actually a good idea to pour the last crumbs into the litter box. This is because the very end of the litter container is very dusty and pouring that dust into your cat's litter box means that your cat will be scratching around in the dust every time it goes to the toilet. What this means is that your cat will end up litter-dust covered and then you will need to wash said cat.

If your cats happen to be named Learned Claw and Erik the Red, then you will be the disgusted owner of two grayish colored cats. The English 'grayish' is just not as good as the French 'grisâtre' for evoking the icky nasty sort of gray I'm confronted with in my otherwise quite cute and obsessively self-cleaning cats. Ick.

So now I have to wash them just as soon as the hot water in my damn apartment building turns back on for good.