This cat is killing me. I go upstairs this morning to the bedroom and the animal is dead asleep in one of Elise's drawers, which is a popular sleeping place for her. "What is wrong with that?", you may want to ask. Well it isn't the fact the she is sleeping in a drawer. I have no allergenic or hygenic protest for her chosen spot. It doesn't even bother me that it is the naughty drawer. To each his/her own, I say. The real problem is that this morning's viewing is one of only a couple of times I have seen Dr. Jillian Vegetable sleep since her arrival several weeks ago. We are certainly dancing to a different circadian beat these days. Let me break down a typical night for our little family (Times are made up to protect those involved....we don't want anyone thinking that we aren't cool or happening):
11:00 - Elise is asleep within about 3.5 minutes of closing her eyes.
11:05 - Jill hits the manic phase, this phase will most certainly continue until E&C are out the door in approx. 9 hours.
11:15 - Jill, who I can only assume is training for some future olympic competiton, starts with a few (10-15) warm-up laps from the bed, to the chair, to the chest of drawers, around the desk, behind the dresser, underneath and back up on the bed. Each lap has a 3 second cool down period at the end where she looks up and around wildly. We recently discovered that this is due to the presence of the ceiling fan, which she either loves or hates....there is no way to tell.
11:30 - a period of stretching..................................her claws on our legs.
11:45 - time for sprints (too many too count). She varies her path and her distances and I have thus far been unable to determine rhyme or reason. The real sleeping detriment associated with the sprints is the digging and ripping noise of her claws on the carpet, chair, comforter, etc. Of course, all resting occurs at the foot of the bed with her attempting to understand that damn spinning thing up there.
12:17 - strength and coordination training. At this point, Jill begans her "circuit". I should also mention that Jill is not a jumping cat. If she goes anywhere above ground level, she is most definately going to climb........never that nice, quiet, stealthy cat jump.
STATION 1 - Chair climb. 3 sets, 15 reps, focus on clawing and tearing noise to achieve maximum volume
STATION 2 - no technical name here.....she just basically grabs a RCA adapter cord that is hanging down and slaps it up against the side of the dresser for 5 minutes or so. This is followed by intermittent periods of dodging a stream of water that comes from a squirt bottle located directly next to our bed.
12:34 - Cody manages to fall asleep. Knowledge of rest of the circuit has been obtained from a night of staying up late reading.
STATION 3 - lots of noise behind the desk as the good Doctor tugs and pulls at any and all electric cords behind the desk and the night stand.
1:00 - staring and talking to the cat in the mirror with lots of confusion and side to side movements of the head.
STATION 4- this is where she does a little more heavy lifting. She ups the level of difficulty in her climbing regimen in my closet. Using only her front legs she scales the front of the first shirt hanging in the closet, which concidentally happened to be new. She glories in her triumph by walking across the tops of the hanging clothes. I can't decide if I should rotate the first shirt in an effort to save it, or just let it be the martyr.
STATION 5 - this is where she is brought down a level or two. At this point, she seems to think that there is nothing she can't climb. She moves on to her two most dreaded foes, the painted wall and the closet doors. Despite several attempts, they evade her every time. It is a painful defeat for all three of us since it is accompanied by that horrible "nails on a chalkboard" sound. She is immediately on the look-out for more of that squirting water.
1:14 - shake it off and repeat cycle.......repeat, repeat, repeat.
3:45 - 5:00- combat training. Jillian attacks anything that moves, except for that freaking ceiling fan, which still seems to be out of her reach. Like a dog chasing a squirrel, she's going to catch it, whatever it is, one day. For now, the moving things within range are restricted to our hands, feet, fingers, toes, or any body part that moves under those covers.
5-6:00 - she goes covert, almost certainly under the bed......her movements cannot be tracked. I think she works in a power nap to sufficiently prepare her for...................................
6:00 - 8:30- a healthy dose of laps, sprints, and crap-load of chair climbing. LOTS of water dodging and running from a disgruntled Cody.
8:35 - ahhhhhh, they're gone. Time for a good days sleep in the naughty drawer and lots of pooping in the litter box, which is right out in the open, next to the stinky kitten chow and that nasty water with chunks of bloated cat food in it (the joys of completely living in only one room........4 more weeks!). Gotta get some recovery time in, because there is a big night of annoying the shit out of her cat-hating daddy ahead. I figure that George Bush is somehow to blame for her behavior, but I have not been able to find a reliable link just yet.
I'll keep you posted,
Code
