Kneading

For those of you with cats, you will no doubt be aware of, understand, and maybe even identify with the behavior I am about to describe:

Sake, the "bitch kitty" likes to "knead" soft places. Generally, it is a rumpled up throw or afghan, but it might be a pillow or cushion.  Interestingly, since the weather has turned cooler, she is doing more "kneading" as a prelude to curling up on a soft place.

I watch her as she kneads.  She seems to be in some sort of kitty ecstasy.  It may almost be orgasmic, but who am I to know?

Hmmm.

Paté

I discovered a long time ago, that Sake and Haiku do not like paté style cat foods.  I try to buy chunky, and had to have another shopper tell me which of the Fancy Feasts http://www.fancyfeast.com/ was chunky (grilled, and now, gravy lovers).  This past weekend, I bought a can that said "chunky."  It is really paté with a little bit of chunks in it.

Taki will generally eat paté if it is a flavor she likes. It was interesting to see her reaction to liver: she sniffed it tentatively, then backed off from it. 

Haiku likes human tuna, and so do Taki and Sake.  Sometimes, Haiku just sits next to the feeding area, even when there is liver out (which she likes) and has a hangdog look on her. She does not cry. She just sits.  She moves to eat, when I put out tuna.  She does not like tuna if the can is not freshly opened, although I do refrigerate it.  Taki started eating it after the can was opened, so Sake and Haiku do now, too.

When Haiku started eating at the feeding area, Sake was mean to her, and sometimes chased her off.  That is part of the reason I put a second feeding station in the bedroom.  Even now, sometimes, while Haiku is eating, something will happen (a loud noise, another cat just bumping into her) and she will run off.  Since Taki's arrival, if I bring her back to the feeding area, she will resume eating.  Not so before.

Haiku is a skittish eater, and I try hard to find her favorites.  Except for the paté issue, Sake is less so, but has become more picky with age... Both Sake and Haiku vomit salmon.  I think it is too rich for them.  Other than human tuna, they do not seem to care for fish content cat foods, although they frequently show interest in the fish I eat. 

Taki likes fish content food, including salmon foods.  But, if salmon foods areout, Sake eats them, and gets sick, so I rarely buy salmon flavored foods.

Feeding these cats can be an issue.  Less so, if I stay away from paté!

Sacking Groceries

Do you ever wonder at the method people use to sack groceries.  I often wonder about the rhyme and reason of this.

One of the things that I have noticed is that if I bring my own reusable sacks, almost all the cashiers stack the scanned items in a pile before they start placing them in the sacks.  I have an insulated sack, and if I bring that, I unload my refrigeratables from the cart first, so they can be packaged in the insulated sack first.  Even so, many of the cashiers "forget" to use the insulated sack.  This makes no sense to me.

The other thing I wonder about is mixing non-food and food items.  I appreciate sackers or cashiers who double wrap toxic items.  And, I appreciate not mixing food items with clothing, detergents, paper products, cleaning products and the like.  But I am always amused that pet food is sacked with these other non-food products. I wonder if the sackers and cashiers are told to do that, or if they consider pet food as "non-food" products, and treat it the same way automatically.

I, on the other hand, think of pet food as food items, and if asked, I would say sack it with my other food products.  I do not speak and tell the cashier or sacker to do this, but maybe, I should.

Company

Sometimes, we just need some company.  Someone to talk to, to share with, to be with. Sometimes, that company does not have to be human.  Which is why pets are so wonderful.  They can be such good companions. They can be attentive, affectionate, playful, soothing. It have been proven that having a pet can be healthy for us, helping to decrease stress and even lower the blood pressure.

I am grateful I have really good pets.

Anthropomorphize

I am shamefully guilty of anthropomorphizing the behaviors of my cats. And before, them, of my dog. 

I know many of my cats' hide outs, but not all of them, although I can guess. I suspect they use the hideouts to get some quiet time.  Sometimes, when I am stirring about and talking to them, they come out from hiding, sometimes, they do not. Frequently, they appear as if out of nowhere, which is a little spooky. But nice.

 The most recent enigma is the hiding spots for Taki. She is still so small, there are many nooks and crannies where she can hide. Tonight, I could not find her, and after looking around I orally made a comment that I wondered where she was.  A few minutes later, I saw her on the bed (where she had not been when I previously looked.) I attributed her look to be very sad.  Forlorn, Dejected.

Earlier, she had been sitting on me, and was doing very well until she started biting and I scolded her. And, finally I had to put her down, as she would not stop biting. That is when she disappeared. So, I can understand if she was a little sad. But, we reconciled.