Kako loves “The Refrigerator Game.”  That is, she leaps atop the frig and asks for—mostly demands—attention.  The game usually—mostly—winds up with her jumping on my back and continuing the demanding/getting attention from there.

I’ve discussed this before.  In fact, you can see photos of it here, here, here, and here (the last one showing her taking the game to new heights when she could get on top of the cabinets over the refrigerator), and you can read about it here and here.

To prove I’m not insane . . .

Ha!  Who am I kidding?  Of course I’m insane.  But that’s not the point.

To prove I’m not lying about this aspect of her personality (a trait only she has), here’s a video of her on the refrigerator doing her thing: asking—demanding—attention.

Note that she did wind up on my back.  I have photos to prove it, but I’ll share those at a later date and time.

For now, enjoy Miss Thing playing The Refrigerator Game.  And take special note that there’s an undercurrent of purring in her meows.  She might be a bitch and she might order others around and brutalize them to get her way, but she definitely loves me and can show it.  Besides, she knows what buttons to press.

[video is 0:50]

Both Kako and Kazon had terrible infestations of ear mites when I first adopted them (among several other problems).  The damage to their ears was so extensive at an early age that they now have sensitive ears.  But Kako’s are more sensitive than Kazon’s.  In fact, she often cries out in pain when she scratches her own ears, and watching her try to address an itch in either of them is akin to watching the torture of a defenseless animal.  It just hurts.

The most I can do to alleviate that suffering is to keep them as clean as possible through regular douses with OtiCalm, an ear cleaning solution that gently breaks up buildup.  This, as you can guess, is not a popular activity, but I know it’s best for them and helps circumvent unnecessary pain and discomfort.

One of the interesting things about their delicate ears is Kako’s eargasms.  Although sticking her hind foot in them to scratch an itch is a sure way to elicit painful cries, the same is not true when it comes time to bathe.  It feels sickly voyeuristic to watch her hit that just right position that rubs an ear in heavenly ways.

This is never more true than when she lies on the ground and starts bathing with her front paws.  If you’ve ever seen a cat cleaning in this manner, you know they lick their paw before using it to clean their face, ears, and other body parts.  With Kako, however, the truest joy comes from her head resting on the ground against one of her ears.  Each time she licks her paw, she moves her head, and that in turn rubs her ear into the floor.  That, poppets, is obviously one of the greater joys she can experience.

The funny thing is this: very little bathing takes place except for the paw she’s trying to use to clean herself.  You see, she becomes so entranced with the eargasm that she ends up licking the paw ad infinitum without accomplishing much with it.  Instead, she just keeps moving her head back and forth to work her ear against the ground.

I suppose she has the cleanest paws in town because of this.  They get a good working over no matter what pieces and parts are skipped in favor of the eargasm.

And when she finally gets that paw working against an ear?  Well, bliss ensues.  Usually, her entire body gets into the writhing caused by her ecstasy.

That is what you will see in this video.  I caught her lying in front of the fireplace as she began to take a bath.  I simply turned the camera on and let it record what actually happened.  I did stop it right at the end when she stood up to scratch the ear she’d been grinding into the ground.  Knowing what that would cause, I saw no reason to record it.

Note that Loki makes a brief drive-by in the background near the beginning of the video as he makes his way to the cat castle off-screen to the left.

[video is 2:30 in length; I had to lighten it greatly, so I apologize in advance for its grainy and washed-out appearance; yes, that's an episode of Stargate SG-1 playing faintly in the background]

When Kako first was introduced to the fireplace, she ran like a wild woman.  It scared her for reasons I couldn’t possibly understand.  She’d never been around fire, never been hurt by it, yet she was the epitome of pyrophobia.  If the fireplace was active, she made a point of going around it by whatever means would take her the furthest from its reach.  She’d climb over furniture, she’d slink around the perimeter of the room, and she’d dash by it as if pursued by the devil himself.  In one way, it was funny; in another, it wasn’t funny at all.

But time took its toll and she eventually came to enjoy it.  Most important, I’m sure, was the heat.  She’s the smallest cat in the house and has fine hair as a coat, so she tends to get cold easier than the others.  Once she realized the fireplace would not reach out and grab her in paws of fiery fury, she began investigating it.  She grew comfortable around it and, before long, fell in love with it.  The transition provided a wonderful process to behold.

When she overcame her phobia and reversed it into mania, she then became obsessive about being near the fireplace when it was active.  This video shows just such a time.  What you’ll notice is that she sits there—just sits there and stares at the flames.  Ah, but things are not always as they seem.  Kako loves her reflection.  She thinks—no, she knows she’s the hottest momma on the planet, the purtiest feline ever to set foot on Mother Earth.  Nothing will convince me she wasn’t sitting in front of the glass looking at her reflection while simultaneously bathing in the warmth it offered.  You can almost hear her bestowing all manner of praise on that fine-ass feline she saw in the reflection.

A few notes: I had to lighten the video, so keep that in mind as to its somewhat washed-out quality.  Loki makes a very brief appearance as he walks by and slips through the bottom-left corner of the frame; he’s almost unrecognizable because it’s so quick and you see so little of him.  That is an episode of Stargate SG-1 playing in the background.  Finally, the video is three minutes long for those who want to see the full thing; for everyone else, you can watch the first minute or so and understand what’s in the last two minutes.  I already said she’d just sit there and stare at herself.  What were you expecting, a song and dance routine?

How about a brief video of Kako playing in the living room?  Sound acceptable?  Good.

There are no decapitated bodies, no bloodshed, no wailing or gnashing of teeth.  Surprisingly, she’s just entertaining herself with a toy—until the end when she hears someone else playing in the kitchen.  Since she stood and ran away at that point, the video is short and sweet.

Almost two years ago, I posted a video demonstrating Kazon’s door-opening skills, not to mention Kako’s proclivity to sit on the sidelines while her brother gets into trouble only to rush in once he provides an opportunity for mischief.  He’s much bigger and stronger, after all, and is more likely to gain access to things she couldn’t otherwise get to/into without his help.  At the end of that video, once Kazon had the door open and had entered the room, Kako zoomed in from behind me and rushed through the open door behind him.  This video picks up immediately following that video.

I was shooting video to see if they would come out once they realized what was behind the door was nothing new (it was only the small laundry room and both had been inside it many times).  When they didn’t exit, I tapped my foot.  That spurred Kako to decide no fun was to be had and boring closets with laundry machinery had nothing to offer her.  Kazon, on the other hand, is not so easily persuaded that the same room over and over again will still offer the same mundane attractions it always has.  One can never be too certain that something new hasn’t been introduced that will need thorough investigating . . . or to be played with.  Also, he knows if he waits long enough, Daddy will be forced to come look for him.

[I did have to lighten this a bit, so bear that in mind when considering the grainy and slightly washed-out quality]

Can it be more simple than the pleasure of enjoying some new catnip toys?  While this video is mainly of Grendel, note that Loki can be seen in the background and Kako gives us a drive-by cameo.  This video was lightened due to the original being excessively dark.

[I have decided to drop support for the AVI format and raw footage.  This is based entirely on size and bandwidth usage, and also in no small part due to very little use.]

Kako was having an eargasm in the living room when I grabbed the camera.  As is always the case, she promptly stopped what she was doing and considered other options.  She finally resolved to get up and move on; it took one rollover before she felt it was appropriate to stand.  Odd little woman, that cat.  Maybe she wanted to be certain she got up on the right side of the bed — or floor, in this case.

[the video is 16 seconds long and 812 KB in size; click on the photo for the WMV version; sorry, poppets, but I found almost three dozen videos that are only in Windows Media format; they come from a collection I put together for Derek shortly before he died, and I have no way to know where the originals are; I have them, mind you, but identifying them out of the hundreds I consolidated for that CD would be more effort than I'm willing to give; instead, I'm pulling them from the original collection I made for him and will post them in that format only; get over it]

Kako climbed atop the printer, scrunched up the dust cover to make a somewhat more comfortable bed, then proceeded to wash her face and hands before nodding off to sleep.  In fact, watch her eyes at the end of the video and you’ll see how well it would have fit had I been sitting there saying “You’re getting very sleepy.  Your eyelids are getting heavier and heavier…” until she finally zonked.

[video is in Windows Media Player (WMV) format; length is 1:54 (one minute and fifty-four seconds) and size is 3.58 MB (so be prepared for the download if you’re using dial-up)]

There are times when just watching The Kids at play entails pure joy for me.  This video captures just such a moment.

I recorded this a day before Christmas 2003.  Derek had been in the hospital almost all year, was quite sick, and most distressing for him was how much he missed The Kids.  Related conversations increasingly became the quickest path to his heartfelt lamentations.  Nothing cut him quite as deeply as tears borne of missing them.  Jenny and I both knew how much he was upset about his failing condition and how much he missed the simple yet magnificent delights to be found with the four furry rulers of the cosmos.  More poignantly, he knew Christmas was always an over-the-top opportunity to spoil them, so the idea of missing it hurt him most.

Once it became clear he would not be home for Christmas and would have been away from The Kids for almost a full year, I decided one of his gifts from me would be a CD of photographs and videos of the feline members of our home.  I began the project during the summer of 2003.  It was a dedicated effort to capture as many digital moments as I could.  By the time I put the CD together for him, it contained dozens of videos and hundreds of pictures.  Luckily, it was ready just before Jenny and I spent December 25 at the hospital (we took with us an enormous and enjoyable Christmas meal and a plethora of gifts, wowing everyone including Derek).

Much later in time, after a brief and unsuccessful stint at home in spring of 2004, Derek lived his final months where he had spent so much of the last two years: in the hospital.  His condition worsened, a three-year expedition to identify the limits of human existence by way of pain and suffering.  Though he did see The Kids for a few weeks when he was allowed finally to leave the hospital before his health forced his return, he always looked to that CD for the emotional uplift he needed and knew The Kids could provide.  Many of the nurses who cared for him regularly would speak about the cats as though they knew them.  Ah, but they did know them; that familiarity came from Derek who spoke of them often and was always more than happy to give people the CD-of-The-Kids tour.  Not only that, but he frequently mentioned visiting my blog to see whatever new pictures and stories about our holy eminencies I might have posted since his last visit.  He likewise included returns time and again to enjoy his personal favorites.

I celebrated Christmas early in 2003: on December 24.  I wanted to record for posterity the holiday most envied by cats around the world (or, at least, by the masters of my universe).  Since we would be at the hospital for the holiday and the CD had to be included in the gifts we were taking to Derek, an early exploration of the goodies under the tree was necessary so I could include the enjoyment for the one person who most deserved to see it but would be unable to.

It starts with Loki playing with a new toy.  Despite his appearance in the video, there is no death, no destruction, no mass hysteria, no bloody battles for the souls of humankind, no end to civilization as we know it, and no levitation.  I’m sorry, but this was truly one of our simple moments.  I guess Satan chose not to inundate this historic record with his usual disregard for life and decorum.

Soon after it begins, Kazon and Kako get involved, steal the toy from Loki, and then inadvertently pass it back and forth.  He Who Should Not Be Named eventually finds a place to rest while watching the next generation act like fools.

Finally, it ends with Kazon collapsing with contentment.  It is then you see Grendel lying in a box in the background watching all the shenanigans as they unfold.  The Twins sure are silly, huh, Grendel?

This video is in Windows Media Player (WMV) format.  It’s 1:58 (one minute and fifty-eight seconds) in length and is about 5.27 MB (so be prepared for the download if you’re using dial-up).  And I’m still interested in changing all of these to MPG format; I just need to get off my duff, evaluate the software options, and buy something.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Adobe Premiere Pro the best option for this (video editing)?  Any other suggestions?

[Update] I originally concatenated three videos into a single WMV file.  I’m now including all three as separate YouTube entries below.

Kazon has always been a little slower mentally than the other kids at the playground.  Actually, Kazon is our household “dumb jock” — big, strong, as sweet as the day is long, and dumber than a sack of hair.

When he was a kitten I always thought Kazon would grow out of his dimwittedness.  This was based on Loki having gone through the same thing — start out slow and dumb and pubert (I know it’s not a word but it gets the point across) into a dangerously intelligent cat (danger for me, that is!).

Sadly this was not to be the case with Kazon.  He never grew out of his adolescent synaptic density.  In layman’s terms, he stayed on the not-so-intelligent end of the IQ scale.

For instance, Kazon rarely remembers he has an ass.  He’ll attempt to jump up on something and will end up with his front half successfully in the right place while his rear half dangles precariously over the edge which, eventually, either pulls him back to the floor or forces him to scramble to get to where he wanted to be.  Sure, it’s funny because you always know it’s going to happen.  He has yet to remember there’s a lot more Kazon back there.

Another example is Kazon’s tail — as in, he chases it.  This is the most hysterical thing I’ve ever watched because he’s so intent on catching it and will spin in circles going speeds that make me dizzy by just watching him.  He’ll chase it intently for quite some time before something else catches his attention and makes him forget about what he was doing.

And that brings me to another example.  I can always and easily distract Kazon from anything without worrying about him remembering what he was doing.  This is the best thing I can do so far as discipline is concerned.  He’s too big and too muscular for anything to penetrate enough to make a difference.  If you swat him on the ass for doing something, he just turns around and looks at you questioningly, as if to say, “What are you doing?  Is this a new game?”  Besides, any discipline that he might feel is lost by the fact that he won’t remember why he was disciplined by the time you do something.  He’s just that simple-minded.  The moment you speak up about what he’s doing, he thinks you’re just talking to him and will immediately come to you for some love and attention.  This negates any attempt to discipline him.

As the baby of the house (pathetic baby, that is), Kazon is constantly in trouble.  His curiosity is exacerbated by the fact that he doesn’t remember what he’s seen and hasn’t seen, so everything is always new to him every time he sees it.

Despite all of his mental shortcomings, though, Kazon has skills.  Doors are one of his masterpieces.  This is the dichotomy.

He’s always been fascinated by doors and has learned how to open them.  All of them.  Maybe it’s that typical feline curiosity that drives him, but, whatever it is, it pushed him to be inventive and to figure out how to get into places he really shouldn’t be.

If there’s a doorknob, he understands what it’s for and will try to use it.  If there’s a handle, he’ll try to grab it and pull it down.  If it’s a cupboard door, he knows to use his front paws to pull it open far enough to get his head inside — followed by the rest of him.

This skill is not lost on the rest of The Kids.  They’ve all learned how to get into the cupboards because of Kazon.  More importantly, his sister Kako has learned to always follow him when he’s investigating something because he’ll be her key to get into trouble.

The video below is a perfect example of both Kazon’s prowess with doors and his sister’s ability to remain hidden in the background until he gets into trouble — at which point she rushes in to get her piece of the pie.

In this video Kazon is trying to open the doors to the laundry room.  They’re double-doors with the ball-and-groove latches at the top.  Watch him to see how he tries to open the doors by reaching under them, how he reaches for the doorknobs but realizes they’re too high, tries the tiny space between the doors, and then eventually gets them open.  Also watch for Kako’s surprise appearance from just outside of the camera’s range once the doors have opened (this is what she does — waits patiently out of the picture until he’s successful, then she rushes in).

This video is in Windows Media Player (WMV) format.  It’s 1:32 (one minute thirty-two seconds) in length and is about 4.13 MB (so be prepared for the download if you’re using dial-up).