New keyboard! Plus an interlude with a feral cat.

[truepenny]

My new keyboard has arrived, courtesy of the kindness of my parents. It is, happily, almost exactly like my old one, except with better action, and the right ALT key has been replaced by a Windows/Mac squiggle key (you know what I mean). We'll see if that bothers me or not--I think I actually tend to use the left ALT key anyway, so I may never notice except when I hit the damn thing by accident.

---

When I went out just now to see if perhaps the FedEx ninjas had softly and silently delivered the keyboard, as the FedEx ninjas are wont to do, I found that indeed they had, placed tidily just to the right of the door. And tidily on top of it was El Marmelado, one of the current cast of feralistas.*

We think El Marmelado may have had a domestic mother, although he was clearly lost/abandoned/thrown out before he was old enough to neuter. (Jowlz. I has them, says El Marmelado.) He is noticeably less skittish than the other ferals. Over the past week, El Marmelado has gone from hissing at me when I inadvertantly got too close to giving me a silent meow when I came out with food. And this afternoon, he was totally King of the Box. I came out, and he was all, What do you want, thumb-monkey?

That's my box, I said.

Says who? said El Marmelado. I got dibs.

Since I don't actually want to encourage him to be afraid of me (the plan being eventually to trap and neuter him, and it would be very cool if he could be rehabilitated into a domestic kitty, although I'm not holding my breath), I said, Okay, went down to check the mail, and came back.

El Marmelado held his ground until I was actually opening the screen door again, and then he retreated a couple of feet. I took the box, but I offered a trade by fetching the food and water I put out for the feralistas daily.

My box was better, said El Marmelado grumpily and went to get a drink.

And when I came back inside with my new keyboard, I discovered Catzilla had somehow gotten himself shut in the pantry. Again.

Life with cats.


---
*These days, I regularly see El Marmelado, the Shy Tabby, and the Lesser Mackenzie, and there's another, even lesser, fluffy red cat whom I have seen once or twice. The Lesser Mackenzie is the only one of the cats we trapped and had neutered whom I still see--Rigby and the Greater Mackenzie have both vanished, along with Eleanor and Hilary. I hope they've just found other territories to roam, but I suspect that isn't really the answer.

The only kitten I have ever seen was Eleanor's kitten, Brownkitten (well, and her sibling, who disappeared only a couple days after I first saw them). Brownkitten, I got into the local feral rescue program, and I hope she is living as happy and pampered a life as our Formerly Feral Ninjas are.**

---
**A quick ninja story--fanservice for the cat-lovers, since this is already a cat-centric post: When the Second Ninja was small, she was the poster child for Short Attention Span Theater. (She's still that way a little, but maturity has brought a better ability to focus.) She was also an inveterate investigator of cups if they were left where she could reach them, always with the same, "Ooh, hey, cup! What's in here?" attitude. This morning, I had a cup of warm water on my desk from taking my herbal supplement, and the Second Ninja came to walk across my keyboard and get snuggles, like she does. And she noticed the cup.

I am charmed to report that at the serious and mature age of six, she is still an inveterate investigator of cups.

"Ooh, hey, cup!"

Comments

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Could be milk!

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Even if it's only water, it's still better when you find it for yourself.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Or, if you are my sister's childhood cat Candi (what can I say, Sibling was eight at the time), cold tea.

[theninth.livejournal.com]

Do your cats go "Ooh, hey, cup!" sniff or actually drink the contents, realize they don't like what's in it, then go around to the other side, "in case it's different over there"?

I have a cat (see icon) who has done that every single time for the past 14 years. Sometimes more than once, if she leaves the room and then comes back. (I don't know if she forgot she already checked, or if she's hoping the contents changed in the thirty seconds she was Somewhere Else.)

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Mine too. Especially if a human has been seen to consume something from said cup, in which case it *must* be re-investigated, just in case.

[pameladean]

I wonder if she's an incurable optimist, or if, sometime in her unknown past, a cup held something Really Good.

P.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I think it's all just a fabulous voyage of discovery. :)

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Mine just need to see what the humans have, and if it might be tasty. Tybalt especially has a positively Gollum-like attitude about the whole thing. "Is it delicious?? Is it tasssty?"

[libskrat]

With my current Kinesis, it's possible to remap keys. Assuming that's still an option, if the squiggle-key is a problem you can make the problem go away.

Making this work on a Mac has been an annoyance for me, but I finally did get it the way I wanted it. It took a combination of the remap function on the Kinesis and the keyboard settings in OS X.

[megdalina.livejournal.com]

My kitty, all of 9 years old since her birthday last week, is quite like that. But after the "Ooh, hey, cup" and giving it a nice sniff, she must dip her paw in and taste it. The head never dips into the cup, just the paw.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

The tabby in the icon, Iniki, was the same way with the paw thing. It certainly cured me of leaving cups of water on my nightstand.

[girlpunksamurai.livejournal.com]

My cat is the evil adorableness. I have repeatedly warned humans to not be fooled by said adorableness, but all my attempts have failed

He recently caught and killed a mouse; I'd have never known if he hadn't decided to delight himself by batting it about and rushing at it full speed and waking me up. At 3:00am -_- See, evil adorableness.

[rchan.livejournal.com]

I do love your cat posts. So much adorable! And I agree -- it's great when they're older and supposedly more dignified and yet still have moments when they act like total kittens. ^_^

Mine, at the not-yet-so-mature age of almost-two, still thinks that sticking his head in the crinkle tunnel magically makes a feather wand appear at the other end. Of course... every time I see him stick his head in there, I immediately run and get the feather toy to stick at the other end, thus perpetuating the myth. I'd feel bad thinking of all the times that I'm not home when he must stick his head in the crinkle tunnel and the toy does not appear... except that I'm pretty sure that this was just his way of training me to recognize when it's time to play. *sheepish grin* ^_^

[alice_montrose]

My aunt's resident spoiled tom named Dolly (yeah, yeah, laugh while you can!) is in the habit of opening food boxes with teeth and claws to investigate the contents. And then, if it's edible, he'll eat it. He got through a whole box of chocolate crackers my aunt forgot to put inside the cupboard one night! ^^;;; (Silly human, to trust him with a closed box, eh?)

One of the other cats that own my aunt likes to poke her cute little nose into my coffee. Mind you, just my coffee, not anyone else's.

[(Anonymous)]

I made the sad mistake of getting mad when my cat spilled my water, and then putting the cat outside. Thereafter, whenever she wanted to go outside she would knock my glass over, or try to. She eventually successfully trained me to never leave a glass of anything unattended.

[violet-prose.livejournal.com]

Your friend El Marmalado reminds me of a feral that turned up on my doorstep a year or so ago. I called him Scarface - he had this whole Al Capone look going for him, what with the jowls and the saunter and the scars. He wasn't neutered and had clearly been fending for himself for a long while, but he was very sociable once he got to know me. He was no sissy house cat - he prowled like a lion, checking and defending the borders of his territory. He had a habit of wandering off from time to time, but he always came back around - until this past June. I'm sure he came to an unfortunate end. Which is a shame, because he was truly a spectacular cat.

Thanks for sharing your cat interludes - I always enjoy them. :)