The cat secretly likes to have her teeth brushed?

The E. Coli scare in west Portland has us all brushing our teeth out of bottled water, although I do wonder if that's really necessary. Since it's trouble enough to brush my own teeth with bottled water, I decided to skip brushing the cat's teeth today, and just give her the wipe-down part.

This is our normal routine: I scoop out her litter box, and as soon as I do that, she starts to run around wild, because she knows what comes next. Then I chase her around the house for a few minutes, playing hide and seek, until she lets me catch her. I wipe her down with a hot washcloth; this part she likes.

Then I brush her teeth. It's true. I've done this since she was a kitten. They even make kitty toothpaste with whitening formula, which I think is a little strange. But I digress.

After I brush her teeth, I put her collar back on, open the bathroom door and she zooms out of there like a speeding bullet.

Today, I wiped her down with the washcloth, put her collar back on, and opened the bathroom door. She sat on the counter, looked at me, looked at the door, and didn't budge.

I left the bathroom, stood by the door, she just sat there on the counter, looking at me. Did you forget something?

The New Normal

The Good Kitty, after 2 days of flee-n-hide, on the 3rd day chose a new tactic—stay-n-fight. After making a few gestures of biting them (although she never bit down so I guess that's more like snapping at them), the 3 of them have settled on a truce of sorts—pet the kitty for a little bit, but not too much.

She (the kitty) might even make a pretty good babysitter. We were all sitting on the deck the other day. One of the kids started going down the stairs, something that we don't allow the kitty to do, and the kitty started growling at the kid! The kid came back up on the deck. After a little while, the kid headed down the stairs again, and once again, the kitty growled! A herding kitty?

Among the various activities we've been enjoying with the kids was a trip to an alpaca farm. Exhibit A:



Now that the nieces have been here for over a week, the herd-of-mustangs-on-a-stampede feels quite normal now.

The neighborhood Lothario

...is an orange tabby.

When he was younger, he used to come running if he saw me a block away. It always made me feel like one half of those romantic scenes where the lovers run towards each other in slow motion; I could almost hear the music play in the air.

In the last couple of years, he's been less lovey dovey. Once, he turned, saw me, swished his tail, and then continued on his way to do whatever orange tabbies do. But tonight, just like old times, we had a good visit. He makes me smile, even though I'm worried that he's still out this late at night.

But so much for kitty talk. Today was a full day of Portland Open Studios business. The old web site needs to be updated while the new site is still in the works. All the various acceptance letters need to be updated (accepted, accepted as alternates, scholarship winners, accepted but no scholarship). That was the bulk of the day and I didn't make it to Kinko's to wrap up the notes for Pudding #23. Which gave me another opportunity to look over what I wrote for the technical data and evaluations, and I ended up re-writing much of it too. So it worked out ok. Should be able to copy that, and stuff the envelopes tomorrow.