Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: exhausted
  • Music: Roisin Murphy, "Ramalama (Bang Bang)."

Sleep is for people who don't have cats.

Lilly and Alice have figured out that I'm leaving.

This always happens. I try and try to change the obvious signs of impending departure, packing in different rooms, hiding the suitcases, but let's face it: I went and got myself cats from two of the most intelligent breeds of domestic feline, and they know what it means when the cosmetic bags disappear from the bathroom and Mom starts coming around a lot. They put two and two together, come up with five, and devote themselves to making my life a living hell, because if I'm going to leave them, they're going to make me pay. Last night's method of making me pay involved waking me up every twenty minutes. Lilly does this by licking my eyelids. Alice does this by punching me in the face.

I love my cats.

At midnight, I was too tired to cope with any more feline interference, and got up, locking them out of the room. I went back to bed. At one, I was too tired to cope with any more feline interference, and got up, locking them out of the room. I went back to bed. At one-thirty, I was too tired to cope with any more feline interference, and got up, locking them out of the room. I went back to bed. At two...

...I realized that Alice is now long enough to turn the handle on my bedroom door, and that Lilly has understood handles for at least three years. They are conspiring against me to punish me for leaving them.

I am doomed.
Tags: alice, lilly, state of the blonde
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  • 41 comments

ladymondegreen

August 4 2009, 18:56:12 UTC 7 years ago

Thank Ghu they're both female and can't breed an even smarter, more deadly ball of perfect blue.

seanan_mcguire

August 4 2009, 21:59:56 UTC 7 years ago

Also, Lilly is fixed.

jongibbs

August 4 2009, 19:00:17 UTC 7 years ago

You think the door thing's bad? Wait till you get back home to find they've put all your DVDs in the wrong cases :)

seanan_mcguire

August 4 2009, 22:00:07 UTC 7 years ago

*shudder*

Don't give them ideas.

jacylrin

August 4 2009, 19:18:56 UTC 7 years ago

Wow. That's impressive. And scary. *chuckle*

seanan_mcguire

August 4 2009, 22:00:14 UTC 7 years ago

They worry me.

aryana_filker

August 4 2009, 19:53:24 UTC 7 years ago

Cats!
Tiger answers being locked out with wailing as if someone is trying to skin him alive. I wonder how long it will take him to learn the door thing. And I wonder how many neighbourhood cats he will bring on next time. Last night, he came home with a girlfriend who was very upset when she had found the way IN through the cat flap but was too scared/bewildered to find the way OUT again.

seanan_mcguire

August 4 2009, 22:00:27 UTC 7 years ago

Oh, dear!

At least she got out eventually.

aryana_filker

7 years ago

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qnofhrt

August 4 2009, 21:40:07 UTC 7 years ago

snicker

I can totally see that conversation.

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

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madfilkentist

August 4 2009, 20:07:19 UTC 7 years ago

Cats With Thumbs!

seanan_mcguire

August 4 2009, 22:01:07 UTC 7 years ago

NOT ON MY WATCH.

professor

7 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

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angelmcc

August 4 2009, 20:12:46 UTC 7 years ago

Now I love your cats too, and I know your pain. :)

seanan_mcguire

August 4 2009, 22:01:28 UTC 7 years ago

They are the terror of my nights.

maniakes

August 4 2009, 20:28:28 UTC 7 years ago

My father's cockatiels also figure out when he's getting ready to leave them, and punish him with plaintive calls for attention and the occassional courtship display whenever they see him packing.

They're not as smart as your cats, so can't tell the difference between "packing" and "filing". If there's stuff being laid out on the bed and then placed in a container, it's a sign of impending departure.

seanan_mcguire

August 4 2009, 22:01:41 UTC 7 years ago

...that's impressive. Also frightening.

angel_vixen

August 4 2009, 21:29:44 UTC 7 years ago

Nox wakes killernurd up by gnawing on his eyebrows, and then when he awakes enough to flail, she then makes a nest in his (shoulder-length) hair. It's really quite amusing to watch him -- just awake enough to know that there's Something Not Right With the World -- toss his head about, trying to figure things out, and Nox -- a small, black-orange tortie -- gleefully along for the ride.

Shelly (also a tortie), in the meantime, knows how to open doors. How do we know for sure?

She locks Nox in the closet. No lie.

AngelVixen :-)

seanan_mcguire

August 4 2009, 22:01:54 UTC 7 years ago

Go Shelly go!

angel_vixen

7 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

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all_ephemera

August 4 2009, 23:02:06 UTC 7 years ago

I wanted to tell you that my mom - who has no computer at home, and no internet access at work, and a giant Maine Coon of her own - loves your Alice stories so much that I have to copy and paste them to her in emails to her work address every time you post one. (I preface them all with the little "copyright Seanan Maguire" bit for safekeeping.) She has started to ask after Alice like she knows her.

seanan_mcguire

August 5 2009, 19:35:54 UTC 7 years ago

...dude, that's awesome. Alice and I thank her! (Lilly looks affronted. Siamese are much more interesting. Just ask them.)

Your cats can turn handles?

beable

August 5 2009, 01:49:06 UTC 7 years ago


Obviously they are velociraptors.

(adds bunsen_h, to whome I read this post, this means that Seanan has more than her fair share).

Re: Your cats can turn handles?

seanan_mcguire

August 5 2009, 19:36:03 UTC 7 years ago

...very possible.

gorgeousgary

August 5 2009, 02:17:07 UTC 7 years ago

We always keep our cats out of the bedroom at night. Otherwise, Nova would spend the night either licking or eating our hair. Or "make biscuits" on various parts of our anatomy.

Luckily, neither furball can work the door. (We have round door handles, not push-down ones. Don't know if this makes a difference.)

seanan_mcguire

August 5 2009, 19:36:23 UTC 7 years ago

I can't sleep well without cats. Except when I can't sleep at all with them.

saladofdoom

August 5 2009, 03:54:11 UTC 7 years ago

These cats can open the round doorknobs too, this is a picture of the door between the cattery and our bedroom. the white thing is a device to child-proof doorknobs. They reach up, put one paw on each side of the knob, push up on one side and pull down on the other.

seanan_mcguire

August 5 2009, 19:36:37 UTC 7 years ago

DARKNESS.

Gleh.

starmalachite

August 5 2009, 04:18:11 UTC 7 years ago

Due to my advancing arthritis, we've been planning to convert all the doorknobs to levers. Vir is smart enough that we may have to rethink this.

Enclosed is the face Heidi gives us whenever she sees the suitcases come out -- I paused in the middle of packing the camera to get the shot. She & Vir get aggressively needy once they spot the signs, usually 2-3 days in advance of our departure.

Kami (RIP) used to go for pathos. He'd either sit on the clothes I was trying to pack & look tragic or pat my arm & cry pitifully while I rolled them up.

djbp

August 5 2009, 15:15:16 UTC 7 years ago

Fit lever vertically?

seanan_mcguire

7 years ago

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alanajoli

August 5 2009, 14:32:48 UTC 7 years ago

I am dreading our kittens becoming big and strong enough to open our bedroom door. I know it's possible, because the grandpa cat for whom we were catsitting some months ago would not be kept out by a simple door. *sigh*

seanan_mcguire

August 11 2009, 18:27:35 UTC 7 years ago

You, too, shall know my pain.

mgucciard

August 5 2009, 22:39:47 UTC 7 years ago

Folks - not a cat owner myself, so perhaps this is less of an option than it appears to me, but what about simply using a door chock (wedge) to keep the door closed?
I'd be impressed at the cat that could work their way past a wedged door!

-M

seanan_mcguire

August 11 2009, 18:28:44 UTC 7 years ago

It isn't a good option for me, largely because a) I sleep better with cats in the room (except when they're punching me awake), and b) Lilly is a Siamese. If I start locking her out, she'll sit in the hall and scream. So I let them in, and mostly it works out.

talithakalago

August 10 2009, 21:54:38 UTC 7 years ago

Some of our door handles are long pull down bars and other are little round knobs. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

Elliot, my 18 month old kitten, has worked out the former kind. However watching him try and used the same trick on the latter kind is hours of entertainment.

And yes, he is long enough now to stand on his hind feet and open doors himself. We thought he'd finished growing, but after his surgery about a month ago he's suddenly grown BIGGER. By about a kg.

seanan_mcguire

August 11 2009, 18:29:12 UTC 7 years ago

GO ELLIOT GO.