Three-Ring Circus

Cooper is trying to fit in.  Really, he is.  He is just at such a disadvantage because his energy level is, like, three thousand times the level of the other cats.  He really does have just two speeds:  wide open, and asleep.  So, he spends a lot of the night playing, then the rest of the day is Romper Room with a few naps interspersed just to recharge for the next entertainment onslaught.  I'm not going to lie--it's exhausting.  Just the sheer interrupted sleep alone is enough to make me tired for the rest of the day.  And that's not counting the parts about referreeing Zelda/Cooper fights, policing the tables and countertops, and running up and down the stairs to investigate "what that thump was."  (So far, it's been the laundry basket a few times, a lamp, and a very large picture that formerly used to reside on our family room wall.  Ahem.)

Zelda is still doing a lot of growling at the top of the kitty tree, but she comes down a lot more, too.  Nowadays, she will hang over the edge, looking for him.  Sometimes she'll get down off the tree and follow him to the edge of the underside of the bed, where he's hiding, waiting to pounce.  She then lies down enticingly beside the bed, just so that when he finally chases her, she can growl and scurry back up to the top of the tree again.  Last night, as I was trying to wind down for bed, I witnessed what seemed to be utter insanity.  Cooper would leave the room and go down the hall.  Then Zelda would follow him down the hall.  Then, 35 seconds or so later, Zelda would come tearing back into the room and zoom up the tree, Cooper hot on her heels.  Then they'd do it again.  And again.  Finally, I got curious about what was going on and followed Zelda (who was following Cooper) out of the room.  I saw her go down the hall and into the bathroom to use the litter box.  Except Cooper (who was hiding in the guest room) followed her in and was all, like: "Hey!  What are you doing in there?  Number one or number two?  Can I watch?!?"  I grabbed him and took him downstairs for Sean to distract him with a toy for a while, so Zelda could go potty in peace.  Sheesh.

Cooper wants to be in the middle of everything.  He's learned buddy-strolling, and he LOVES it.  He loves the fresh air.  He loves the bird-sounds and bunnies.  He loves the attention he gets from the neighbors.

 He loves it SO much, in fact, that the other day I was trying to load Mister into the buddy-stroller for a much deserved walk, and didn't notice that Cooper had decided to hitch a ride in the open bottom storage area.  I was all the way out the door when there was a flurry of motion and noise and Cooper went flying back into the house, narrowly missing losing the end of his tail in the storm door as it closed.  We are really lucky he didn't bolt away from the house instead of toward it.

Then, a day or so later, I was downstairs scooping poop when I heard a scrambling sound behind me and noticed Cooper vigorously scaling Sean's inversion table.  If you've never seen an inversion table, it's kind of half-way between a see-saw and a zero-gravity chair.  So as he was climbing up one side of it, that side was slowly rising.  The mom part of me wanted to scream at him to stop and grab him.  The mad scientist part of me wanted to see what the heck was going to happen.  Sure enough, he reached the tipping point and then the opposite side started heading down.  Rapidly.  The metal hit the floor with a clang and Cooper flew through the air and jetted up the stairs faster than I've ever seen him go.  

But, lest you think that Cooper's the only one who's been having adventures, let me direct your attention to Exhibit A and B--Reggie and Wanda.  Both of them had their own adventures today.  We decided that, if we wanted to be able to lift Reggie without getting a hernia, we were going to have to get him some exercise.  So we put him on his harness to take him for a walk.  He immediately started running through the house, presumably in an attempt to lose the harness.  We took him outside anyway.  He turned around and went running back toward the door.  So, I took him to the bottom of the driveway...and he turned around and went running back toward the door.  (I considered doing it a few more times just to get him the exercise he so desperately needs, but  thought better of it.  Okay, full disclosure, Sean made me take him back into the house.)

And then, the piece de resistance...Wanda getting to go in the buddy stroller by herself for  what we're pretty sure was the first time  Usually, Wanda rides with Otto, but today, we gave her her own ride.  There were dark clouds scattered around, but they didn't look like they were serious.  She was a little skeptical at first, but she settled in quickly.  We stopped for a while to chat with some neighbors, and it started getting darker.  But we'd promised Wanda a walk, so we were following through on our promise.  Just to the end of the road and back.  We owed her that, at least.  Except we never got that far.  The first fat raindrops started to fall, and we decided to turn around.  At first, we were walking back at a leisurely stroll, until I noticed a roaring sound just ahead of us.  I looked at Sean and asked him hesitantly if that was the sound of rain hitting the trees as it came down the mountain.  About the time Sean was responding in the affirmative, the wave of rain hit us, and I took off in a dead run up the hill, pushing the increasingly soaked Wanda in front of me.  There are few things in life more plaintive than hearing a cat getting wet who's rarely, if ever, been wet in her life.  Finally I ran out of steam and had to get Sean to run her the rest of the way up the hill.  Back to the safety of the nice warm house and a vigorous towel-drying.  

She'll forgive us.  

Eventually.

Otto and Mister are fine.  Otto has been enjoying the lovely 80-degree days after what felt like fourteen months of winter.

 Mister had a little cancer scare that had me on pins and needles for a week or so, but it turned out to be something else.  Mister can't leave me yet--he's only eighteen.  

So, as you can tell, we've been a little busy herding cats.  Or maybe they've been herding us--it's hard to tell sometimes.  Just another day in paradise...