Meankitty Presents: KittenWatch 2005

KittenWatch Day 2: It's been 24 hours since the vet visit and presumably the fleas and worms are all gone. The slaves -- the Typing Slave, with the Pink Thing very much underfoot -- shift the Interloper into the bonus room, that very intriguing place we've heard them profess is to be filled with comic books, vintage clothing, and a sewing machine on a table. Big D and I could make a good case for cat trees, a constant kitty buffet, and several fuzzy chairs to scratch, but they've been so excited about the bonus room for so long, we took pity on them.

Now she's moving the Interloper up there?? After we let them have the room to do with what they would? This is not gonna work. Steps will be taken.

Male Slave (Foodslave) has not yet acknowledged the Interloper. Pleased with his reticence, I sit on his lap and purr for exactly 7.5 minutes.

KittenWatch Day 3: Typing Slave and Pink Thing disappear midday carrying TS's pocketbook of no cat treats. Big D and I set to work.

KittenWatch Day 4: I smell fancy cat food that's high in calcium, but it's not in my bowl! What's up with that? Typing Slave allows Big D and myself to venture upstairs and meet and greet the Interloper. She's fat and sassy and says, "You're not the Queen anymore, MK, sorry." Then she licks her belly like it makes her special or something. Just because I'm spayed.

I hiss at her and she hisses at me and then chases me down the stairs. Not even I will beat up a pregnant lady.

KittenWatch Day 5: Typing Slave and Pink Thing are gone all day. Something about visiting a fabric and upholstery outlet, probably to get something for the stupid Interloper. Spend the day working at the weatherstripping underneath the door to the upstairs. Whenever I sense the Interloper on the other side, I mutter curses upon her unborn babes. May they knead her with claws as sharp as needles and bite her with teeth as sharp as my wit!

KittenWatch Day 6: Typing Slave goes to her writer's group meeting and leaves Foodman and Pink Thing home . She instructs him to feed the Interloper. He does not. I cackle with glee. He still has yet to acknowledge the pushy wench, though Typing Slave has gushed about feeling the kittens kick and how he should get to know the new cat.

Pink Thing has taken to calling the Interloper "Sweetie". Which just goes to show she doesn't belong in MY house. In an ironic twist, the Interloper scratches the small slave on the cheek when the slave is going in for a kiss. Not so sweet now, is she, Pink Thing?

Here is Pink Thing "feeling" the kittens in the Interloper's belly. Have you ever seen anything this gross in your life? I mean, besides this.

KittenWatch Day 7: Usually Sundays are good because everyone's home to give me much attention and food. A sit-down dinner gets cooked, and Pink Thing slips me treats. Not always on purpose. I do like that toddler's eating habits! Today, however, the slaves let the Interloper explore the downstairs. At least until she disappeared underneath Typing Slave's desk and refused to come out. "She can't have her kittens there!" Typing Slave wailed. "There's all kinds of wires and power strips and stuff!"

Foodslave nearly broke his back moving the desk, only to have the Interloper stroll casually out without any encouragement. The slaves realized that, due to the whole nesting/looking for a hole in the ground to pop her kittens out thing, they can't allow the Interloper to "integrate" with Big D and myself just yet.

KittenWatch Day 8: Typing Slave tries that integration thing again. The trouncing has seriously begun, and it's not me doing it. I don't want to talk about it.

KittenWatch Day 9: (This was posted to the Meankitty Yahoo Group on April 19, 2005)

Okay, it's really only day 2 after the vet said to expect kittens, but the cat's been in my house for 9. So far that bulbous brown interloper hasn't shown a lot of manners! I mean, I'm *so* the head cat around here, and just because she's got furry little buns in the oven, she thinks she can evict me and Big D from her upstairs penthouse? She thinks she can get more attention from the slaves? That...that wench!

She gets the good food, and lots of it, and the slaves keep going upstairs and shutting the door, locking me out. Blast them! I just know there's petting and loving going on up there, and I should be in on it! I'd have Pink Thing open the door for me, as she is relatively compliant when not pulling my tail and trying to kiss me, but they have a childproofer on the doorknob.

The Interloper is not even as big as me, sans belly, and she routinely chases Big D around the house, yowling and fussing. What a coward he is. I always knew it. To think I hired him to keep Tom and Morris out of my well-groomed, silky hair. If they find out about this, they'll be haunting my windowsills trying to give me dead mice and birds. I'm so sure. Like I want a dead rodent instead of what I sneak off Pink Thing's plate.

It disturbs Pink Thing to see the Interloper and Big D's big, fuzzed up tails when the Interloper is ragging D's fat butt all over the house ("What is wrong with D's tail? Fix it, Mommy!"). So Typing Slave declared that, since it's KittenWatch Day 2 (9!!), the door shall be permanently closed to avoid upsetting the mother-to-be. And Dogs forbid the greedy wench crawl under the slaves' bed and refuse to come out until the kittens are born.

You know, if I weren't spayed, I'd have to see about getting knocked up myself so I could receive such star treatment.

In the meantime, the slaves shall pay for their defection. Big D and I are plotting our revenge, and it won't be pretty.

KittenWatch Day 10: The Pink Thing let the Interloper downstairs, and there was a regular hootenanny. Who'd have thought a big fat preggo could run that fast??

I'm going under the bed, and I'm not coming out until it's 4:30 a.m. and time to wake up Foodslave by rattling the blinds! After the food is produced and scarfed down at the speed of mean, I'm going back under the bed and making Typing Slave fret. Serves 'em right.

Oh, in my race to scarf my food, I made D eat too fast and he proceeded to puke about 14 times, as is his way. I did stay out from under the bed long enough to watch that fun party.

KittenWatch Day 11: Still under the bed. Not comin' out, not even for lunch meat. Pink Thing and the Typing Slave disappeared into the upstairs for hours at a time today, anyway, so how would they know if maybe I came out to eat and drink and use the cat pan? As far as they know I've been under the bed for two days. Typing Slave is fretting even more, but I notice she's not fretting enough to kick that fat Interloper back outside where she belongs.

No kittens yet, btw. No signs of kitty labor, either. See? I told you the Interloper was annoying! And look at this face:

Does that look like the face of future maternal devotion to you? In fact, I'd go so far as to say the Interloper looks like a candidate for my gallery, if only she wasn't a sickeningly sweet suck-up whose only crime (against the SLAVES) has been to give the Pink Thing that little whack on the face.

KittenWatch Day 12: (Friday, April 22) The Typing Slave is LEAVING TOWN all weekend, and our guess is the Interloper is going to whelp at 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning while Pink Thing and Foodslave snooze. Since Foodslave has shown a marked tendency to pretend the Interloper doesn't exist, there's a chance the slaves won't even know about the kittens until Typing Slave gets home Sunday (KittenWatch Day 14) and kicks his ass.

I will also come out from under the bed to see that.

Now taking bets on when the Interloper will pop. Join the pool! Send an email with the date and time (right now it's about 10 pm CST on April 21, so start guessing after this time--and 2:30 am Sat. is taken). The slave/cat combo who guesses closest will get a special treat! (Tuna or mouse, your choice.)

Speaking of guesses, Christie - slave of Sable - http://www.marasads.com/sable.html - correctly identified the quote in the previous KittenWatch email. How erudite of her!

KittenWatch Day 13: Despite plentiful predictions as to their appearance, no kittens. The Interloper, now in a foul mood, swatted Pink Thing a couple times, which is something not even Big D and I do. We prefer the "run under the bed" way of dealing with the loud two legger. Each claw mark gives me chills of joy because (a) I've wanted to do it myself so many times; and (b) it's one more scratch towards the Interloper getting booted out of the house. I mean, surely the slaves aren't going to keep a feline around that damages their precious offspring? Much less its own offspring? Just because the Interloper only started swatting when the kittens were due doesn't mean she's a MEANkitty or anything.

If I could open the door for the Pink Thing to go upstairs and get more swats, I would.

KittenWatch Day 14: Typing Slave got home around lunchtime and, instead of paying me tribute, went straight to check on the Interloper and then to bed. The nerve!

And, by the way, the KITTENS were born in the evening hours of Day 14. The slaves pegged the time of the first kitten's birth at about 7:45 CST, making the winner of the kitty pool Seamus, Arsione, and Kar'rin R, punching bag slaves of a daemon kitty; their guess was 8:35 pm CST. There are 4 of the little suckers, 1 dark tabby, 1 red tabby and 2 pale twinsie things that look like milky rats. Could the daddy have been the yellow TOM who lurks outside my window?

Some cats. There is no telling. *I* have not been allowed to greet the little tom-snacks; my mere appearance in the doorway at the bottom of the stairs when Foodslave was doing his duty caused a series of manic hisses. As if I was curious about the brats or what new food their arrival will introduce into the bowls of the Forbidden Land.

But I have come out from under the bed. When Typing Slave was out of town, there just didn't seem to be any point. Foodslave was entirely unimpressed with my blackmail tactics. So me and Big D got HIM up at 4:30 am Sunday when he thought he and Pink Thing got to sleep in.

KittenWatch Day 15: A rather uneventful day. There was no hissing and running and no attempts for the stairs. Typing Slave commented that the Interloper wouldn't eat the dry food anymore but devoured wet food like she was competing with D. Probably had sore teeth from all the, hm, birthing stuff cats do that Typing Slave won't mention because she says kids read this site.

KittenWatch Day 16: Typing Slave took some photographs of the rats. Here you can see how ratty they are:

Talk about boring! Squeak and eat, squeak and eat, and then poop mustard. The Interloper is bored with motherhood already and leaps out of the box and winds around the legs of the slaves whenever they venture upstairs, desperate to send her kids to daycare and get back to work. Okay, probably not, because work? Right. She's a cat. The desperation is more likely related to begging as much of the good wet food and canned tuna and chicken as she can before being put back on the dry stuff.

Of course in this picture she doesn't exactly look like she's not enjoying herself.

Oh, the slaves actually got a phone call today about the Interloper! Alas, it wasn't the Interloper's own slave, it was just a sucker who had been feeding the stray for a couple months before she latched onto Typing Slave like the leech she is. I'm surprised it took her several months using the SCHB (stray cat homing beacon) to locate this particular house.

KittenWatch Day 17: Really, rats are boring things. Especially when I'm not allowed to go upstairs and mess with them. Tcha! I'm boring myself here. I'm going to quit reporting on their so-called activities every day unless something interesting happens. I mean, poop, eat, sleep, poop, eat, sleep, poop, eat, sleep. So far no eat poop. I'm sure they'll get around to that.

KittenWatch Day 20 (April 30): The Grandma Slave commented that the rats' eyes ought to be opening now and lo and behold, they were. The black rat was the first one to begin to see things my way.

KittenWatch Day 22 (May 2): I overheard the Typing Slave telling the Grandma Slave on the ringie thing all the rats' eyes but one are open:

Man, it has got to be boring as crap laying around in a box all the time while little sharp clawed rats climb all over you and complain that so-and-so is touching them. No wonder the Interloper is always standing at the top of the stairs begging for some grown up attention whenever the slaves open the door.

KittenWatch Day 24 (May 4): Oh, great humiliation and gnashing of teeth! Actually it was teeth that got me into this. The Interloper writhes all over Typing Slave and Pink Thing in sweet-natured joy, but let her see one whisker on my and D's faces, and she turns into a quivering, snarling, white hot ball of feline terror. She escaped the confines of the upstairs and chased Big D and myself all over the house, yowling and biting. Bit me right in the tushie, and now it hurrrrrrrts! *sniff sniff* I am very irritable to anyone who tries to touch me.

You know, *I* am the Meankitty around here, so why is that wench doing all the biting and hissing? This raises a basic philosophical question about the essence of mean. In my opinion--which is the only opinion that counts, considering it's my site--biting, scratching, and hissing are just ONE way to be a bonafide Meankitty. In fact it's the obvious and lazy way. My meanness is more subtle and psychologically damaging. The Interloper is obviously not up on all the latest SOHC strategies and trivia.

Obligatory stupid rat pics. As it happens, the two pale ones can be told apart because one has a black nose and one has a pink nose. For some reason it gives the Typing Slave much satisfaction to be able to tell them apart. Why, I ask? They're just rats. Genderless little rats who need to go LIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE, along with their rotten mother.

(It's party time when Mama's gone.)	(Hey...there's a whole world out there!)
(Fight! Fight Fight! Did you know 2 week old kittens COULD fight??)	(Oh, no, not bath time!)

KittenWatch Day 26 (May 6): So I now have a swollen lump on my heiney and the Typing Slave is forcing white gunk down my throat at periodic intervals. She thinks that following up the ick with tartar control cat treats will make the medicine go down, but only Big D would eat nasty chips of cardboard like those. Come on, I'm sick, gimme tuna!

KittenWatch Day 29 (May 9): To make matters worse, NOW she's dragging me to the vet to get my butt shaved. Crikey! This is not a fashion trend, people. To get my revenge in a clever, psychologically damaging Meankitty way, as opposed to brute force biting, I wipe my oozing sore on the slaves' bed, particularly in the pillow area. You see, she puts this brown gunk in it that stings, and it simply must be removed.

NOTE: Typing Slave here. How the heck can you tell the difference between girl kitties and boy kitties when their little parts are the size of pinheads? How am I ever going to be able to tell the flood of adoptive slaves I'm sure I'll be getting whether their new, highly trained SOHC darling is a girl or a boy?

Speaking of which, lovely kittens, indeterminate sex, available mid-June....

KittenWatch Day 32 (May 12): I am very angry with the slaves. The Interloper and rats are still up there and the Typing Slave is still putting brown stuff on my disfiguring wound. I am going to have to delve into the SOHC Retribution Checklist in order to make my wishes known, or at least punish the slaves for their sycophantic behavior towards the Interloper. Precious rats, indeed! Sweet Mama kitty, my butt! (Literally....) "Oh, Meankitty, why can't you all just get along?"

So here is what I have done to their table. I stretch up full length from the floor and claw the edges and legs, usually when they are trying to have dinner:

It's not my master work but I'm certainly far from complete on this project.

I have also increased my dinner disturbance techniques exponentially. The other night during a very uninteresting evening meal of cabbage and corned beef, I made it onto the table 23 times before being shut into a bedroom. 23 times! That is a personal record, as usually the slaves shut me up after about 12-15 times. I decreased the time between attacks to less than 10 seconds and enacted "run across the table at full speed without even trying to snatch plate" every third launch. Big D was prostrate with admiration for my rude stylings:

Tomorrow begins the oh-so-secretive increased shedding phase. I have been sitting on the air vents continually (when not getting on the table) in order to shuffle my seasonal patterns.

KittenWatch Day 35 (May 15): Got several functional ideas about how to tell if the rats are boys or girls. Thanks for the illustrations and words of advice! It seems the black rat is male and the clones and the red tabby are female. The slaves have also committed the heinous crime of naming the rats, but I shall not repeat the sappy, Pink Thing inspired names here for fear of becoming the laughingstock of the SOHC. My bid for Sector 9 Director has been sufficiently damaged by the bite on the butt and the continued presence of the Interloper as it is.

(The lone male of the bunch attempts to assert his dominance.)	(The red tabby peers quizzically at the booty of one of the clones.)
(The black nosed clone races for the stairs.)	(The clones assault the Interloper while the lone male eats to build up his strength and the stupid red tabby serves as a doormat / pillow.)

Here is some information on tabby cats: http://www.best-cat-art.com/tabby-cats.html with one caveat. The "M" isn't a Christian reference. I think visitors to this site all know what the "M" stands for, eh?

KittenWatch Day 38 (May 18): The rats, upon being temporarily released from their cardboard prison, have begun to show interest in the Interloper's food and water. Ha!

(The pink nosed clone, who is the biggest of the rats, inspects the feeding station.)

(But...but...but....we want some too!

KittenWatch Day 41 (May 21): The rats refuse to be confined to their nesting box any longer! One of them nearly made it down to the bottom of the stairs where she was no doubt on her way to worship Me, Meankitty the Great. Now much care must be taken by the slaves when walking upstairs in order to avoid stepping on the prowling rats. Who are not quite getting into everything, because they are still wobbly, but it doesn't stop them from trying.

Here are the rats in various non-nesting box places, caught in the act.

(The black nosed clone tells the Interloper a secret, probably about her clone sister.)	(The red rat is apparently less social than the others. Or just likes to hide.)
(Rat with the pink nose comes when you call? Yeah, right!)	(This is the boy rat. He's also the smallest. Go figger!)

KittenWatch Day 42 (May 22): Today is the 4 week birthday of the rats and to show their excitement they have all learned to poo on their own....on the brand new carpet. This offends them and I can hear their squalls from my perch beside the door. Apparently the Interloper won't lick their ratty booties to the slaves' satisfaction, so Typing Slave brings the rats one by one into the bathroom to wash their back ends in the sink. She attempts to introduce me to them but I am not cooperative. My hissing and moaning scares Big D, who would normally have been friendly and interested, and he runs under the Pink Thing's bed.

The slave has taken a tub of baby wipes up there for future cleansings and will be phoning up the vet anon for rat pooping and eating schedules. According to various places on the internet, rats start to acknowledge the litterbox around 4 weeks of age and an interest in solid food is soon to follow. So a tiny litterbox is procured. Something tells me those rats are going to have a par-tay in the litterbox that involves absolutely no poop but lots of scratching.

KittenWatch Forget the Day Count, It's May 28: The Foodslave and Pink Thing disappeared for the holiday, and Typing Slave grumbled about being trapped at home by the rats' dietary needs. Yes! The frustration builds in her, and soon she shall evict these small squeaking things from the upstairs I yearn to possess. It's got cat perches! Crinkly toys! Warm sunspots! A tuna buffet! Self-cleaning catboxes! It's cat paradise, I just know it. And it should be mine.

KittenWatch May 30: Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh! The slaves have allowed the rats to breach the sanctity of the downstairs! I will never hear the end of this at the next Sector meeting. And I thought the tushie bite was humiliating. Now I've got a downstairs rat infestation!

Big D, the fat lump, sat placidly and stared at the rats with his big owl eyes as they sniffed all my STUFF and climbed on all my FURNITURE and played with all my TOYS. Lummox didn't even have the decency to work up a good hiss. Oh, but I did. I made up for his lack of hostility. The rats were properly intimidated, at least by me, and ran squeaking to the door that leads to the upstairs.

KittenWatch June 2: I spoke too soon! The new rat breakfast routine is to allow them to enter MY kitchen and share a plate of shredded tuna goodness with the Interloper, who pigs most of it up like the bad mother she is. Just because she's 8 times their size.

KittenWatch June 3: Individual rat shots. Today the rat breakfast was less disturbing because I slept through it. Big D claimed he beat up the Interloper and whacked the rats around good, but I have a sneaking suspicion he took one look and ran under the Pink Thing's bed, as is his way.

The slaves are getting some interest in the rats, which makes me, Meankitty, very very very happy. Blacknose, for example, may have a claimant. But please---take their mother too! Leave that little pinknosed clone if you must, I think I could maybe train her up right, but the rest have GOT to go. They are way too sweet and nice and playful with the slaves to stay in this house. GACK! I'm gonna puke up a hairball.

KittenWatch June 14: From the Typing Slave to Any Wonderful Potential Adoptive Families -- the Interloper has been spayed and the kittens have had their first shots and were reported to be healthy and beautiful by the vet. Here are the most recent photos. Meankitty is so busy sulking under the bed because the kittens like to play downstairs that she refused to update Kittenwatch today.

KittenWatch June 17: Meankitty is slightly excited! One rat down, three to go. The pink nosed clone has gone to dominate a new home that is thankfully not Meankitty's upstairs. Woohoo! Who will be next? We suspect it will be the black nosed clone, that little loudmouth. Too bad it's not the Interloper. Or perhaps some of these humans who've been calling will take pity on me and swift the Interloper out of my house!

And now I believe I'll go lurk at the end of the hallway and glare at the remaining rats.... Get oooooout! Get ooooout of my house!

KittenWatch June 17: HOORAY! Thanks to the clever ad in the newspaper, even the Interloper has departed from my domicile! So have the black nosed clone and the black tabby rat. Now I just have to wait one more month for the red rat to be toted away, as it was claimed by Typing Slave's sibling from out of town. One small rat, I can intimidate, hiss at, chase, steal food from, and generally continue along my merry way.

Thank you to everyone who has contacted us about the kittens, and we hope you have enjoyed Meankitty's KittenWatch saga.

The Typing Slave's sibling REFUSED THE RAT!!!! Said it was cruel and unusual to both the rat and the other passengers on her airplane flight to subject that yowling ball of stupid orange fur to the cat carrier. Just because the rat showed a marked tendency to go ballistic in the cat carrier on the way to the vet...on the way to the cat sitter....on the way to the car....sitting in the house as an experiment...and maybe, might have cut herself a bit. And then the slave sibling had the temerity to stumble across a free kitten at the vet?? And take it home instead??

So now, after I thought I had my freedom from the rat infestation, the orange rat is here to stay. They call her Merri. I call her snack. It distresses the slaves, the munching I've done upon the orange rat, but I warned them. I told them. And when they let the Interloper knock me around, that only made it worse.

Vengeance is mine, sayeth the cat. Especially at 2 am. I like to make her pee and poo in places other than the catbox. And when she does try to access the catbox, it's a great place to corner her for some red-ass beat down. And under the bed. And behind the couch. And upstairs. And sometimes in the Typing Slave's lap, though that one got me tossed upstairs and the door slammed in my face really fast.

My next task, besides general beating on the rat, is to destroy that blasted watergun the slaves use on me when I get that look in my eye and start inching toward the kitten.

KittenWatch August 15: The rat has learned Typing Slave's body provides the best safety in the house outside of a closed door. Typing Slave was cussing and limping around the house for a week or so with scratches up and down her body from some of the rat's missed attempts to vault to her shoulders and escape me. Then one day she came home with some fugly denim vests.

Now I might be a cat but even I know denim vests are for first grade teachers, cowboys or 80's fashion shows. Not normal folk. Yet Typing Slave is scarce to be found without one these days, all because of that rat! Paired with sweat pants and a long sleeve T-shirt in the dead of summer. It's embarrassing, I tell you, to have such a badly dressed slave. If anybody ever comes to the door, I'm going to slash her ankles and chase her upstairs before she can open it and humiliate me.

KittenWatch October 13: It's been a while, but there's a reason for that. Typing Slave managed to give away the rat and then promptly got herself knocked up. I think she got preggo germs from the Interloper! I mean, what kind of trade off is this? Just because I tried to, um, eat the rat, the Typing Slave trades it in for a pinker, more human model?? I have to give up my lap for HOW long?? And the Typing Slave has been no fun since the implantation. All whining and puking and kicking me out of bed for kneading on her belly. Certainly no updating of my website. I know my fans have to be distraught at my long absence. But the male Typing Slave, he refuses to update the site, and Pink Thing is incapable. What's a cat to do?

Future Updates: For more grousing and complaining of this day to day ilk, my ruminations will in the future be posted at http://meankittybox.blogspot.com/ since it's easier to access. Come and see me!