Benjamin Loves Baklava

Okay, Benjamin loves Baklava.

He's normally gentle with fingers but today he nearly bit my finger after tasting residue of baklava on them. I thought he was going to sit on my lap and let me snuggle him but apparently he wanted to get up and go find the source of the sweet nutty stuff.

I stayed on the couch with Tigger, who had mewed from the chair he was sitting on in the dining room (I think they have radar for each other's purrs) and taken Benjamin's place as he hopped down, in search of something else.

So Tigger is on my lap, purring contentedly and I hear batting and shuffling of cardboard in the next room. I go look, carrying Tigger with me. Benjamin is on the table trying to pry open the box of baklava. Scat! I scurry him off the table. He jumps down to a chair but keeps peering over the edge like a little dog waiting for a table scrap.

My fault. I've been trying to tame him of being skittish in the dining room (and kitchen, the busy areas) so I offer him a crumb once in a while. Even if it's not something he's interested in, so he comes around checking in every now and then while we're eating.

There he was on the chair, big-eyed--I hesitate to say--begging. But that's what it looked like. All in an expression in the eyes. Begging! Benjamin begs! Ha ha!

Well, I took pity on him and took off a small bit, and insisted he get down from the chair before giving it to him. I'm *not* letting him sit at the table! He scarfed it. I gave him a little more. Tigger came sniffing (he was curious what Benjamin was carrying on about, to be sure) but Tigger's tastes tend more toward carnivorous. Tigger just sniffed a bit of it, licked it and kept looking around for the good part. What was Benjamin after, anyway? Did he eat it ALL?

Oh, as I looked around the wreckage of the few things that had fallen off the table, I found an upturned paper plate (from Deva's school meeting last night) from which the cats had eaten the remaining tortilla chips and hummous dip with red peppers. I guess they like chips and dip too. Benjamin likes Amicat (the vegan cat food), by the way. Although they are on the fresh raw diet which has transformed Benjamin's personality. (Thanks to Glen Dupree.) www.homeopathyfortheanimals.com. More on that later. For now, Benjamin is in Tigger's usual spot, atop my computer, almost in the way of the monitor, grooming himself. What a happy cat. :)

I wonder if he's going to turn out seal or chocolate point? He's already very cream colored, moving onto tan on his main body. His extremities are sort of dark chocolate brown. What do you think? :)

Thundering Herds of Cats

That's exactly what we heard (herd?) yesterday morning at breakfast. It was so funny, we were just sitting there at the breakfast table minding our own business. The cats were first playing and frolicking, then thundering in herds (yes, plural, I'll explain in a moment) first one way past the table, then the other way, from one end of the house to the other.

You'd think it would take a large animal to make that much noise. Or several large animals. But just two little cats? Criminy. It reminds me of a story I read as a child, entitled "The Cat that Clumped." It was a story about a cat who longed to be a horse so it could make that clumping sounds horses make with their hooves. I forget how it ends. In any case, these two, Benjamin and Tiggy, don't require any special horseshoes to make that sound! They sound like horses on a racetrack or a herd of buffalo, with their only clumping tools being their little soft feet. Are the buffalo back?

I have to give David credit for this post. He coined "Thundering Herds of Cats" and asked "Are the buffalo coming back?" ;)

Benjamin plays with trains in the middle of the night

Okay, I have to confess, I wrote a song about the cats. Well, or rather, a song started humming itself in my head and I had to start singing it. They made me! It's called "the Tiggy Benjamin Song." or "The Benjamin Tiggy Song." I guess it depends on who walks in first. ;)

For now, here's a video of them playing with Deva's trains in the middle of the night. Some of this footage will be included in the youtube the song eventually winds up on--once I find a fiddler, a banjo player and a jaw-harp player to make it sound like a barn dance! :) (with stomps and hollers too.)



In the meantime, I'll entertain you with a little story. Okay, nevermind, my eyes are closing. I'll have to wait till morning! But...as a prelude, Benjamin got super tame, like, overnight. It's a cool story, coming soon. :)