Heeeelllp T-T

[soc_puppet]

Guys... Guys, help.

See, the one roommate went out to this thing with his girlfriend and the other roommate's brother and his girlfriend and a mutual friend of all of ours, and they won't be back until Wednesday. And RemainingRoommate's brother and girlfriend asked us to catsit.

Puck is... Well, he's a cat. There's not much more to say on the matter.

Actually, I lied. There's plenty more on the matter.

The air conditioner in our apartment is still broken (how recently have I mentioned that it's been broken? well, it's still broken from then, whenever that is), and the days have been getting into the 80s recently. So Puck isn't very active during the day.

Problem is, he becomes active at night. Given that RR (hi, RR in the future who is potentially reading this!) and I already have a problem getting to sleep from the heat, how RR has to keep her door open so Puck can access the litter box, how RR's-brother-and-girlfriend's sleep schedule is completely different than ours (so they play with him way after we usually get to bed), and how I have to keep my door closed most of the time to keep him from terrorizing the rats, this becomes a much bigger problem for RR's ability to get sleep. Because he really, really wants to play. And I'm kinda not usually available for it.

So tonight, since I can sleep in at least a little tomorrow, I'm staying up, at least partly to distract him. It is... giving me mixed results. He's hidden the toys he loves, he's already gotten over the new toy I just tried to introduce him to (though it had favorable reactions for a while), and now he's decided that the new best toy in the whole wide world? My right leg >_< His claws haven't been trimmed recently, either T-T No serious damage yet, but that's kiiiinda why I'm stepping away from play-time just now.

Which means that he'll potentially go to bother RR some more, though I hope he's been tired out for at least an hour or so.

We also can't keep him off the table, or the kitchen counter tops, and yes, he's already broken one glass vase (we probably should've just put them all away the second we found out he was developing an interest in plants, but I guess we were naive).

This is very rapidly making me not a cat person. At all. When, up until this weekend, I had been fairly sure I was one.

((Trainable animals from now on. Or fish. And that's all. No more cats. They will drive me insane.))

So, uh. You cat lovers and owners support staff out there. Any advice for a kitty-sitter?


In other news, I planted flowers with my family this afternoon, used a 40% off coupon on the Azumanga Daioh omnibus at Waldenbooks, and ordered a copy each of The God Eaters and Yuri Monogatari 5 at 20% off at Prairie Lights (they couldn't seem to order YM6, more's the pity; guess I'll just have to wait). Tomorrow, I go to Half-Price Books with my family, and resist the urge to buy too much stuff.

Oh, also, proj_writeaway; here is a post on what it's about, with thoughts and stuff.

And now, I distract myself with the television run of Night at the Museum again. Wanna see sequeeeellll :+

ACK, PUCK, GET DOWN OFF THE KITCHEN SINK!

Comments

[violetsquirrel.livejournal.com]

Get a spray bottle, fill it full of water, spray him when he jumps on things! It... might not work but it might work. Cats have different personalities, my friend's cats jump on tables all the time even though they get sprayed, my cats only had to be yelled at a couple of times when they were younger before they got the idea. It sounds like you need to be tougher with him though, if you're letting him even get to the point where he's decided your leg is something that's okay to play with like that.

For toys I'd suggest something that can't be hidden, like a... I can't think what it would be called but something with a base and then a springy thing to bat at. If that makes sense.

[soc_puppet]

Part of the problem with the "my legs are okay to play with" issue is that I've conditioned myself for responding with a "do not want" in Rat. Which, considering the cue there is to squeak and pull away when they do something you don't like (like biting), prooooobably isn't the best thing to do with a cat :/

A spray bottle is sounding better and better, and I'm starting to be quite sorry we didn't pick one up at Wal*Mart the other night >_< And if that doesn't work, I guess we could see if my brother still has his Airzooka laying around somewhere.

Well, he does have a scratching post with a batting thing at the top. I'll have to see what we can whip up beyond that. Maybe I can find a toy fishing rod somewhere for cheap, since he likes chasing after things that've been thrown...

[violetsquirrel.livejournal.com]

... yeah, that's basically "please eat me" in Cat orz. What you should be doing is pulling away and going NO really firmly and loudly until he gets the idea.

[soc_puppet]

I figured about as much T-T I guess I'll have to work on re-conditioning myself for the weekend. And also wearing thick leggings.

[violetsquirrel.livejournal.com]

Also don't hate cats because of one badly disciplined cat :(