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

[jadedsoul.livejournal.com]

Going to add another vote for spray bottle; using that and a firm "No!" has usually been enough for the cats my family's owned over the years to get the picture.

In regards to the cat deciding your leg is an awesome toy...yeah, definitely move your leg away when this happens. A gentle tap on the nose (if you can manage it) and another "No!" should give the cat the message if moving your leg doesn't.

Toys! Have any ribbons/string/etc. lying around? They make for great cat toys, as does paper wadded up into balls. They are cheap and cats love playing with them just as much as a store bought toy. Hold the ribbon in one hand and dangle the other end where the cat can see it, or trail it along the floor near where the cat is. Paper balls should just be thrown in the cat's general area and if the cat's interested, they'll hear the paper crinkling and come to investigate. In addition, if you don't mind spending a few bucks, if you go to the arts and crafts department at Wal-Mart or such, buy a bag of the pompoms with sparkly bits in them. All the cats I know go crazy for them and the bag should only be $2 or $3.

Hope the advice helps!

[soc_puppet]

Yes it did, thank you :) Went out and got two spray bottles and a few squirt guns to boot (which I had entirely too much fun using on the poor dear ^^a). Also crocheted up a quick string to chase or two, and sacrificed a few more pages of Twilight to the cause. Really, though, it was the water that made the difference.