Another round of cat photos

The rate at which I’ve ben posting new cat photos lately has been slowing down because there’s only so many unique ways you can photograph cats in the same ~1,300 square foot condo. But, I’ve been keeping my eye out for some new photo opportunities and trying to catch them when they do in­ter­est­ing things.

Mochi

Mochi, Pudding, and Pumpkin have all been “housecatted” enough that they’re not exactly nocturnal, but they’re still somewhat crepuscular. Con­sid­ering that I live in a high-rise on the Las Vegas Strip and often leave the blinds in the living room open overnight, the bright lights from the hotels and casinos shine in just enough that it maintains a “twilight” effect throughout the whole night. This obviously pleases the cats, to they like to play among them­selves while I’m sleeping.

This also means that they’ll be eating overnight, so before I go to sleep, I try to make sure they have enough food in their bowls so they won’t wake me up asking me to feed them. However, sometimes, I’m either too busy or distracted and don’t fill their food bowls up all the way before I go to bed, and sometimes my roommate also forgets. If that ever happens, I get woken up by a cat, the methodology of which differs depending on which cat decides to wake me up.

Pudding is the most timid; he sits next to my head, stares at me, and meows until I wake up. Pumpkin is mute and can only hiss, so instead, he takes a more physical approach by nibbling on my fingers until I wake up. Mochi likes to be the most destructive; she jumps on my desk and starts knocking things over and off my desk until I wake up from the ruckus.

Pudding waking me up in the morning

I think Pumpkin gets the most bored out of the three cats. Not only does he tend to be the troublemaker, but he also likes to lay in new places all the time. In previous photos, I’ve shown him using random places like the litter box, my shower, Amazon delivery boxes, and clear plastic storage boxes, among other things, as his bed.

My roommate was doing her laundry, and Pumpkin realized that there was yet again a new bed opportunity. I thought he went missing, but I eventually found him laying inside her laundry hamper.

Pumpkin making his way into the laundry hamper

Pudding likes to spend his mornings with me grooming himself. After I wake up, he likes to jump on my bed at the precise spot where the cool air from the air conditioning vent hits. He sits down like a distinguished gentleman, looks out my floor-to-ceiling windows, and licks himself clean.

Pudding being a distinguished gentleman

Mochi also likes to spend her mornings with me, but she prefers my desk instead. She lays down in front of my keyboard to make sure that she will get enough pets prior to me starting to work.

Mochi ensuring she gets pets before I start to work

Considering that the cat scratching beds are made out of cardboard, once we leave them out long enough, the cats will scratch through them and they’ll get flat, so they need to be replaced on occasion. My roommate recently bought the cats a new cardboard scratching bed. Pudding seems to like it.

Pudding laying on his new scratching bed

Here is Pumpkin taking a smol nap with a smol blep.

Pumpkin taking a nap with a smol blep

I have a desk on the side of my room where I keep my gun safe and some stuffed animals that I receive as gifts from friends and for donating to law en­force­ment charities. Pudding likes to jump on this desk and lay next to the stuffed animals.

This desk is within view of my webcam. With the pandemic happening, my executive organizational leadership courses at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas have been moved online to video conference calls. One day during class, Pudding was laying on that desk and was so still that my instructor thought he was another stuffed animal. She had quite the surprise when he got up and jumped off the desk.

Pudding pretending he is a stuffed animal

 

—§—

 

Cat #3 is here

And by cat #3, I actually mean cat #1. Mochi is a Scottish Fold and is actually my roommate’s first cat, which she got during the summer of 2019.

Mochi the Scottish Fold

Mochi was pregnant with a litter of kittens while my roommate was in the process of moving from New York City to Las Vegas, so she left Mochi behind with one of her friends so she wouldn’t be flying across the country with a pregnant cat. That ended up being a wise decision, as Mochi gave birth during the time when we were still in my studio condo before our two-bedroom unit was available. That wouldn’t necessarily have been bad, but it would’ve definitely been inconvenient.

Cats in my room

Mochi has been getting settled in for a few weeks now, and she’s doing well. She’s actually getting accustomed to her new environment fairly quickly (as opposed to the other two cats, which were much more shy and reserved before beginning to explore the entire new condo). In fact, she was actually being the aggressive one for a bit, and was bullying Pudding and Pumpkin when she first arrived.

Mochi taking a nap

Now that Mochi is here, my roommate got a third litter box. Before we had an opportunity to get it set up, Pumpkin decided that it would be a fantastic bed. … Everything is a viable bed for Pumpkin.

Pumpkin using an empty litter box as a bed

Hi Pudding.

Pudding

My roommate’s fans’ favorite thing about Pumpkin is usually his appearance. People tend to like the folded ears, but another thing about Pumpkin is that his pupils get extra large when it is dark at night. Here is Pumpkin lurking within my pillows, ready to pounce. (Lighting has been artificially enhanced in the photograph so you can actually see him.)

Pumpkin ready to pounce

Because we live in a high-rise condo with floor-to-ceiling windows, it can get overwhelmingly bright inside during the day. To further increase the mag­nitude, my roommate’s old apartment was a literal hybrid ground floor and basement unit that got very little to no sunlight. I imagine that Mochi had to take some time to get used to all the sun. For a while, one of her favorite spots was a cloth cubby with its backside turned towards the windows.

Mochi

I usually keep my closet door closed, but I obviously open it a few times a day to actually get clothes in and out when I’m changing. The closet door has a distinct metallic clink sound when the door opens and closes because it has one of those rolling securing systems that doesn’t have a lock but uses friction and physics to keep the door from randomly swinging ajar.

I guess the cats really love the inside of my closet, because when they hear it open, they’ll often run over and run inside.

Cats in the closet

And finally, here is Pumpkin and his tongue.

Pumpkin

 

—§—

 

Cat mom is out traveling

My roommate is traveling out-of-state back to her hometown to visit friends and family for Lunar New Year, so I’m alone with the cats for a few weeks. With my roommate gone, the cats are spending a lot more time together and with me, presumably because they don’t have their regular owner around to bother.

When I say “spending a lot more time together,” I mean really spending a lot more time together. That includes watching each other going to the bath­room in the litter box.

Pudding guarding Pumpkin while he uses the litter box

Most people use their living rooms as a hangout place. They get a couch, maybe a table, and hang up a television on the wall. Well, my roommate and I aren’t “most people.” We use our living room for something far more utile—as a cat play area. Here are Pumpkin and Pudding surrounded by over a doz­en of their toys.

Pumpkin and Pudding surrounded by toys

When they’re not lounging around in the living room, they also have their own combo bed that one of my roommate’s fans sent her. It has a little tunnel area that Pumpkin likes to lay in, while Pudding rests in the padded area outside the tunnel.

Pumpkin and Pudding

They also like lounging around on my bed. I moved my pillows to the corner and laid out my blanket so they have a nice play area. Here, I managed to capture them playing with a toy mouse.

Pumpkin and Pudding on the bed

After it gets late and the cats are done playing, I convert my bed back to normal so they can snuggle up against pillows and wrap themselves around the blanket to go to sleep. It was a little too bright for Pumpkin though, it seems.

Pumpkin trying to sleep while Pudding watches

I have a fake sheepskin rug by my bed so my feet can feel something nice and soft and fuzzy when I wake up in the morning. Pudding also likes this rug and runs around in circles playing on it. Sometimes he lays very, very still, and I assume that he is pretending to be a chameleon blending in with his surroundings.

Pudding camouflaging himself in the rug

Sometimes, Pumpkin likes to troll me. One day, I noticed that Pumpkin had gone missing, so I started going around searching for him. He sometimes sneaks into the closet after I open it to get something, and I accidentally trap him in there once in a while, but I checked all the closets and couldn’t find him. Then I randomly decided to check in the litter box… and there he was. Just peacefully laying there on top of his and Pudding’s poop.

Pumpkin laying in the litter box

Here is Pudding being a distinguished gentleman.

Pudding

I had another incident of Pumpkin randomly disappearing, similar to the litter box incident above. This time, the litter box was one of the first places I checked, but I couldn’t find him in there. After a few minutes, I discovered that he was laying inside some Amazon boxes that I was getting ready to take downstairs to the trash compactor.

Pumpkin in a box

And finally, here is Pumpkin being an almost-distinguished gentleman… if only he had crossed his legs. (I tried crossing them after this photo, but he doesn’t really like it when you touch his feet, so he ran off.)

Pumpkin

 

—§—

 

Another week of cat photos

I did some laundry and left the empty hamper next to the washer and dryer so I could use it to load my clothes after the cycles were done and bring them back into my room. Well, apparently Pudding somehow managed to get into the hamper, which then proceeded to collapse on him. Pumpkin de­ci­ded this was a great opportunity to trap him inside, so here is Pudding asking with his eyes for me to help him get out, while Pumpkin snoozes on top of him.

Pumpkin trapping Pudding in a laundry hamper

If you remember from last week, the reason I have difficulty taking photos of Pudding is because, every time I swoop down to capture him in a photo-worthy moment, he immediately stops what he’s doing and starts walking towards me to headbutt me. One way to avoid that is if Pudding is trapped in a collapsed laundry hamper, but I guess another way to avoid that is to just get miraculously lucky, so here is a photo of Pudding just sitting there doing nothing.

Pudding

One of my favorite parts about living in a high-rise condo is the view, so I tend to leave my blinds open. I guess one of Pumpkin’s favorite things about living in a high-rise condo is also the view, as he likes to lounge around on my bed and look out the window. Here he is in his new natural habitat. (The light is my lamp being reflected on the window; it’s not a UFO.)

Pumpkin

Pumpkin also enjoys lounging around in the kitchen in hopes that I drop some food for him while I cook. … Little does he know, I don’t really cook, unless he’s expecting me to somehow spill instant noodles or something.

Pumpkin in the kitchen

One of Pumpkin’s new favorite activities is to join me in the bathroom while I shower and watch the water trickle down on the glass door. I guess watching the water wasn’t stimulating enough for him anymore and he wanted to join in on the fun, so I saw him lounging around inside my shower one day. It took a lot of self-control and restraint to avoid pranking him and turning the water on for a little bit…

Pumpkin in the shower

Pumpkin also likes sunbathing. Not quite as exciting as waiting for food that will never fall, or wanting to participate in a shower only to learn that you probably hate water… but definitely much more relaxing.

Pumpkin

Because I live on an upper floor in the aforementioned high-rise condo, I generally want to carry all my groceries up with me in one trip, otherwise it’s going to take sev­er­al minutes to wait for the ele­va­tor, go down a few hundred feet in elevation back to the parking garage, load up a second batch of groceries, wait for the ele­va­tor again, then go back up a few hundred feet. To help with this effort, I usually use a storage container so I can transport several bags at once with­out cutting off blood circulation from my fingers.

Well, as we’ve seen, Pumpkin likes to participate in a variety of activities, and I guess he also wanted to participate with groceries. He found my storage container lying on the ground, so he hopped in. … And apparently it was comfortable enough for him to take a nap in it.

Pumpkin sleeping in a storage container

Pumpkin sleeping in a storage container

 

—§—

 

Pudding joins in for this round of cat photos

A few people have been asking me why I’ve only been featuring Pumpkin in my photos, even though Pudding has been moved in since the end of November. There’s actually a really simple explanation for that—it’s because, whenever I go up to Pudding to take a photograph when he’s doing some­thing photo-worthy, he immediately stops, walks towards me, and headbutts my shin. That obviously makes it very difficult to capture him doing any­thing other than walking towards me. However, I did manage to capture a few decent shots of him, which I’ll feature in this post.

Pumpkin

I have a second desk behind my main desk where I put my gun safe and a collection of plushies. Pudding decided to jump on that desk and disguise him­self as a plushie. I was almost fooled.

Pudding

Pumpkin was using my bed as a play mat, running around in circles and swatting and chasing around a mouse toy. At one point, he got caught on the edge and nearly slipped off the bed and into the crack between the mattress and the wall. Of course, I had to take a photograph before helping him get unstuck. I’m going to be a great dad one day.

Pumpkin

After helping Pumpkin escape the grasping claws of the void, I grabbed a string that I saved that fell out of one of my hoodies while it was in the dryer. Pumpkin likes string.

Pumpkin investigating a string

My roommate got a package in the mail that had some promotional material from a business partner. The gifts were interesting, but clearly, the most interesting part about the package, as apparent from the cats… was the packaging. The lid of the box looks pretty cozy.

Pumpkin in a box

Pudding

And to close out this post of cat photos, here’s Pumpkin sleeping.

Pumpkin

Pumpkin

 

—§—

 

We can never have enough Pumpkin photos

Pumpkin the Highland Fold

We’ve been all moved into our new place for a few weeks now, and the cats are also getting settled in. They spent a while staying in one spot and hiding inside and under things, but lately, they’ve been coming out into the open a bit more to explore the rest of the condo.

Pumpkin the Highland Fold

My roommate bought some mats to put in front of the litter box. These mats are designed to catch and hold any leftover litter from the cats’ feet after they’re done using the litter box. They apparently also serve the purpose of being a mat that the cats lay on, because for whatever reason, they seem to love laying on these litter mats.

Pumpkin the Highland Fold

Both Pumpkin and Pudding recently got their orchiectomies. We were under the impression that they would be getting an Elizabethian collar (better known as a “pet cone”) so they wouldn’t lick and irritate the incision area, so instead, my roommate bought a toast version that goes around their necks.

Pumpkin the Highland Fold

Well apparently, orchiectomies for cats are so non-intrusive nowadays that they didn’t even need a cone. So instead of the toast collar serving any utilitarian purpose… it ended up just being a prop for a photo shoot with Pumpkin.

Pumpkin the Highland Fold

 

—§—