Yes, I am still alive. If you’re one of the few people who have actually been deeply invested in my nomadic travels so far, I understand that it can be a bit jarring to see a new blog post once every few days, then suddenly see nothing for a month… but the simple answer for that is because I’ve just had noth­ing interesting to blog about.

On July 12, I arrived in the Chicagoland suburbs at my parents’ house where I grew up. They live in a very small village where there isn’t really much to do nearby, and I’ve mostly just been working, playing games, and helping my parents catch up on errands and appointments that they never got around to doing on their own.

Two days ago was just shy of the two month and two week mark of transferring my portion of my condo lease to someone else and voluntarily becoming homeless to travel the country. Seeing as I still consider Las Vegas my home (and it is still officially my home in the eyes of the government), I parked my truck at a nearby airport and made an air trip back to Las Vegas take care of some errands that were piling up while I was gone—getting a haircut, go­ing to the chiropractor, picking up my vehicle registration renewal sticker, picking up insurance renewal documents and cards, picking up new mem­ber­ship cards, and other various similar tasks.

But, the most important task of all… was visiting and being reunited with my former roommate Winnie’s cats.

My parents have a Yorkshire Terrier that is a typical overenthusiastic dog with way too much energy, but also isn’t very well trained. She’s the type of dog that barks at seemingly nothing, and then proceeds to bark at herself barking because she’s confused why she’s barking. She also has some of the worst separation anxiety I have ever seen in an animal.

After having lived with Winnie and her cats for over half a year, untrained and unsocialized dogs (like my parents’) became a bit overwhelming for me. The difference was made even more dramatic after staying with my parents for a month, then coming back to visit the cats again. Winnie’s cats are ac­tu­al­ly very well-trained, and I’m sure that has a lot to do with it, but cats are undeniably more angelic and loving (at least in my eyes).

I also got to see Tyson again, Mochi and Pumpkin’s son. I didn’t get to spend much time with Tyson prior to going off on my adventure, so he’s still fairly shy around me, but he still let me give him some head and back scratches.

And finally, for the first time, I got to meet Melon, Mochi and Pudding’s son.

At first, Melon was extremely shy, but after I crouched down onto the floor, blinked slowly, let him boop my knuckles, and scratched his chin and the base of his ears a bit when he approached, he got instantly attached. He started headbutting and rubbing himself up against my legs and arms, which is a Pudding trait. When I pet him, he would push his head harder into my hand, which is a Mochi trait. When I would pause petting him, he would go hunt­ing for my hand and force his head under my palm, presumably under the philosophy that, if I don’t pet him, then he will pet himself using my hand.

This literally meant that I couldn’t actually get a good picture of him, because every time I would try and snap a photo, he would move and try to pet him­self with my hand. The best I could do was to take a shot with one hand while my other was giving him ear scratches.

Melon also has some of the softest hair I’ve ever felt. His coat reminded me of some of those synthetic furs that are scientifically designed to be ex­tremely soft to the touch… except Melon’s is actually real hair.

Visiting the cats was more or less the only particularly interesting and eventful thing I’ve done in Las Vegas, with the rest of my time here mostly just be­ing productive. Tomorrow, I head out to California to visit Tempo’s team house and meet some of our new employees; more blog posts of that in the com­ing week.

Last week, I wrote a blog post about how I plan on becoming a nomad for half a year to travel the country. This does indeed mean that my roommate and I will be splitting (i.e., she, and the cats, will not be coming along with me for my journey).

I generally keep my private life fiercely private, so I never actually mentioned who my roommate was in any of my blog posts. Even in scenarios where I do reveal snippets of my private life, it is usually only after the fact becomes no longer relevant, or if it becomes public knowledge at no fault of my own. My roommate situation for the past half year now qualifies under both those scenarios—I’m moving out, and my room­mate has publicly “leaked” our room­mate­ship herself on a handful of occasions (which I didn’t really mind).

My roommate for the past half year is a friend of mine named Winnie. Social media links can change, so I can’t guarantee that these will still be accurate if you’re reading this blog post years from now, but she’s @SmexyRosies on Instagram and @SmexyRosies on Twitter. She also set up Instagram accounts for the cats, @Mochi.and.Pudding and @Pumpkin_owo_.

She’s a freelance social media influencer and content creator currently exploring and working on a handful of her own personal creative projects. She’s the favorite roommate I’ve ever had so far, and still remains one of my favorite people in general.

After my nomadic journey concludes, I will likely be a designated catsitter for Pudding, Mochi, and Pumpkin, but until then, this is the final batch of cat photos that I took from my final month being their adoptive cat dad.

The cats spend a lot of time together, but rarely are they this photogenic and all facing the same direction.

While preparing for my move-out, I cleared out a lot of stuff from my side desk and bookshelf and put them into storage containers. Mochi appreciated that there was now an empty spot on top of my bookshelf and promptly climbed up to observe me working.

When I wake up in the morning, I head out to the living room to check on the cats. When Mochi and Pudding see me, they promptly walk towards me—they both like getting pets, and Pudding likes to headbutt my leg. Pumpkin, though… he clearly has his priorities straight. Instead of coming to me for affection, he goes straight for the smallest box in the household so he can squish himself inside and go to sleep.

I recently went to a chiropractor and he told me I need to stretch out my hip flexors so they loosen up and stop crushing my lower back. It looks like Mo­chi wanted to join in on the stretches.

I usually don’t have high-quality photos of the cats because, whenever they’re doing something photo-worthy, I don’t have my camera with me and I end up just snapping a picture with my phone. For this instance, though, Pumpkin held his pose long enough for me to go grab my camera. Here he is laying in­side a little cloth cubby box in my roommate’s closet.

Pumpkin likes climbing into things in general. Here he is knocking over my roommate’s laundry hamper so he can lay inside (and Mochi looking at me, seemingly upset at missing out on the glory of being inside a laundry hamper).

And for the final photo, I leave you with something special. Meet Tyson, Mochi and Pumpkin’s son.

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, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Here is Pumpkin taking a smol 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Hi 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.)

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.

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.

And finally, here is Pumpkin and his tongue.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Here is Pudding being a distinguished gentleman.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.