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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

(This is part three of a series about Pumpkin, the Highland Fold. In the first part, I reveal that I’m moving and explain how I ended up with Pumpkin, and in the second part, I share more photos of Pumpkin from our time together.)

My future roommate came back to Las Vegas and completed her move in late November. Our two-bedroom unit wasn’t going to be ready until mid-December, so she be stayed with me in my studio until then. Pumpkin seemed very happy that his owner was back (at least, as excited as cats are able to get). He plopped himself on top of her luggage after she arrived.

Before Pumpkin arrived a few weeks ago, I prepared by getting some cat supplies, including a scratching arch. What I didn’t know is that Pumpkin ap­par­ently prefers flat scratching blocks over vertical ones, so he ended up not really using the one I got for him. After a while, he seemed to be more in­ter­ested in it, though, and it helped that I myself started scratching at it to demonstrate to Pumpkin how to use it.

Eventually, we got Pumpkin a flat scratching block, which he seemed to appreciate more. Pumpkin started jumping up on my desk and laying on my keyboard, so I put the scratching block beside my keyboard to convince him to lay on it instead of my keyboard… and it somehow worked.

Our landlords were kind enough to let us start moving some of our stuff in early, but yesterday was our official move-in day. Pumpkin decided to help pack, and by help pack, I mean lay on top of sealed air bags.