Late Night Reading

In an effort to distract Arnold from clawing at the venetian blinds at 5 AM, we put out a magazine for him to peruse. He tends to be a little tough on them but we save on electricity for the shredder.

Judging from where he stopped shredding, I'd say he was a political junkie.

Bad Cat!

Arnold has an unusual habit of going on the prowl at dawn. He walks around emitting a mournful howl while trying to open cabinet doors or push aside the venetian blinds in our bedroom. We have had to take down a framed picture from above our bed because he tries to push it aside apparently thinking it is a door.

Last night he pushed on a lamp on the bed headboard and it came crashing down, luckily not on my head.

What happened next gave both Peggy and me pause. Immediately after the crash he quietly left the room like he knew he did something wrong. We are probably over anthropomorphizing but the behavior seemed unusual.

Oh, by the way, the photo shows one of our less active cats, Tom, surveying the crime scene.

Arnold Poses

We often wonder what goes through a cat's mind. This photo, above, shows Arnold with a far away, thoughtful look on his face.

The below photo shows Arnold in an artistic pose. He stretches out on the floor like this a lot while we are watching TV.

Cleo and Arnold's Excellent Adventures

The photo above not only finds Cleo and Arnold enjoying the "crows nest", but also shows their view of the deck. They spend a lot of time watching birds and chipmunks scurrying through their view of the outside world. We do not let them go outside but Arnold must be watched carefully because he will dart through an open door if given half a chance.

We have not had trouble with Cleo trying to sneak out and that is why what happened yesterday was such a surprise.

Cleo was apparently watching the door as Peggy opened it to go out on the deck. Just at the moment the door opened, a chipmunk darted across the opening and Cleo was out like a shot. She was not able to overtake the chipmunk but when I finally caught up with her she was looking into some nooks and crannies where the creature escaped.

We got quite a laugh out of Cleo's hunting instinct but little did we realize there was more to come.

At 4 AM this morning Peggy heard some commotion and found that Cleo was chasing a mouse in the bathroom. It apparently came in when a door was left open too long. When I got there with the camera, Cleo was more interested in just watching this little guy rather than killing him as evidenced by this eye-to-eye photo.


After I took a few photos, I got the video camera and took about 30 minutes of video. I will edit that and post the highlights here in a few days.