Okay, so this is George.

Yes, he is tucked in with a blanket on my couch. DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT? Because if you do, then….well, I don’t know what I would do. But I do, however, enjoy tucking my cats in. I’m not really sure what that says about me…maybe that I’m a caring person who cares about the well-being and comfort of my kittie-witties. DEAL WIT IT, BIZNATCHES.

Anywhodles! George has gotten into the somewhat cute but mostly super-annoying habit of coming into our room, perching himself at the edge of our bed, and meowing very loudly over and over and over again. At 6 AM, on the dot. This little cat thing goes on until one of us sighs loudly and struggles out of bed to feed him (usually I feign sleep and make the Hubs do it. If that makes me a bad person, then so be it).

George doesn’t kid around about this, folks. HE IS A SERIOUS CAT. And he will not give up until you get up. Also, if you make a quick stopover on the way to the food to the bathroom? Well, George will then loudly meow at the closed bathroom door, shoving his paw under the door until you get out. I accidentally , sleepily left the bathroom door open a few weeks ago, which was a rookie mistake. George came in, planted himself in front of me while I was attending to business, and meowed at me until I DID HIS BIDDING. Also, I think he was silently judging me for not washing my hands.

So I’m not really sure how to cure George of this habit. It’s a cute little ritual, sure, but I would like to sleep in once in a while. I chucked a pillow at him this morning but that seemed to only intensify the meowing and general carrying-on. Here are some other things I’m thinking about doing:

• Mind control. Look, if it worked for George Clooney*, it will work for me (*obscure “Men Who Stare At Goats” reference).
• Get up before the cat meows okay this is just stupid and defeats the entire purpose of sleeping in. I don’t even know why I’m including that.
• Pretend I don’t have a cat and again, this is just stupid.

Obviously, I have no good ideas to throw at this problem. So, I shall just look at this picture to distract myself. Join me, won’t you?

This is Count Snuggula. Or Snugs, for short.

(“Snugs” is short for “snuggle”. You probably already figured that out.)

This is George.

We also have a cat named Max Power, but we call him Kitton. I realize that I misspelled the word “kitten”, and I did that on purpose, because that’s how it must be pronounced. “Kitt-ON”. I can’t find a picture of him all by himself.

This is our dog, Harley.

He is not a cat, but I love this picture of him.

OKAY! So anyway, we have a weird cat situation. Sometime this summer, the kitten (who isn’t really a kitten) started aggressively peeing on couches. I say “aggressive” because he did it like FIVE TIMES. Ruined a chair, ruined a few pillows. Took him immediately to the vet, who told us there was nothing wrong with him physically so it must be a behavioral issue.

OUTSTANDING.

Because seriously, is there anything more appealing than a cat who decides to pee on things just because he’s working through an issue? And what does he have to work through – didn’t get enough 4 hour naps that day? Forgot to send in his SAT scores to law school? Feeling dejected because he didn’t make the No Cavity Club?

The vet was cheerfully optimistic (since the cat wasn’t peeing on HER couch) and told us to give him Kitty Prozac and put him downstairs, isolated from the other cats, for a few weeks. So he could work through his behavior issues and you know, CALM DOWN AND STOP PEEING ON EVERYTHING.

Sidenote: I would love, LOVE to know what our grandparents would have thought of Kitty Prozac.

So the kitten went downstairs, heavily medicated so he could become a better feline/get to the root of his problems/STOP PEEING. Problem solved, right?

Uh uh.

No, as soon as that cat went downstairs, George started using the couch and shoe rack as his own personal bathroom!

HA HA HA! YOU SILLY HOOMANS! CATZ IS VICTORIOUS!

So back to the vet we go, where we find out (to our apparently bad cat owner embarrassment) that George not only has a mad-crazy case of fleas, but is also horribly allergic to the fleas, which has caused him to break out into a leprosy-ish rash all over his body and probably causing his peeing and HOW COULD YOU NOT SEE THIS, infers the very nice veterinarian, giving us the Official Veterinary Side Eye of Judgment.

George proceeded to get two massively expensive, yet healing (!) shots, which made him not pee anymore.

BUTTTTTTTT, apparently the kitten needed to be downstairs in the Isolation Ward for like SIX WEEKS since every time he came up the other two cats proceeded to tear him a new one. And I don’t mean that in the figurative sense. I had to play Cat Bodyguard to Max Power. It was like he was Whitney Houston and I was Kevin Costner and I don’t WANT to carry him around in that weird fringe leather outfit through the crowds, okay?

So here we are, it’s October, and the kitten has limited visiting privileges to the Big House, although he has stopped peeing on everything (knock on wood). I’m hoping that we will all get back to normal with all the cats loving each other and not, you know, TRYING TO KILL EACH OTHER. Very soon, I’m hoping this will happen. Because I’m *this close* to putting them all in the dishwasher for a little bit of quiet time.

That cute fluffynutterball on the end there? The kitten looking thing who we in fact DO call Kitten even though his name is Max Power?

He won’t stop peeing on my bed. On MY side of the bed. On my blankets, on my pillows, on my pajamas.

Last night I staggered into the bedroom around 11:15 PM, ready for a good hour or so of reading my latest book when lo and behold, a familiar stink filled  my nostrils and DAMMIT.

DAMN YOU CAT.

Why must you pee on my bed? The same place I’ve given you literally HOURS of petting and scratching and rubbing and general adoration?

We give you food. We give you water. We give you catnip so we can laugh at you getting COMPLETELY STONED out of your little kitty brain.

And this is how you repay me?

I don’t understand.

And I swear to Six Pound, Seven Ounce Baby Jebus that if you do it again, I’m going to deliberately look the other way when Snugs, the head of the cat hierarchy, attempts to “have his way with you”, Biblical-style.

You have been warned.

George……you are my cat, my little man

How I love your furry fuzzy face, waaaaa waaa WHAAHHHHHHAAAAA

You like to sit on the couch and I tuck you in with a blanket, yes, I do, yes I DOOOOOOOO baby uh uh uh

I don’t like it when you groom me with your scrapy tongue, it’s kind of unsettling but I know it’s because you love me (GUITAR SOLO)

Do you hear something George? Do you? Could it be the unceasing crescendo of my love for youuuuuuu?

You are my Senor George, International Cat of Mystery

Stay tucked in warm and cozy mah sweet baby booburger, how I love you/Let’s snuggle together tonight when I go to bed/but please don’t lick me cause I don’t like it

(ANOTHER GUITAR SOLO)

See that nice big bed? Filled with fluffy goodness? Right there next to the window? WITH A CAT ON IT??????

Harley sees it too. And he is quietly ENRAGED.

(He’s hiding his head a little so you don’t see him cry. He’s embarrassed.)

Is Snugs feeling any remorse over this egregious takeover of The Dog’s Bed? No. He’s taking a nap.

I’m sorry, Harley. Perhaps if you weren’t, I don’t know, such a GIANT MUSHBAG OF DOGGY FLUBBERWUBBERNESS, this wouldn’t have happened.

Aw, crap, I made him cry again.

He likes to groom people. With his tongue. Specifically, he likes to groom Dean.

Actually, let me rephrase that. He MUST groom Dean. It’s usually at night; as soon as Dean sits down, George will run over there and get going on his head, licking and licking and licking. When we go to bed at night, George gets really agitated if Dean is not in bed ASAP, and will run back and forth on the bed until he gets in there. Once he’s lying down, George takes the opportunity to (you guessed it) groom the living daylights out of him.

We don’t know why George fixates on Dean for this, but we all know that it’s freaking hilarious. Observe, the cat in action!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUge057jgX8]

And YOU! Cat!

What’s with the puking on the floor this morning? Why did you have to do that? No, don’t come over here and purr at me. Don’t do that. No, I do NOT want you on my lap licking my hand. I am very angry with you both. You bad widdle sweethearts you.

Well, technically not a real pig, but a piggish eater. She is eating so fast and furiously lately that she’s taken to horking it up all over the house. Lovely!

So we’ve gone back to just twice a day feedings, and so far, so good (had the perpetual trough of food out before). Now she’s seriously giving me the ol’ fish eye – I’m kind of getting nervous. She always sits and stares at me all day as I work.

On the other hand, George is lolling in front of the gas fireplace right now; we did have some serious kitty porn there for a second, but it’s over now.