Inkwell and the Sky Raisin

As anyone who has bothered to read this blog for any length of time knows, my husband and I are owned by a black cat named Inkwell. These are some of his recent adventures, mostly from Facebook and a few of his "Inkwell Sings the Blues" from his Twitter Feed.

This morning I woke up late, and my husband was already off running errands. I looked around the house for Inkwell, fearing he might have somehow gotten outside (he's very much an indoor cat). I went from room to room looking for him, and when I opened the door to the garage, a fly (aka Sky Raisin) flew into the house. Eventually I found Inkwell by shaking his treats. He casually wandered out from wherever he was hiding to get his reward for being a cat from his mommy.

A half an hour later, he noticed the fly.

I watched as Inkwell stalked it around the house, and when it flew upstairs, Inkwell stood on the landing and leaped into the air every time it passed by. It was quite spectacular from where I was sitting. He also chittered at it and flung insults that probably couldn't be repeated in human language without censoring. For Inkwell, it was great.

Late Thursday night a massive thunderstorm passed overhead. The sky rumbled for well over an hour, grumbling and rolling. The power blinked out once. I was up late, as has been my habit recently, and was sitting in my chair as the thunder shook the house. Inkwell finally came into my room and insisted on sitting on my lap. Every time there was a peal of thunder, his ears twitched back. He huddled on my lap for a good half hour before he finally felt safe enough to get back to whatever cat duties there are at 11 pm.

Inkwell is not fond of me staying up until 3 or 4 am then sleeping in until his first kibble feeding time at 10 am. On Tuesday morning he was upset that I was up at 9:30 and not feeding him. When I finally did go downstairs to feed him, he was very disapproving that I was putting his kibble into the egg-cersizer instead of just giving it to him in a bowl. He sat glaring at me with his tail twitching as I set the egg down...

...when he suddenly jumped about a foot into the air, twisting as he did so to look behind him.

I thought for a moment that he might have been bitten by a bug or something, but then I realized he had been sitting on the vent and the AC had just turned on.

He glared at me again, as if it was entirely my fault, then started batting his egg around to get his kibble. I tried really hard to not laugh, but I fear I may have offended the fuzzy master of the house. He stalked around the rest of the day trying to display dignity, but it was hard for me to not see his startled look as he jumped into the air, having just received a blast of cold air to his butt. At one point he decided to increase his mass as he thundered up and down the stairs, sounding like a herd of cattle. I still don't know how cats control gravity like that.

Last Friday I had an Inkwell experience that I also recorded on Facebook: Inkwell came into my room while I was typing away and just ... stared. He just stood in the doorway and stared. He looked so sad, I put the computer aside and reached down. He came up and put his head under my hand in the universal "please pet me" gesture. I pet him.

It soon became apparent he wanted something else. His front paws were very gently kneading at the carpet. So I got up and walked to the bedroom. He followed and when I got on the bed and pulled the blanket up, he jumped up and started purring and kneading me.

I spent the next ten minutes in a cat spa being meowsaged and purred upon.

When I thought he was done, I started to get up, but he sauntered to my ankles and stretched out over them with a possessive "mrrrow". In short, I was trapped. For another few minutes I dozed a bit while waiting for him to get bored and move on.

Finally he seemed satisfied and I quickly got back out of bed. He curled up on the end of the bed and stayed there while I did a couple of minor chores. Then I sat down to finish my piece, found I couldn't concentrate, and decided to write about Inkwell instead.

He's now downstairs, playing with his kibble egg-cersizer and singing the songs of his people.

We also recently had the opposite of a staring contest: Inkwell was staring at me, so I looked over at him. He gave me a slow blink.

I responded with a slow blink of my own. When I opened my eyes, his were closed.

So I closed my eyes most of the way and watched his eyes. I could tell he was doing the same. For a long moment we had a slow blinking contest.

Finally he opened his eyes, I opened mine and we both got on with life.

Earlier in the month Inkwell got a scare when all the fire alarms in the house were set off by a nearby electrical storm. In addition to the storm, Inkwell had been upstairs hiding from the vacuum when the alarms went off, and never heard Eric put the vacuum away. It took him several hours to fully calm down, poor skittish kitty!

Now, for the finale of this post, some Inkwell Sings the Blues. I'm not entirely sure what the melody to these are, but they are funny enough and I can usually manage to sing them...

7:25 PM - 27 Apr 2018:
I got the "my mommy won't get up and feed me, and I'm starving to death" blues.
I got the "my mommy won't get up and feed me, and I'm starving to death" blues.
I bopped her on the nose, jumped on her chest and I'm gonna throw up in her shoes.

7:28 PM - 27 Apr 2018:
Mommy won't feed me and I think that I'm starving to death.
Mommy won't feed me and I think that I'm starving to death.
I'm gonna keep meowing at mommy with my dying breath.

9:52 AM - 28 Apr 2018:
Daddy won't get up and feed me, mommy says I've just been fed.
Daddy won't get up and feed me, mommy says I've just been fed.
They will both be sorry, when I'm so hungry that I'm dead.

6:17 PM - 28 Apr 2018:
Daddy just gave me kibble but I really wanted wet food instead.
Daddy just gave me kibble but I really wanted wet food instead.
I'm gonna eat the kibble, but I'll throw it up on his bed.

7:15 PM - 1 May 2018:
Mommy closed her room off, she don't love me no more.
Mommy closed her room off, she don't love me no more.
I'm gonna lay down and cry outside her door.