Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Catiosyncrasy

I bought a new plant at Giant Eagle the other day. I don't know what variety it is; it's just a spiky green thing that needs occasional water. I placed it in front of the litter box in the sunroom, hoping it would provide a small amount of disguise for the litter box. If figure if I can keep it alive, I can slowly acquire a few more until it's not obvious that a litter box is hiding behind this small garden.

I chose the spikiest of the plants on display, hoping it would be unattractive to Rudi. Rudi has a very bad habit of eating every live plant that comes into the house. My friend Sherry brought me a lovely flowering plant when I moved into my house. Well, it was lovely for about a day, until Rudi deposited chomp marks onto every leaf and petal. That plant is now long gone.

I also planted a few springs of a jade plant in a small pot and placed it on my kitchen window. Jade plants are especially hardy, right? Teeth marks on every leaf.

This morning Rudi woke me up at 5:45, first making that horrible crying sound he makes just before he's going to throw up, then starting with his hacking sound. I raced out of bed to try to move him onto the tile floor in the bathroom before all the Yuck came up. I failed. He deftly placed his furballs on the puke-green carpet in the second-floor foyer. Strategically sited on top of the furballs were shreds of the new spiky plant.

The only thing worse than him throwing up where I can find it and dispose of it? Hearing him throwing up, refusing to get up, and then not being able to find it. This occurred around 6:15 a.m. Great. I'm sure my bare feet will find his second pile of furballs around 1:18 tomorrow morning, when I rise from a sound sleep to visit the bathroom. (I am that age, you understand.)

I love cats. I really do. But I'm just not happy with the digestive habits of this one!

Hey, here's an idea—what if I start a cactus garden? Do you think that would be safe from his teeth? Would that be deemed Cruelty to Cats?

3 comments:

Ypsi said...

I am no help here, as I am extremely OVER my 3 fleabags at the moment. And I do mean "fleabags" in the literal sense.

Am also still seething at having to replace E's lunchbox bc one of the cats peed on it.

I often tell them that there are career opportunities out there for experimental animals... say, at the CDC or Procter & Gamble. They don't seem too fazed by my threats.

Jan Crews said...

Jaci could tell you a story about Smoker peeing on her cell phone when they first moved to D.C. And Scott's just been through it with his cat peeing on everything in site. I'll take Rudi's hairballs over peeing any day!

Unknown said...

The most creative way I saw to disguise a cat litter box was a cabinet that had cat cutouts at the bottom. The cats could fit through the cutouts, the litter box was hidden from view and the cabinet could obviously be opened to get the litter box out and cleaned.

Maybe you could design a frame and make curtains? LOL