Category: Jack

It’s a jungle out there

Our house’s lawns are begining to look distinctly jungle-ish – almost like something out of Jumanji*, just without the elephants and the homocidal gentleman with a pith helmet and a blunderbuss.

For various reasons we have not had it mowed in about 4 or 5 weeks, and with all the recent rainfall here the grass has somewhat taken off.

Jack of course finds this a wonderful development, as it gives him plenty of cover for sneaking and stalking in (I got to watch him hunt a skink under the house the other day – it was very cute), but as for us humans it tends to be a little irritating as the long grass gets us wet when we leave early in the morning, and offends our sense of tidyness and order.

Still, I suppose that as long as rhinos don’t start stampeding out of it, and we get around to cutting it eventually, it will all be ok.

* I saw the other day that they are releasing a semi-sequel to Jumanji called Zathura: A space adventure, which while not being about any of the original Jumanji characters revolves around the same premise of a game that alters the reality of the players until the game is finished. I can’t decide if I want to see it, but given that I have relatively little time for movies at the moment I will probably wait until it comes out on DVD.

Jack the fat cat

We took jack to the vet the other day for his next round of vaccinations, and got him officially weighed at the same time.

Turns out that in 4 weeks he has gone from 2.2 to 2.8kg, which while not necessarily constituting fat, as the title possibly misleadingly indicated, still points to the fact that Jack is going to grow to become a rather large cat.

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Purry and furry

Today was one of those days where you really appreciate having a cat.

Simone was on call last night, so although I didn’t fare as badly has her, I lost a fair bit of sleep from her being called a number of times.

Then I has a pretty average day, with several quite sick patients that needed sorting out.

Finally trafic was quite scarey on the drive home, with a nasty habit of changing collective speed from 105kph to 35kph with little or no warning (I had to throw out the anchors on several occasions).

So to arrive home to Jack being cute, fluffy, and friendly, was just glorious.

Fuzz therapy goes an awfully long way to making the world better at times like that.

Socknapping

For whatever reason, Jack seems to love stealing socks.

This is most amusing and inconvenient when you’re running late in the morning and put a pair of socks on the bed while you’re putting your shirt or trousers on, and at the opportune moment when you are incapacitated by having one and a half legs in your pants, or the shirt over your head, Jack will tear in, grab the socks and tear out of the room with them, and then of course it becomes a little game for him of scamper around while daddy alternates between laughing and ineffectually trying to retrieve his socks.

Great amusement for all really.

Jack likes downhill

We had the Winter Olympics on last night and they had the downhill skiing on, and it turns out that Jack is a huge fan.

Well.. he likes intently watching the skiers and pouncing at the TV screen when it looks like the fast moving brightly coloured skier was coming close.

It really was most delightful to watch. The concentration was so amusing, and the leaping and jumping was a real hoot.

We really are terrible fur parents. Always talking about our little kiddy.. I mean kitty.. 🙂

A cat of simple tastes

AKA Fun with household items
In spite of us buying jack a fair number of not inexpensive toys, and having recieved even more toys from assorted family friends and well wishers, Jack seems to continue to delight in directing most of his attention to playing with inexpensive things that can be found around the house.

  • The duster
  • Paper from the office rubbish bin
  • The office rubbish bin itself
  • Socks
  • Just about any item of clothing hanging from a coat hanger within pouncing height
  • My computer cables
  • Toes
  • Towels
  • Toes again
  • The kitchen and front door mats

Given that he’s so easy to amuse it makes you wonder why we buy him toys at all…

A tapestry of lacerations

I knew I was missing something not having a cat all these years, and now I remember what it was: Cuts. Scratches. Gashes. Perforations.

Jack is a very lively little kitten, and much of that energy seems to be expended on tearing around the house climbing, scratching and scampering down just about anything he can find (with humans proving to be ideal climbing frames and scratching posts).

And the funny things is that I don’t really mind it having a few kitty scratches. It reminds me what a nice thing it is to have fuzz therapy around again.

The feline F1 skill

Since getting Jack I have been reminded of cats’ uncanny ability to always step on the F1 key whenever they walk across my laptop’s keyboard.

Jack mainly does the walking across the keys simply as a way of getting my attention, but still he almost always hits F1 and causes the help screen to come up for whatever program I am currently using.

What would be funny would be if I could re-program the computer the launch a little window with jack’s picture in it and caption that says “Pay attention to me!!!!” instead.

Jack Vids

Right.

As previously promised/threatened I have uploaded those two videos of jack that I was talking about.

The first one is the “What’s up pussy cat” video that I have previously had up on my old site, and which many of you may have already seen.

The second one is a new one, and chronicles Jack’s first expedition outside the house a couple of weeks back.

They are both about 1.5Mb, so may take a minute or two to download.

Video 1: What’s up pussy cat

Video 2: Outside Adventures

Cats do the cutest things

Jack is settling in very well here, and I am basically finding everything he does cute and funny. It’s really great having a cat around again, and I had kind of forgotten how damn cute they can be.
Playing with paper.
Falling over chasing their own tail.
Running too and fro and playing peek-a-boo around the edge of furniture..

Anyway. I’ve made a little movie for you amusement of some of Jack’s first day at home.
(It’s about 1.4Mb, so it may take a few minutes to download, and if it’s not playing well you might want to save it only your computer before trying to play it).