New Apartment, New Antics!

As you can guess from the title, we have recently switched up our apartment situation.  We moved literally a mile down the road, and are now living in a 2 bedroom apartment, and we now have a roommate.  Apollo loves this, because it means extra attention opportunities as well as extra meal opportunities.  That manipulative little creature has learned how to play on our pity emotions, and has tricked us into many extra food scoops.  Myself, Boyfriend, and Roommate all have different school/work/activity schedules, and in turn tend to wake up at different times in the morning.  Apollo caught on to this quite quickly.  So at 7am, when roommate is getting ready for class, he marches over to her, screams in his little pitiful meow, and demands breakfast.  He then gets right to work polishing off that bowl, as well as any crumbs that might have fallen on the floor in his food frenzy.  An hour or so later, boyfriend wakes up and is greeted by a sad little fat cat with an empty food dish and a very convincing cry for food.  So he gets another scoop.  And he'll do the same thing in the evenings while waiting for dinner.  Every other cat I've known will stop eating food when they're full.  Apollo, however, stops eating only when the dish is empty, and then he demands more. 

For a couple days, we tried verbally checking with each other whether he was fed already, but that doesn't always work when someone is in class, at work, or forgets their phone.  So he was still managing to get extra food, and we were always left wondering if kitten needed mealtime.  So I found a solution.  I drew up a special "Kitty Mealtime Checklist," which is now taped up on the wall right above his food dish.  It comes complete with a pen hanging from the counter next to it, so we can always make use of it.  Now we never have to question whether the cat is messing with our minds, or whether he really is a starving little Apollo-pants.  I don't know what's worse; the fact that the cat is that good at tricking us, or the fact that we have to keep a checklist for his dinnertimes.

The checklist that we now have to use, since apparently the Cat is incapable of pacing himself on meals. 

In addition to his ever-present food demands, he's also found a few new ways to occupy himself.  There is a fireplace at the new apartment, which he figured out how to get into, and left some charming little ashy paw prints all over the living room area.  The apartment also has a bit of a loop to it.  There's a sunroom that connects the living/dining room to our bedroom, so Apollo runs laps around this, and gets himself all worked up.  When he's in the right mood, he will arch his back, poof up his tail, spike up his back fur, and prances around sideways at people, then jumps up to "attack" before sprinting away at roughly 90 miles an hour.  And this isn't just a one-and-done type of attack.  He will do this over and over and over for a half hour until he's all tuckered out.

I have plenty more stories about some of Apollo's recent actions, including the unspeakable destruction that he did to our bed.  But I'll hold off on those for the next post, and leave you with a few awesome pictures that I've taken over the last couple months.

We were watching a movie, and Apollo found the PERFECT viewing spot.  Nice and warm, great screen view, and within arm's reach to get head scratches from me.

Apollo has a new best friend for the winter.  It's name is Heating Blanket.  If it is turned on, Apollo will not move.  For hours.  Even if it's bedtime and you want to move your legs.  It's just not allowed when kitteh and blanket are together.

Apollo loves new people!  Even when being pinned down on someone's lap much like a rag doll or teddy bear, he just kinda goes with it.  He's even got his little toesies in the air!  As long as he gets extra attention, he'll do almost anything.  This is also the night we found out Apollo is both fascinated by and terrified of wheelchairs.  They make great kitty forts to sit under and rub gums on...until the fort starts moving!

Sprawling out in the armchair that he stole from me.  Apparently I'm not allowed to sit in it today.

The Morning Routine

Apollo is a kitten.  He's sixteen pounds and has the figure of a walrus, but he's only a year and a half, so he's still got a spirited and feisty attitude. Which means he is locked out of the bedroom at night, so that his feisty attitude doesn't surface at three in the morning with a rousing round of tackle the toesies.  Apollo does not find this situation to be ideal.  Because when he gets hungry early in the morning, he has to go through great lengths to bring his supposed starving belly to our attention. 

It starts at about seven in the morning.  If one of us isn't already up, he decides that it has just been far too long since his last meal, and he starts throwing a fit.  He goes to the door and starts flailing and throwing himself against it.  I think he's trying to reach up and grab the doorknob, but he can't actually turn it since he (thankfully) doesn't have thumbs.  Honestly, the first time we heard it, we were freaked out.  We thought the maintenance people had come in and had started taking down our drywall, or that a rogue thief was dragging a bookshelf along the wall.  But, no, it's just the cat, insisting that we haven't fed him in weeks. 

If that doesn't work, he simply sets up camp right next to the door so that he can bust in the instant the door opens.  As soon as the door is cracked open by one of us leaving the room, he jumps up even if he was in a deep sleep, charges into the bedroom, and starts walking in a little circle, screaming.  And he doesn't use a typical meow or moan that you would expect out of a 16 pound cat.  Apollo still uses the same high-pitched squeaky meow that he's used every day since we got him as a 6 week old little pipsqueak.  As soon as myself or the boyfriend step out into the hallway, Apollo just marches up behind us, and starts his mad dash for the kitchen for his fresh serving of kitteh om noms. 

As soon as he has gotten a few bites into his famished little belly, he's ready to start following his humans again.  Apollo follows people into the bathroom so that he can supervise all of our water usage.  As you know from previous posts, Apollo loves the sink.  It's the perfect nap spot, and when the water is on, it's an hour's worth of entertainment.  Which is quite inconvenient in the mornings, since I need to brush my teeth, wash my face, and need access to a sink without a furball sitting in the middle of it. 

And that is why it's so convenient that Apollo has now fallen in love with the tub.  Thanks to slow apartment complex maintenance, we had a leaky tub for a week, with a constant low trickle of water coming out.  Apollo loved it.  He had a constant source of fresh water to drink from.  He also had water to poke at, hit, wrestle with, and lunge at.  And he had water to dunk his head and paws in, and take a little kitty bath.  After it got fixed, he still demanded access to his tub water.  So now, if he's blocked off from the sink in the morning, he will cry and yell while sitting in the tub until the water gets turned on.  As soon as the water is trickling out, he shuts up and gets to work taking a bath and getting in a fight.  He stays there for a good 10-15 minutes, then hops out so that I can finally turn the water off. 

At this point, he goes about his morning, getting everything done that he couldn't do while he was desperately waiting for food or tub time.  Sometimes he needs a nap from such an exhausting morning, sometimes it's more food, or sometimes it's a good wrestle with my cacti.  But he has gotten very used to this routine.  This exact same process happens EVERY MORNING.  And has been pretty much the same for months.  Apollo really loves to stay on his schedule. 

For your viewing pleasure, I've included a video of Apollo in his sink.  He will stay there for hours.  Even if the water is running right onto him.  Enjoy!

Apollo eating his breakfast.  Note the food pieces all over the floor that he picked out with his paw.  And apparently sitting up this early in the morning is just unacceptable.  And yes, that is a Little Mermaid placemat, just for kitteh!

Back to bed after a busy morning.  I'm surprised he still fits in this thing!

Darn Cat Thinks He Owns The Place

The other day, we had a massive apartment clean-out kind of day.  We started just going through dishes, and we've progressed to going through closets and drawers, scavenging for things that we forgot even existed.  But it wouldn't be a clean-out without Apollo deciding he needs to supervise our every move.  Throughout the past few days, he's done several things that seem to demonstrate how he thinks he's the top kitty in this apartment.

 The day started with us realizing we needed to re-arrange his kitty fort set-up.  It's a modular fort, so you can hook up different boxes together and change the style.  The way we had it, it was nice and tall.  It looked awesome, but we found out it was not very sturdy.  Every time he climbed on it, the entire tower would shake violently, threatening to launch the kitty.  We changed it up to make it more flat and wide, and far more sturdy.  Apollo promptly walked up, took a couple sniffs, and parked himself across the room to admire it.

Ignoring the cat who had just turned his nose up at our hard efforts to fix his fort, I went to go fold some laundry.  Apollo trotted along with me, and claimed the clothesbasket I was going to use as his own and made himself cozy.  I dumped him out, and he jumped right back in.  Apparently I'm not allowed to fold laundry without the cat's direct supervision.  He also made himself useful by flailing his paws around whenever socks or shirt sleeves flew over him, and tried to wrestle a few towels.

After he got worn out from  laundry fighting, he marched over to my desk.  He found a few hair clips on my desk.  They have little black fabric flowers on them, and are very pretty.  Apollo certainly thought so, since he tried to steal them.  He picked up the flower in his mouth, and quickly ran with one of them to the other side of the apartment to chew on it and poke at it.  I went and fetched it and put it back, only to have him steal it another three times before I finally realized I should hide them if I ever cared to see them again.

Apollo also decided to claim ownership of my grocery shopping bag.  I left it on the floor after putting away a few items, and the cat just went to town with it.  He sprinted across the room and dove right in, hopped out, jumped on the top, ran away, and did it all over again.  He did that over and over for a good 20 minutes.  Apollo wore himself out, crawled inside the bag like it was a sleeping bag, and passed out.  I was going to put it away later that night, but every time he heard the fabric rustling he would come running and start playing again.  It's been a few days and it's still out, just for him.  Of all the toys that we've bought him, the one he loves the most is a $1 bag.  At least we know for the future we can save our money...
(For your viewing pleasure, go to the bottom of this post to see bag-tackling action on video!)

I also bought new kitty food to fill up his food container.  It's a decent sized bin, able to hold a big bag of it.  As I was pouring it in, Apollo decided he was desperately hungry, and couldn't wait another second to get food in his belly.  Mind you, this was about an hour after his dinnertime.  His dish was already empty from him shoveling it up already.  He should not have been that hungry.   But nonetheless, he decided he was hungry, and plunged his head into the container as the last few pieces fell on top.  The container is about 3/4 as tall as him, and he still decided it was a good feeding trough.  Charming, cat.  This is why you have a beer belly. 

This cat totally has it made, and it seems like he knows it.  He has claimed ownership of just about everything in this apartment, including the people in it.  For being such a little creature, he sure has a big attitude on him.

Oh, hai!  You want this shirt?  You'll have to wrestle me for it.

Cat needs om noms RIGHT NOW!

Skip to 0:17 to skip through the boring part that I couldn't figure out how to edit.  It's worth the wait and suspense!

Underwater Kitty

We discovered by accident that Apollo actually likes frolicking in water.  As you saw by the picture in the last post, he has taken to sleeping for hours in the bathroom sink.  He's got a specific route he takes each time to get into the sink, and will come and yell at us if it is blocked for some reason.  Apollo has to jump up to the top of the toilet, then carefully step across the gap to the sink, then shove soap dishes or contact solution out of his way so he can make his way over and settle into the basin.  It's quite the ordeal for him.  And apparently an exhausting system, because after all this, he passes out and refuses to get up for hours.  Which in most cases is tolerable.  We can just wash hands in the kitchen sink, and deal with the kitty blob that thinks he owns the bathroom.

But it's also quite inconvenient.  I despise mornings, and choose to sleep in as late as possible, even if it means being in a huge rush in the mornings to get out the door.  So one morning this week, I had about 20 minutes to get dressed, get ready, and grab food before having to run out the door to work.  I was getting ready to brush my teeth, but of course Apollo had settled into his sink spot, and wasn't ready to move.  I didn't feel like fighting and wrestling with him, especially with toothbrush already in hand, so I just turned on the faucet.  I figured he'd get the message and storm off to dry himself off and skulk in the living room.  I was wrong.  Apollo absolutely LOVED it.  He turned around and watched the stream of water roll down his beer belly, then arched his back so that he could drink from the faucet while still laying down.  To even out the kitty moisture level, he then shifted and rolled over, so that his entire back got a helping of water.  After about a few minutes of this, Apollo finally realized that the water was not going to stop, and finally leaped out of my way.

Apollo's water fascination was not just a one time fluke, either.  Now, any time I turn the faucet on, he runs to the bathroom for playtime.  He stands on the edge and smacks and fights with the water, takes a couple sips, then goes back to hitting it.  If it's a really warm day, he rolls over in it a few times to cool off.  And he gets very confused if the stream of water changes from a trickle to full force.  When I'm brushing my teeth or standing at the sink for any length of time, I even have to stand in such a way as to block his pathway to the sink, because otherwise he moves right in, oblivious to the fact that the sink is a crucial part to getting ready every morning and every night.

For the most part, the boyfriend and I have gotten used to Apollo's presence in the bathroom.  Yes, it is incredibly awkward to shower and have a cat dozing in the sink a few feet away.  And if the door is closed with him locked away from his sink, he will throw himself against the door or stick his paws under the door and try to find a way in.  But we have friends that come over and are not expecting a kitty to be lounging there.  Multiple times I have had to be summoned to remove a cat from the sink that is defending his "territory" by smacking and poking at people that just want a minute or two of privacy.  This cat honestly thinks that he owns this apartment, and that the sink is there for the sole purpose of giving him a cool place to nap.

Apollo trying to hit a person that is invading in his personal sink space.

Catnipped Kitty

Sorry for the long wait between posts.  Between working two jobs, dealing with a legally insane feline, and trying to actually have a social life, it's been a hectic couple of weeks.  But now I'm back, complete with a brand new Apollo tale for you!

Like most cats, Apollo absolutely loves catnip.  He's got a few catnip toys that he still frolicks with, even though he's had them for months.  If they were mine, I'd already  be bored of them, but he seems to love them.  Putting catnip in toys isn't enough for him, though, so we also have a little baggie of the fresh stuff to put on the floor, in boxes, on toys, or on the cat so that he can get Catnipped to the Max on special occasions.  Apollo eats and licks it right up, and promptly spends the next 20 minutes all giddy, relaxed, and laid back.  Well...correction.  We HAD catnip.  Until Apollo found our secret stash.

We're still not entirely sure how he pulled it off.  We went out grocery shopping, and when we came back, the living room was in a bit of disarray.  Somehow our charming little animal got the catnip down from the very top shelf in the living room.  Mind you, this isn't a little 2 or 3 shelf deal.  This is an almost 6 foot high bookshelf, stacked to the brim with books.  I imagine he could smell the catnip on the shelf, got pissed at having to wait for us to get it down for him, and just bodyslammed the side of the shelf to shake it until the lightweight baggie fell gracefully onto the floor.  After getting the catnip within reach, he promptly sank his teeth and claws into it and ripped the bag to shreds to get out the goods.  It was sprinkled everywhere, and ground into the carpet.  That means that not only did he eat it off the floor, he rolled back and forth in it to get the catnip good and stuck into both his fur and our white carpet.  And since he rubbed it into his fur, vacuuming didn't help a whole lot because no sooner would we do a pass with the vacuum than Apollo would sit down, roll some more, and sprinkle out some catnip he had stashed under his collar.  Such a charmer, isn't he?

Luckily, I don't think there's any sort of "kitty catnip overdose."  In fact, the whole ordeal made Apollo much more pleasant to deal with.  Rather than being the angry, bitey, and eager to claw little kitty that we get to tolerate on a daily basis, Apollo became the sweet, laid back, and groggy little stoned cat that he becomes after eating an entire bag of the Nip.  He napped all day, his eyes were all red and squinty, and upon us returning home, he promptly went into the sink and passed out for the entire afternoon. 

Do you have any idea how adorable a cat passed out in the bathroom sink is?  Sure, it wreaks havoc on the plumbing, as we found out, when all the little Apollo hairs work their way through the pipes.  And it's certainly unpleasant to find Apollo hairs plastered to the sides when rinsing toothpaste out of your mouth.   And it's incredibly inconvenient to need to wash your hands and have a cat laying there and guarding it with his life, swatting and biting at anyone who comes near.  But it is one of the darn most adorable things I've ever seen Apollo do.  So there you have it, visitors.  If you ever come to my apartment and want to win Apollo over, just bring him some catnip and let him go to town with it.  But if you have the audacity to try to use what Apollo is convinced is his bathroom, you might be better off using the kitchen sink to wash your hands.

Apollo the mighty "Sink Guard"

Not only does Apollo think the sink is his, he also sometimes commandeers the toilet.

Next entry in the Apollo saga...he actually likes water!  To hold you over to the next post, here's a video to prove it.

The Potato Disaster

We recently had a bit of an apartment disaster.  No, the roof wasn't leaking, and we had power.  This was a feline created meltdown.  All because I didn't make mashed potatoes.  I bought a sack of potatoes a while ago with grand intentions of cooking all kinds of delicious things.  I took them home, put them on the bottom shelf in the pantry, and promptly forgot that they existed.  Fast forward a couple weeks.  The potatoes had gone bad, but since they hadn't moved at all, they didn't smell and we didn't notice...

But apparently Apollo did.  And being the helpful little kitty that he is, he decided to point it out for us.  Somehow with his little kitty body, he managed to drag the sack of potatoes out from the bottom shelf and into the little entryway/kitchen storage area.  As soon as the potatoes had been moved, they released their disgusting stench.  Now, most cats would give up at this point.  They would decide they've done enough work for the day, and that it's about time for a nice, hearty nap.  Apollo's a determined little thing, though.  So he went above and beyond with the potatoes.

He not only moved them from the pantry, he moved them throughout a better part of the apartment.  Apollo started with dragging them into the little hallway that leads to the bathroom and bedroom.  When he lost interest in that region, he went ahead and headed back to the kitchen and of course brought his new best friend Sacky (yeah, I just named some rotten vegetables, what now?) along for the ride.  Apollo marched his way across the kitchen, and ended his journey right in front of his food dish. 

I was not the one to witness the horror of this first.  The boyfriend had that distinct honor.  He came back from an 8am lab class to find potato juices in paths winding throughout the apartment, an overwhelming smell that could be detected from the outside hallway several apartments down, and a cat sitting proudly by his kitty dish and Sacky, screaming about what a brilliant job he has done rescuing us from bad food.  So instead of a snack and a quick shower, Matt was greeted by the harrowing task of starting clean-up duty. 

Even after arriving home a few hours after the potatocalypse, it was still a grisly scene.  The distinct smell was definitely still there.  There were some lovely carpet stains (that luckily came out relatively painlessly thanks to the magical pet stain remover liquid I found at Target!) that needed scrubbing.  Even though the laminate floor had been supposedly mopped twice, it was still quite sticky. 

I spent a good two hours sprinkling baking soda everywhere, vacuuming, mopping, febreeze-ing, sniff-checking, re-mopping, disassembling the vacuum that somehow got potato bits lodged into it, and hollering obscenities at the kitty who was following me around the entire time, yelling about how it was definitely 2pm, and getting close to dinnertime.  Everything was sparkling clean, and it finally looked acceptable.  The smell was still lingering, and did so for a good day and a half until the cup of baking soda in the pantry finally worked its wonders.

I'm still questioning how the hell Apollo was powerful enough for this feat of strength.  He is a big kitty, but a sack of potatoes is pretty darn heavy!  And certainly a bit awkward for a cat to drag, carry, wrestle with, or whatever else that Thing did with it.   I would also like to know what the hell possessed Apollo to do such a thing.  Why couldn't he just leave it be and tell us when we got home?  It's days like this that I think about how innocent he looked at the shelter, and how much of a terror he's turned out to be.  But through all of his evil escapades he still manages to look adorable, so of course we keep him around and try not to think about his next stunt.

I did not manage to get a picture of the potato disaster.  And I'm sure it wasn't pretty and you wouldn't want to see it anyways.  So instead, here's a lovely pic of tiny Apollo lounging in a pot full of cacti.  And yes, he did try to take a bite.

Apollo's Many Playthings

Apollo is still a kitten. He's roughly the size of a sea-monster, but he's a little over a year old and still has his kitten pants on. Which means any time he isn't passed out in weird places (such as the sink, the backrest of my chair, or somehow managed to wedge himself through the narrow 4 inch opening under the bed) he is most likely hopped up on energy and ready to play. He has a few typical kitty toys, but his favorites are the less than normal ones. He does have little mice, a chirpy bird, and an endless supply of balls that he occasionally pokes at. He's even got a crinkly kitty tube that makes a ton of racket every time he walks in it. Apollo loves that one. If we're watching a movie, the instant the quiet part starts is when he starts racing back and forth through the crinkle tube, or starts marching around on his crinkly Santa hat (which we got for $1 on the 90% off X-mas clearance racks!). It almost seems like he plans his playtime in the loud crinkly tube for the quietest moments imaginable.

Apollo is a huge fan of laser time. The instant you pick up the laser, he is in love with you. Apollo will faithfully chase the laser up the side of the couch, into the window blinds, up the side of a wall, and into the bathtub. He runs so fast up the wall, it looks like he's briefly hovering. And he doesn't just give up after a minute. He will keep going as long as that evil red light keeps shining. When you stop, he even knows who's powering the thing, because he will run right up to you and poke at the laser until it is turned on again, or until he flops over and falls asleep. It is extremely adorable to watch, and it also gets him running for 15 minutes straight, which is hopefully helping to slim down his beefy waistline. If someone told me 10 years ago that my future would involve worrying about the weight problems of an obese feline...I would definitely not believe them. But here we are.

This cat finds easy amusement in the apartment. He really doesn't need any of his toys at all. I've caught him playing with popcorn kernels, bits of cereal, rice (both dry and cooked), milk rings, sponges that he dragged from the tub, socks, my watch, clothesbaskets (both full and empty), my shoes, my pants (both while I'm wearing them and when they're on the floor), my little cacti, rolls of tape, a USB drive, his food dish, my bike pedals, and even his kitty litter box. Yeah, that last one's pretty gross. He just digs around in there like it's a sandbox, and gets his face all filthy from sniffing around. At one point, he even kicked the litter around so enthusiastically that there was used kitty litter stuck to the walls, which took 40 minutes of scrubbing to fully clean off. Which is why we now have cardboard “shields” surrounding his litter box corner.

Of all his playthings, though, his favorite one is us. Apollo has elaborate plans to lure us into being attacked. He's always waiting around corners to lunge out at us at opportune moments. And for a big guy, he's got quite a lot of spring in his step. Apollo is easily able to launch himself up to waist height. If we aren't walking around enough, Apollo will wait in a corner, and make the most pitiful meow-ing sound I've ever heard come out of an animal. It sounds as if he managed to get himself pinned under the bed, or got deathly injured, so of course we run to see what's wrong. Which is the point where he launches himself at warp speed towards the unsuspecting person's face, and runs off with his tail all poofy and his back arched and ready for more action. I don't know what is worse, the fact that he keeps trying to trick us like that, or the fact that it keeps working. Apollo also thinks bedtime is actually tackle time, and spends as much time as possible dive-bombing feet, grappling onto legs, chewing on fingers, and burrowing through pillows to get to the face we are trying to hide from him. Yet one more reason that he is locked out at night. There is no need to be terrorized by a cat all night. He may think he needs midnight playmates, but Apollo has proven countless times before that he's capable of making friends with a box or a bread crumb and does not need extra evening stimulation.

Apollo in his crinkle tube

 

 

Playing with one of his real kitty toys, instead of a random thing he found on the floor

Bonus kitten pic!  This is from the first week or so I had Apollo, back when I was living at the parents' house.  Clyde had him cornered.  About 5 seconds after this picture, Apollo launched himself at Clyde's face.  Clyde proceeded to half run, half tumble down the stairs, and then snorted and hissed for a full minute before storming off.

This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

This cat loves to destroy my stuff.  His favorite thing to ruin:  plants.  I am a pretty lousy gardener, and I do not need his help killing off plants.  But he seems to think it's his duty to assist me in that task.

I have a slowly growing collection of mini cacti, all bought on various IKEA trips.  Two of them are smooth, one is fuzzy, and one is spiky.  And Apollo is fascinated by all of them.  Within 30 seconds of placing them on the window sill (the lone sunny spot in the apartment), he was up next to them to investigate.  Sniffing wasn't enough, because he proceeded to poke at, chew on, knock over, and wrestle with each of the cacti throughout the day.  Seriously, why would you bite a spikey cactus??  What part of sticking spines into your little mouth is a good idea?  And only my cat can get into a fight with a cactus.  And lose.  Squirting him with water did not stop him, nor did yelling, clapping by his ears, or grabbing him by the scruff and knocking him off the window sill.  To this day, each one still has its own battle scars and teeth marks, and all of them are missing varying amounts of soil.  He finally doesn't knock them over constantly, but it's still a weekly occurrence.

I also got a pretty curly bamboo plant.  I figured the maintenance for it is almost non-existent, so it would be hard for me to hurt it.  But no worries, Apollo stepped right up to the challenge. I placed it in the window, for lack of anywhere else to put it, and then left for an hour to run out to the store. Within that short amount of time, Apollo managed to bite into almost every leaf, and even completely destroy  several of the leaves by tearing them apart.  My bamboo looks like it has barely survived a small hurricane.  I now have to choose between leaving it in the window so it can actually get sun and have it be completely defoliated, or put it on a high shelf to keep it safe but unable to get much light.

I tried to do one thing.  All I wanted was something green and living and pretty in the window, and this cat just took over and decided that anything he can fit in his mouth is part of his own personal salad bar.

Apollo the mighty cactus ninja

My poor little bamboo stalk.  All the leaves are shredded or bitten into!

Just Let Me Sleep!

During the day, Apollo is a reasonable household companion. Even with his incessant demands for more food, he's fairly pleasant to be around all day. But at night, he's one of our worst nightmares. I discovered this very early on, when his “2am Freakout” tendencies started to show a few days after bringing him home, and have occurred every night since then. Apollo acted calm and sweet when I was getting ready for bed, and even curled up on the corner of my blanket. I had no way of knowing I was laying into a trap. I hit the lights, pulled up a blanket, and sprawled out. About 5 minutes later, I felt dagger like claws clinging onto my foot with an impressive vice-like grip, and little kitten teeth gnawing on my ankle, much in the same way a wild hyena gnaws on its prey. Even through the blankets, he managed to leave some battle scars on me. In my semi-groggy state, I tried kicking and squirming, but Apollo just held on for the ride, and somehow managed to stay attached to my limbs, even after gliding through the air in my mad fit to get him off. To fully free myself, I had to wiggle through the blankets while avoiding his little paw spikes, stand up, and wrap Apollo in a blanket so that I could eject him from my room without doing further damage to my arms.

He got launched into the hallway and a door slammed in his face before he could dart inside for round two. Indignant about this injustice against him, he pounded on my door, stuck his paw under the door trying to shake it open, and leaped repeatedly up at the doorknob until he was absolutely certain that he couldn't break in again. Disappointed but not defeated, he marched down the hall to try it on my Brother's closed door, and then downstairs to the open door of my parent's room, much to his excitement. I learned the next morning that he pulled the exact same routine. Act all sweet and innocent, and then go for the kill. And this wasn't just a once every week or so habit for him. This occurred every. Single. Night. Which is how he came to be locked out of my bedroom, every single night, for about a year and a half now.

Even after all this time though, he hasn't forgotten his goal. Every night, it still takes a massive search party to find where Apollo is hiding. He knows when it's getting close to bedtime, and while we're busy getting ready, he plants himself in hiding spots that are incredibly difficult to get him out of, in hopes of being allowed to stay with us overnight. The very center of under the bed, the far back corner of the closet, and hiding stealthily on the windowsill behind the blinds and curtains are all excellent hiding spots for him. We've even tried to let him stay with us about a dozen times, usually out of defeat when we can't possibly hope to reach him in his hangout of the night. And every time, it's ended badly for us. He stays in his hideaway just long enough for us to almost fall asleep, and then he silently emerges, so that the impact of him landing on our feet is enough to send us into shock. Then, groggy, in the dark, and sometimes bleeding, we have to capture the little bugger and hoist him out the door.

Now that we know better than to believe his “innocent eyes,” we try to wrangle him out of the room an hour or so ahead of time, to make the process a bit easier. In turn, Apollo sits directly outside the door so that he can try to sprint inside the instant the door cracks open. And once we go to bed, he stays there. We've got an old box with a blanket in it that has been taken over. The blanket was just there because I couldn't reach the top shelf to put it away, but now it has officially been claimed as his little kitty throne, and I don't want to imagine what kind of payback the kitty will come up with if I take it away now.

Apollo has his cushy little spot to hang out all night, but apparently it's a rough deal for him, because right around 7am, he realizes that he is starving, and that we are doing him a terrible evil by not putting food in his belly right that instant. So he desperately tries to paw and claw his way through the door, and even tries to shake the doorknob by standing up on his hind legs. It's like he knows how that doorknob works, he just can't get his paws around it. He makes this terrible racket for about 5 minutes straight every half hour or so until one of us finally gives in or has to get ready for the day. He charges in when the door opens, screams at us, and prances into the kitchen, looking back every two steps to make sure we haven't wandered off the path from his food dish. Waiting for the food to reach the dish is too long for him, so Apollo tries to eat the food from the falling stream of food as it falls into the bowl. Then he goes to town on the fresh pile of crunchies, and stuffs them into his mouth with such vigor and excitement that he has been nicknamed “The Steamshovel.” And apparently standing up is too much to ask of a little kitty, so half the time he sprawls out on the floor, and pulls the dish towards him, or scoops out a few pieces at a time with his paw, and eats them off of the floor. Honestly, I question every morning how he was so busy all night that he needs food that urgently. But then again, since he's locked out every night, I don't witness his 2am Freakouts, so maybe he really was that active. For all I know, he runs a marathon every night, just sprinting laps and tackling toy mice.

Apollo on one of his lazy mornings.  Note the food scattered all over the floor, which he shoveled out with his paw.  And don't mind the pot behind him...we gave him a wind-up tugboat from the dollar store to poke at.

Kitty's box throne, where he awaits our presence (or just our food) every night

Kitty's about to get famous!

Apollo settling in for his first night home

Apparently Chipotle bags make great kitty forts

Hi!  My name's Lisa, and I'm the owner of a jerk of a cat named Apollo.  He's a 1.5 year old, 16 pounder, orange tabby cat.  Yes, he's adorable, yes he has his very cute moments, but don't let that fool you.  He is a huge hassle to deal with.  Every day, we (we being myself and the boyfriend that I live with) come across a new trick he's pulled, a new stupid habit, or some other ridiculous thing that we didn't think any cat would do.  I've got stories about him that surprise even seasoned feline owners.  So keep tabs on this site, and you'll get to hear all about his apartment antics.

Instead of starting out with a recent tale, I'll just describe his personality, and how we came across this lovely little heathen.  I got him the beginning of last summer at an animal shelter.  I had finally graduated college, had a decent job for the summer, and decided that a kitten was exactly what our house needed.  At the time, I was living at my parents' house, and in addition to the proposed kitten, we had 3 other cats.  I figured it would be great, he would have playmates and/or companions to hang out with.  So we headed out to the shelter, and we found this adorable little kitten passed out in a little 3 year old's arms.  He squeaked at us, sprawled out in our arms, and was the calmest little guy there.  We thought he was perfect.  We took him home, set up a cozy little bed for him, and renamed him Apollo, since we thought it was a bit more fitting than the name Sprucer they had given him at the shelter.  He was a little sweetheart the entire night, curling up on everyone's lap, poking at feet, and even sleeping in a little ball on my pillow right next to me all night.

His act didn't last long.  Come the next morning, his wild side emerged.  I woke up to a full body kitten face tackle.  At 7am.  On my only day to sleep in.  So he got nudged out my door, and he promptly went and did the same thing to every other occupant in the house.  Apollo's new favorite hobby was waiting around corners for people, so he could use his spring-loaded sneak attack on people.  It's pretty impressive, he could reach up to your waist.  And he didn't just jump, he grabbed on.  These attacks weren't limited to people either, as the other 3 cats were his pretty much constant unwilling playmates.  Instead of sleeping through the night, he also developed the "2am Freakout," which surprisingly comes at almost the exact same time every night.  He gets twitchy, gets very hyper, and attacks anyone and anything he can find.  This included faces, feet, doorknobs, desk chairs, sleeping cats, squeaky toys, and anything else he comes across.  Thanks to this awesome trait, he was and still is locked out every night from the bedroom.

For the most part, he's kept up this same personality.  Apollo is a bit bigger (OK, fine, he's colossal), but he still acts just like he did as a young one.  Since then, he's moved out away from the other kitties into a lone kitty apartment (for the time being, at least).  Due to his impressive weight gain, he's now on diet kitty food and has limited feeding times.  Which means his entire day revolves around eating, or begging to be fed.  To make up for attacking other cats and other people, he attacks anything he can find, from my cactuses to sponges he finds in the bathroom.  Apollo seems to develop new habits or quirks on a daily basis, and provides me with an endless supply of stories and tales of his most recent adventures.  And by following this blog, you'll get to hear all about them!