Very Restless Natives

Neo & Nikita

Since Nikita's last projectile pukey episode several weeks ago, the kids have been on a new feeding plan.

No longer do we leave kitty kibble out for grazing - cats aren't grazers by nature, though if you try to tell Neo (aka Medicine Ball) that, he'll slap your big human face.

They get two hearty meals a day - a bit of kibble and some very delicious-smelling ground up fish in a can. Mmm mmm mmm mmm MMM!

While this new routine is supposedly much healthier for them (they haven't yet told me if they feel more cat-like and better nourished), it's created another new routine.

Every morning the bed is covered in cats, starting around 6:30am. They assemble and parade all over everything until we get up, their way of letting us know it's TIME FOR BREAKFAST, BITCHES. NOW.

They've always been helpful in waking us up early in the morning, but now they do it with so much more purpose. You have to admire their tenacity. They will wear you down until you put some damn food in their damn bowls.

In the afternoon, as it gets closer to 3pm, they begin to follow me wherever I go, maybe just in case I have their food in my pocket - they'll be right there in case I decide to feed them on the couch, or in the bathroom, or on top of the clean laundry.

And as the clock approaches 5pm, the hour we decided best for their dinnertime, they collect around me like a tiny gang of cat thugs, staring at me and maneuvering closer and closer to me as time ticks down to the magical hour.

If I'm working on my laptop, usually standing up at the pub table in the bar, one will sit on the chair behind me, one will sit directly behind the laptop, and the third will sit on the bar next to the chair - each no more than 1 foot away from me.

If I do not acknowledge their presence, especially the one directly behind me on the chair, he/she will proceed to "climb" up my back and rest forepaws there until I turn around.

There are times I've given into them way earlier than 5pm, because they all have very sharp teeth and dozens of claws between them.

If they manage to trip me in just the right spot, I'm done for. And then David comes home late from work and finds them snacking on my face.

Ninja (El Retardo, Chimpee the Ass Monkey, Big Walking Rug, and a number of other nicknames)

Neo, Program Director

Neo in his favorite chair, San Mateo, 2001

We live with gifted creatures. Intelligent beyond our understanding, we're lucky they tolerate us and our Neanderthal ways.

The oldest, Ninja, enjoys accosting expensive gabardine trench coats and sleeping smack in the middle of the floor in a high-traffic area. Some of his favorite toys are air, lint, plastic bags and socks.

His younger sister, Nikita, likes to enforce strict bedtimes by standing on your chest, obstructing your view of the book you were trying to read. She'll do this until you give in and turn off the light, then she'll leave.

Then there's Neo. Neo isn't so much a cat as he is a muppet, a bear cub, and a bulldog in the shape and form of a cat. He runs the house and there's no way he's not getting what he wants when he wants it the way he wants it.

The other morning at 4:30 a.m. he paid us a visit in bed demanding attention. He doesn't just jump up on the bed and meow. He jumps up onto the foot of the bed and walks up David's side, meowing all the way up to the headboard where he stands on top of the books, meowing and rubbing his cheeks on the bindings as they slide this way and that off the headboard.

He'll stay there until I can get my hand up to pull him down onto the bed, where he'll sometimes settle on the fleecey blanket near my feet, but oftentimes he'll make several more laps around the bed, meowing, rubbing, and walking on your hair.

He made another lap and as I tried to get him down, he stepped onto my clock radio, which has several buttons on top of it. One turns on the radio, one turns it off, one is the snooze and one turns on the CD player.

I heard the buttons clicking and started to get annoyed. I was struggling to get my hand around his shoulder to pull him toward me and called his name loud enough to rouse David. Now we were both awake at 4:30 a.m. and annoyed at Neo for being a giant needy baby.

As I tried to wrangle him off the radio he stepped onto the CD Play button and a second later we heard the soothing Sounds of Nature's ocean waves. As he jumped onto the bed, David and I simultaneously said, "Hey, that sounds nice..." and put our heads right back down on the pillows and back to sleep.