This is almost exactly like my beloved BOINGY THING, except the color is different. It has a springy string that makes it go BOING in the air and so forth, and my monkeylady is careful to put the toy away so that I don’t chew on it and make the yak noise. Previously, the BOINGY THING had beads on it which would have tasted interesting but it stopped being boingy and so soon there was new one, heigh ho.

She should put the plant away, if you ask me. I’m frequently making the yak noise after investigating the plant.

I catch a lot of air when I really lose my dignity, but eventually I signal my boredom by pouncing decisively on the fishy and lying on it. Sadly, I have no front-knives and so catching it can be rather frustrating; thus it is quite satisfying when I do capture it. Fortunately the monkeys have not figured out how to capture ME with their camera-boxes mid-flight.

I have added a new CATegory as this post is related to my new pastime, tweeting. I am hoping that where there are tweets, birdies soon follow.

In my perusal of the Interwebs, I ran across this excellent guide for catpersons such as myself:

Toys
Any small item is a potential toy. If a human tries to confiscate it, this means that it is a good toy. Run with it under the bed. Look suitably outraged when the human grabs you and takes it away. Always watch where it is put so you can steal it later. Two reliable sources of toys are dresser tops and wastebaskets. There are several types of cat toys.

• Bright shiny things like keys, brooches, or coins should be hidden so that the other cat(s) or humans can’t play with them. They are generally good for playing hockey with on uncarpeted floors.
• Dangly and/or string-like things such as shoelaces, cords, gold chains, and dental floss (& Q-tips) also make excellent toys. They are favorites of humans who like to drag them across the floor for us to pounce on.
• When a string is dragged under a newspaper or throw rug, it magically becomes the Paper/Rug Mouse and should be killed at all costs. Take care, though. Humans are sneaky and will try to make you lose your dignity.

I had a sad lapse in dignity earlier this evening, as my monkeyman brought out the BOINGY THING!!1! and of course I had to humiliate myself leaping and capering about like a wackycat. Fortunately, it was rather dark and no photographic evidence exists of this failure to maintain my composure.

After my monkeys returned from their mysterious absence in far-away, fishy-smelling places, I proved my usefulness to the cavehold by stalking and securing a small intruder during those dark hours when they are unconscious. I brought it to my monkeylady, chattering a warning to her as I came up the stairs to the sleeping lair, and she promptly woke up, although clearly her grasp of the niceties of prize-accepting etiquette was not strong. She’s not the keenest knife in the paw, although loveable in her way… in any case she reached down to stroke my head while I tried to tell her of my triumph, and apparently the discovery of the intruder’s little feet (I held him quite securely) startled here.

There was a brief pause as she turned on lights, et cetera, and awakened the monkeyman (who is considerably less keen a blade on sudden wakefulness). She kept moving away from me, my monkeylady, and I followed closely so that I could lay the prize down for her approval.

Finally, she seemed ready to accept the gift, although she held one of her heavy feet-boot things ready to smack the thing as soon as I released it… I see there’s much room for improvement in her training there. For of course the intruder scampered away quite quickly, forcing me to chase after it (not unenjoyable in itself). The monkeys hooted and chattered to themselves as I captured and then released my prey a time or two, and then the little thing found refuge under a big wooden thing. The monkeyman fussed with a little piece of sticky cardboard under there, which I promptly investigated.

He actually shooed me away when the sticky pad-thing got stuck on my paw, but I forgave him eventually.

The next morning, the sticky thing had disappeared, and the intruder was gone from under the wooden thing. I surmise that it has been rather stealthily disposed in a refuse bin.

How rude, but then the monkeys are oddly squeamish about some matters of little or no consequence to seasoned hunters such as myself. I have already forgiven them, of course, and return their affection (but always in a dignified way).

Usually, these intruders work in pairs… and so I await developments with relish (and a nice Merlot).