Cats of War

A big move, particularly one which merges two well-equipped households into one, is quite a stressful event.

Big decisions have to be made, like: what to keep and what to throw out? Once most of the stuff has been dragged into the new home, how do you arrange yourself in a house full of carton boxes? And how do you eventually place the furniture? Really not an easy task and often enough a challenge that needs some good thinking and solid trial'n'error.

But apart from the obvious and less obvious physical, interpersonal and mental pain you have to go through, there are also utterly unexpected variables popping up which can be even harder to endure.

And sometimes this is brought upon you by two mere little kittens...

One of the things I love about the new apartment is the attic, which we have made our bedroom. As it turns out, a problem is that the staircase nicely channels all sounds from below, resulting in an advanced tapping system of the two floors below. This wouldn't be so bad, if the kittens weren't so highly active at night...

And right now, our place is of course a discovery wonderland for them: loads of boxes and bags, shelves and cupboards without content (easy to explore and interesting to jump inside) and of course a staircase which you can race up and down and up and down and up and down...
And then, should a cat get bored of these activities, there is still the cozy attic, where you can scuttle below the bed or - even better - jump on it and see what the big animals which hide under the sheets will do:

Will they move?
Will they groan?
Will they try and catch me?
Or will they pet me nicely?
Here goes nothing...

(Kitten logic)

Boy, this is tough!
And that's not all: when they get hungry in the morning, which can be any time between 5 am and 6:30 am, they will sing you a little "Feed-me" song and do a "Lord of the Dance" routine on your back.

I have been sleep deprived before, but within a few days these critters had me so far that I suggested to Lamia to move the bedroom from the attic to one of the other rooms. This way we would have a door to shut them the fuck out.

But then again, we do really like the attic...

We certainly do not want to lock them into a room, but I couldn't help wondering why we would not simply lock them out of the upper two floors. Tonight I hence tried to build an obstacle on the lower staircase, so they would not be able to come up.



The carton box is merely squeezed between the handrail and the wall, and you might guess that besides big, sad kitten eyes looking up and heartbreaking kitten sounds begging to be allowed upstairs, it took only a few minutes until this barrier was breached.
I set up another one on the second staircase, which of course was breached as well... at night, with considerable noise.

Darn!
I have not given up on the idea, though. We might be able to install one of those doors that people use to keep their toddlers from falling down the stairs. Maybe I can put one in the middle of the lower staircase?

We'll see...