As many other catslaves have witnessed, a new kitten may show how lazy
the older cats have become in taking care of the greebling population.
Mere is no exception. This morning, she discovered the green greeblings
climbing all over my shower curtain. Here is a picture of Frank with the
self-same green monsters.

http://tinyurl.com/3zvmd

He always just looked at them, but never even tried to attack them.
Mere, OTOH, has been hunting them diligently ever since she discovered
the pesky things. She has also been hunting the under-the-rug greeblings
and the ones in the plant pots. The latter has taught her that when
Meowmie hisses, she'd better stop doing what she's doing (usually
sampling the leaves of the plant in the pot), or she will be attacked by
wadder monsters (spray bottle). The hiss is working pretty well. 'NO'
also gets a reaction.

Yesterday, I tricked her just a little. Frank was sitting and watching
her at a distance, and I pulled her rope snake towards him. She followed
it up to about a foot away from Frank, and never noticed she was so
close to him, though he kept warbling at her all the time. She was so
intent on the snake, but suddenly she looked up and saw Frank looming
over her. She gave one of her tiny hisses, and jumped back. But the
snake was still there, and it was soooo intriguing, she had to get
closer to it, so she danced back and forth, torn between the lure of the
 snake and her fear of Frank.

The snake is her favourite toy that she got to bring with her from home.
We've been playing fetch with it. I throw it, she dashes after it
(sometimes careening into the wall), grabs it by its 'neck', gives it a
quick shake to kill it, then brings it back to me. What a good little
hunter!

Mere likes to be on people. She likes to get there by climbing up them.
She doesn't just climb up my legs, sometimes she launches herself onto
my back and then climbs up on my shoulder. She's been doing this as long
as she's been able to (yes, that was her perched on my niece's back in
that one picture). I still can't get over how comfortable she is with
me. She gets in my lap and just nonchalantly lolls about, grooms herself
or sleeps. And purrs. Frank and Nikki were much more standoffish when
they were young. It's only during the last couple of years that they
started getting into my lap voluntarily.

Mere's remaining sister was rehomed the day after I fetched Mere, and
her remaining brother is staying with my niece. The day before I fetched
Mere, Kira had decided she's had enough of the kittens, and was hissing
at them and chasing them away, so it was the right time to take away
Mere. Kira is in heat now, but will be speyed on Friday. Hopefully she
will be more accepting towards her son after that. His new name is Emil.
He's a big boy, much larger than Mere, and he's a sweetie/hoolikitten
all rolled into one.

More of Mere later.