Connected By Kittehs and Toilets

One of the nicest things about being a blogger is making blogging friends. Kate of High Altitude Gardening instigated my blogging. We'd been friends for several years before the rise of the blogs.

Then I met Cicada, who now goes by her real name Jess, the Bioephemera art and science blogger. I love her artwork and her sense of humor. Her blog can really make me think. She is one smart lady.

Now Kate and I have made e-friends with Iron Needles, who gardens and knits -- and spins and hikes and reads some of my favorite books and has similar views about politics. Today I visited her blog and saw a picture of her cat drinking from the dog's favorite water supply. It's always a shock when one catches the cat in such a position. Cats are supposed to be much too fastidious to drink from toilets. That's the dog's job.

The picture did, however, bring brightly to my mind memories of Brianna and her training of the Engineer.

Brianna came home with me from the pound as an orphan feral kitten. She was frightened of almost everything, especially shoes, but accepted me as her Mommy almost immediately. Perhaps the fact that I was barefoot most of the time helped. The Engineer is also a barefoot person when in the house, so he soon gained her trust and love as well.
Brianna quickly decided upon our sleeping arrangements; she demanded her own pillow laid longwise at the head of the bed between her two humans. If the bed was not made properly, she would pester me until I fixed it to her satisfaction.

She was a kitty who was fascinated by water from the get-go, She loved any flowing faucet, she supervised me in the shower and would hop on in after the water was turned off and the glass doors opened. She had a water fountain drinking dish. When she grew a little bigger and developed into a better jumper, she discovered toilets. They were such lovely large reservoirs of water. I didn't appreciate how much she liked toilets until the day I walked into my bathroom and her little head popped up over the rim. Yes, she was perched inside of the bowl, playing in the water.

That was the day my toilet lid closed forever (unless, of course, the toilet was being put to its intended use.)

The Engineer is a male who, like most males, has a Y-chromosomal aversion to shutting a toilet lid.

Often, during the night, when Bri decided she needed a little exercise, she would play in the Engineer's toilet. When she was done, she would come running back into the bedroom. leap up on the bed on the Engineer's side, and lovingly pat his face on her way back to her own pillow.

This tended to wake him up. So he would wake me up, "The cat got my face wet!"

I would laugh at him and tell him I was glad she'd wiped her paws on him before she got to me.

The Engineer would tell me to make her stop getting him wet.

I told him many, many times that if he shut the lid, he would no longer get his face painted with toilet water in the night.

It took about three months before he internalized that, but his toilet lid remains shut when not in use to this day.

I guess even PhD's can eventually learn new things.