Tiki's Winter Nighty-Night Tips

Brrrrr. It’s getting wintry here in Southern California. It’s 12:30 a.m and it’s gone down to 59 degrees already! BRRR! In light of such cold weather, I thought I’d share my cold weather tips for cats, because I’ve been acting differently since it’s been colder. Actually a week ago it was almost 15 degrees colder, which is strange, but typical, of this desert SoCal weather.

The key is to sleep between your mommy’s knees. If you’re lucky enough to have a mommy like me who tends to sleep on her back naturally, you can wait until she fall asleep like I do, then sneak up from your place at the foot of the bed to the warmer place between her knees and calves and make a little nest there on top of the comforter. Trust me, she’ll think it’s so cute she will do everything she can to not turn over or move around if she can. If she moves too much, I let her know I don't like it by a quick meow. For some reason she thinks it's funny when I'm being "fussy." We’re lucky, being cats, our good looks get us a long way with our mommys (and daddys).

Later on in the night, like around 2 a.m., I like to move closer to mommy’s pillow and snuggle up to her there. It’s really warm there. I also, if I can, like to get up under all the covers. It's pretty neat under there, like a cave.

Fellow kitties, I hope you, too, can use my tips to keep yourself warm these winter months if you are lucky enough to be an inside cat.

Until next time, Tiki

Silver Lake Squirrel: Public Enemy No. 1

There is something that happens every day when mommy goes to work. The Silver Lake Squirrel appears.

I hate that darned squirrel.

He taunts me every weekday. Oddly enough, on the weekends he doesn’t bother me. Mom has only found out about him recently, on the days she is not at work. But it is like clockwork on the weekdays. “Teeeeekkkkkkkkeeeeeiiiii ... Come Out To Plllaayyy.”

He’s pretty big for a nasty rodent. I’d estimate he’s a good 6-7 lbs. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not a rodentist – some of my best friends are rodents – but this squirrel is just so … squirrelly. He just chirp-chirp-chirps at my windowsill until I go so crazy that I have to rise up on my back legs and body-slam into the glass so hard that, when mommy saw it for the first time, she worried that I was gonna break right on through. We do live in a 80 year old creaky bungalow that has not been maintained (yet it has a lot of “character”!) so it’s not out of the question that a 10 lb girl like me could crash through the glass like a big furry cat bullet.

Silver Lake Squirrel knows that I am an indoor cat. He knows that I can’t get to his sorry ass. He gets thisclose to my window perch and chirps “nah nah nah nah nah” because he knows I can’t get him. He loves it especially when he gets me so riled up that I try to crawl up the window screen when mom is here and she pulls me off and shuts the window to where I can’t get near him. When that happens, EVERY TIME he jumps to a nearby branch and just chitters and laughs at me.

Silver Lake Squirrel, you are no hipster like your neighbors. Your bushy tail is mine.