Swirl scared me today. I didn't expect him in the dryer...it brought back the horrible memory of my dear cat, Charlie, and his tumble in the dryer. Thankfully my parents realized he was in there and he didn't die. But he was injured. Dad lied and said he fell down the steps. Mom woke up and told me the truth.

Swirl is very silly, the dryer wasn't even warm...those clothes have been in there all week so it was probably cold. 

Well Swirl’s tower has finally arrived.  We got it Monday and it was really easy to put together.  Eric and I did in in less than a half hour. I guess this officially makes the crazy cat lady, but whatever. Swirl didn’t really know what to do at first.  I tried putting him on it but he jumped right off.  We tried to bribe him by putting treats on the lower levels and his night time food on another level.  Still he had no interest in it at all. That was not a good sign.  Actually he sat on the floor and glared at me when I put his food on the new tower. I’m sure he was thinking, “You evil bitch, how dare you put my food in a place I can’t reach it”. It really made me sad, I spent all this money on this new toy and Swirl prefers the old one.  Great, another piece of useless furniture taking up space in the house.  So last night, I switch the spots of the new tower with the other tower.  At first Swirl sat on his old tower glaring at me, he was pissed because I moved his old tower away from the window.   After a little coaxing with the rope toy on the new tower, Swirl finally got interested in it. And after that he started climbing the tower, sitting in the little house or on one of the platform, looking outside. He seems to love it now.  He hasn’t ventured up higher than the house part, but we are working on it…I hope my silly cat isn’t afraid of heights! I’m sure in the beginning he probably thought he wasn’t allowed on it or something. Who knows, but doesn’t this look like a cat who loves his new tower?

Swirl is quite an entertaining cat. Yesterday Swirl displayed his thieving skills. First, I was eating a Chicken Caesar Sandwich and Swirl stole my lettuce. He stole the lettuce when I was taking a BITE! Crazy cat. He ate the lettuce even though it was covered in Caesar dressing.  Next I was sorting music for my concert today and he took off with one of the pieces. I'm not sure why he is obsessed with paper.  We have to flip all the Kleenex box over because he was shredding the Kleenex.  Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of his thieving activities. I could take a picture of my "angel" sleeping, but there are enough of those out here.

So my concert today is in Hopkins. It is the annual Hopkins Raspberry Festival.  The funny thing is I've never seen Raspberries for sale at this festival. You go to the Broiler Days and you get chicken, go to Cheese Fest, you get cheese, you go to Raspberry festival...no raspberries.  LOL!  Every year they have the "Festival of Bands."  5 or 6 area community bands play for an hour each. We have played almost every year. Usually it is hot but today it isn't too bad.  Thankfully!

Speaking of hot, this week has been quite hot and humid.  You would think I would have spent it at the water park, but alas no.  Eric went to school every day to work on his paper.  That means I've been riding the bus home. :( I'm so spoiled being picked up every day that riding the bus seems uncool. Eric has class today.  Poor guy.  So I've been a widow all week and weekend. 

Apparently Abbie is spending the night tonight. She has state soccer in Hugo today and tomorrow she is doing something at Canterbury Park. 

Well maybe I'll go for a bike now.   I was going to earlier but it was raining. 

Ok, Swirl, I get it. The birds are making noise outside so you think it is time we wake up. BUT it is 5am. I still have another hour of sleep so STOP MEOWING!  And it wasn’t the ordinary meowing, it was that LOUD, deep, whiny meow with his friendly bee in his mouth so it sounds really gargled.  It almost sounds like a crying baby.

Swirl has a habit of doing this in the evening.  He constantly meows as he brings his bee upstairs.  He doesn’t stop meowing until he comes into our bedroom and we say “Good job Swirl.” Then he spits out the bee on the floor (directly in footpath to the bathroom so I get to step on it in the middle of the night). If we don’t say “good job Swirl,” he continues to meow. It doesn’t matter where in the house the bee is at the time he starts this process.  If it is already in our bedroom, he will come get it, go downstairs and start the long, loud trek up the steps to the bedroom.

Swirl really loves his bee. It has been all over the house. On the bed, in the bathroom, on the steps, in the living room, on his recliner.  And it is always moving around the house, but we never see him move it. It is really weird.  The bee could be on the floor in the living room when we go for our evening walk and by the time we come home 30 minutes later it will be in some other completely different place.  He doesn’t like to move it when we are around…except for 10pm at night.  And when I hear him coming up the steps and peak outside to see him, he spits it out turns his head around and acts like nothing just happened.  “Nothing to see here.” We aren’t really sure if he always meows like this when he is moving it around when we aren’t home. Or if that meowing is just for our “benefit.”   

I’m hoping this morning was just a one off and he won’t be doing it again, but if this becomes a habit, I might have to take the bee away at night. 

What a goofy cat!  Nonetheless, he is our Swirl.

Swirl put his head up for the picture but he had his head down staring at the floor...probably thinking whoa is me!

Swirl really likes sitting on my lap, but when the computer is on my lap, he sits on the computer instead. This is one of the few times that my hands were not under him so I was able to take a picture. Apparently he is saying I have played enough Candy Crush for one day. :)

For as much as I talk about Swirl being a bad cat, he is sweet sometimes. How could you say no to a face like this?

 

While I was eating Cheetos, Swirl kept pawing my hand. Finally he got fed up with me not giving him any so he just stuck his head in the bag. Crazy cat!

I'm tempted to rename this blog to The Bad Cat and post pictures of Swirl being bad.

Swirl sat like this for over an hour, staring at me. I'm sure he was plotting how to kill me.

If you think I'm joking, you should read this book: How to Tell If Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You

Now that we are filed, I can finally put this picture out here.  A couple weeks ago, I brought home a draft of our annual report to read.  If you have never read annual report, you don’t know what you are missing. It is EXCITING. So I was sitting on the couch reading and Swirl curled up and fell asleep on the pages I had finished.  He felt the same way about the reading as I did. :)

He earns his keep

Typical male…it's hard to see but he is trying to figure out how to turn the page on the swimsuit issue.  I wouldn't have taken him as a Kate Upton fan.

Swirl is a very strange cat. For the first 7 or 8 years of his life he was a quiet cat, he barely meowed except when he had his toy bee in his mouth.  Lately though he has been very vocal. Swirl loves to chew on the crown of pineapples. I'm not sure why but he goes nuts for it.  Yesterday I bought a pineapple and I put it in the fridge. As I was putting away the other groceries, I turned around and he jumped in the fridge!  Of course I snapped a picture before I kicked him out. After that he stared at the fridge and meowed.  What a crazy cat!

Then I moved the pineapple up a shelf....

We finally filed our 10-Q on Wednesday.  Wow was that a long, crazy day.  It was pretty horrible but we are done for another quarter. We also finished our year end stuff on Wednesday too.  So now I can look forward to vacation!!  Speaking of vacation, I requested another half day in May and my boss’ response was “Are you working any days in May?” and then she chuckles.  After the last 4 months at work, especially the last 3 weeks, I REALLY can’t wait for vacation.
  

Also on Wednesday, DJ and Beth visited on Wednesday.  Abbie had attended a concert at the Varsity Club in Dinkytown (near the U of M) and DJ was the chauffeur.   Per Beth’s request, we had Chinese for dinner.

Eric had his first soccer games of the season on Thursday.  I meet Mom and her crazy sisters Bev, Grace and Alice at Mystic Lake for dinner. It was nice to see them all again. It has been ages since I’ve seen Alice.  They didn’t win but they had fun.  I had to run to band practice after that.  Only 3 more rehearsals for the season and then it is the summer concerts.

Friday I went with Greg, Celeste and Evelyn to get our flowers that we planted a few weeks back. They look nice but I thought they would look better than they actually do.  We also went to Quizno’s for dinner.  Yum, I love Quiznos.  That makes it official. I ate out every night this week.  I’m so bad!

Yesterday, Eric and I went to the Zoo.  It was another gray and cloudy day with storms in the west but we managed to see the whole zoo before the rain set in.  Nothing too exciting at the zoo, the animals were not as active as they were a couple weeks ago. 

Today has been a cleaning and planting day.  Eric went to the Avengers movie; I went to Lowes and bought a lot of flowers.  I actually bought too many flowers.  Oh well I found place for them.  They look great.  I also cleaned the garage.  It is so nice again. And I put away the winter stuff.  Space Saver bags are my friends…fill the bag with coats, scarfs, gloves, and hats and vacuum it up. It becomes really small and flat.  Sweet!

Swirl is having a great week.  The weather has been nice enough so that the windows can be open. The birds have been going nuts outside our window and Swirl is crouching down and then pounces on at the window.  It is quite funny to watch.  He wiggles his butt and tail, crouches down and then springs into action.  Hence the title…it’s a play on words from the movie “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” I’ve never seen the movie but it seemed like a fitting description of Swirl’s actions.

Swirl "mating" socks

Swirl "pressing" towels

Swirl didn't like Eric's Birthday Present...