Did you know you could fly

So yesterday, I see Fiona staring intently a what appears to be a blank stretch of bathroom floor. I take a closer look, and realise she's happened upon one of those tiny little spider-like bug things that are about the size of a period/full stop and just tend to show up every now and then. Cats with bugs can be quite amusing, and since the presence of the tiny critter doesn't bother me too much, I settle down to watch.

She circles it for awhile. Bats at it with her paw. And then she leans in to get a good sniff. Unfortunately, she gets a little too close and ends up with it on her nose. She rears back and thus commences the most amusing little panicked cat dance as the poor frightened thing crawls all over her face trying to get away and she ends up attempting catch it with her tongue.

I'm still not sure if she ever got it or if it just fell off :)

Cat dominance plays are interesting to watch. Whereas originally, Fiona was the dominant of the twins, Finnegan has recently taken over that place. He was the runt of the litter but he's grown fast and filled out and is now the same size as his sister. He's also much bolder. Several times in the last few weeks I've seen him walk over to Fiona and grab her neck in his teeth without warning. He'll hold on for a minute or so and then let go and start licking her face. The first couple times she tried to get the upper hand, but now she just sits back and lets him do his little ritual.

It's really neat watching the whole Pride interact. Sometimes I feel like I'm being included in some rare tribal culture.

In other news, I really need to come up with a name for the collective entity that is Finnegan-and-Fiona other than "the kittens" which doesn't really fit them any more. They've gotten *so* big. Finnegan has definitely outgrown his status as the runt of the litter, and is at least the same size as Fiona, maybe a bit bigger. They're both, at 6 months, almost as big as Fionnuala, who is the smallest of my full-grown cats. And they have about 6 more months of growing left to do. I figure they'll end up somewhere around Robin's size (size-wise the adult cats are, in order, Fionnuala, Siobhán, Robin, and Ciara).

Currently, Fiona is in the metaphorical dog-house for constantly digging the broccoli from my beef-and-broccoli Chinese dinner last night out of the trashcan (I'm not a big fan of broccoli), licking the sauce off, and leaving the actual vegetables on the floor for me to step on. After the first time I buried it further down, but then she only knocked over the trashcan to get to it.

Those two are complete terrors, I tell you. They neither of them have any shame. Last night I found Robin and Ciara with their noses in the bathroom cabinet (which had been closed initially). I asked them in a stern voice what they thought they were doing, and both had the grace to start guiltily and trip over each other in their impatience to get away from the scene of the crime. A moment later, Finnegan sticks his nose *out of* the cabinet, looks at me, and then calmly steps down to go twine around my ankles. No shame at all.

Kittens do not find mini marshmallows appetising. They do, however, find them much fun to play with and will, given the opportunity, remove them from the bag and spread them all over the apartment.