Why I am blogging at 12:45 am, not snoring.

Faithful Minions will recall that I have two cats.

This is Flashes, doing what he does best, which is being sweet. (Yes, it's an old picture.)

And this is Notamus, cute little fuzzy forked tail and horns not shown.

I ate pancakes for dinner, then took my vitamins and went to bed. About ten minutes after I snuggled down into my comforter, Notamus started yowling.

I do not know why.

He made noises like a bandersnatch with bowel trouble, stopping only when I called and chirruped to him from the bed.

He came into the bedroom but did not settle down. Instead, he made those adorable chirping, half-purr, half-meow noises that kitties make when they're feeling curious about something.

Then he started in on the closet door. Now, Notamus's favorite sport is to yank the closet door open if I don't shut it completely and pull all my scrubs down of their hangers, onto the floor, and roll on them. So I keep the closet door shut tight.

But it's an old house, and "tight" in an old house doesn't really mean "tight".

"Chrrrr? Chrrrr? Row? Chrrrr?"

*rattlerattlerattlerattlerattlerattlerattle*

"Mrow? Chrrr? Chrrrrrr? Mrow?"

*rattlerattlerattlerattlerattlerattle*

Flashes got off my leg, looked over at his brother, wondered aloud why brother Notamus was trying to take the closet door off the hinges, shrugged, and laid back down.

At which point Notamus decided that the ten-yard-dash from bedroom down hallway through kitchen and into storage room was the correct way to blow off frustrations.

Over and over and over.

I have an old house. It's pretty tight, but "tight" in an old house isn't *tight*. The wooden floors make noises when you walk on them. When a speeding twelve-pound cat puts his feet down as hard as he possibly can while running on them, they sound like a badly-tuned xylophone.

So I got up, wandered into the kitchen to have a glass of water and a cracker (the vitamins were making me queasy)--just in time to see the Notamus Acrobatic Show start. Thankfully, that only lasted until he fell off the kitchen windowsill and into the sink.

You're probably wondering at this point why I didn't lock him up in the utility room with the catboxes and the food and water. It's because I also have open shelves in there, and didn't want to awaken in the morning to hideous distruction. But, to continue:

After he fell off the kitchen windowsill, I went back to bed. Notamus went into the bathroom.

I have one of those nonslip mats in the bathtub. It's the kind you buy at Target that looks like little clear pebbles of various sizes, with spaces between. It sticks to the bathtub with teeny suction cups that make a pleasant POP when a cat gets his paw in a space and pulls up.

Notamus was enchanted.

"Chrrrr? Chrrrr? Mrow?"

POP POP POP POP POP POP scrabble scrabble POP POP POP

...aaaaand repeat.

Flashes is still asleep on my bed. Notamus just went to lie down on Max's bed. I'm going to go try to get some sleep now.

If I don't, I might have a new fur hat in time for Christmas.