This Is Him, Now

This cat.
Have I mentioned how much I love him?

We brought him home in May of 2008 - so he's a couple of months over two years old now. His personality has really come out over the last few years, and I want to take the time to remember what life was like living with Oscar in the here and now. With all the changes happening with us over the next twelve months, I have no doubt that he's going to be going through a lot of craziness himself, so it will be interesting to see how he takes it in his stride.

Oscar, you're so handsome.

• He sits with his paws tucked up underneath him, so quite often it looks like he has no legs.
• He has several favourite resting spots - the above picture shows one of them, which is next to our bed on the carpet near the window. You can usually find them by the amount of cat fur that has accumulated. Other locations include the arm of the lounge, the mat outside the bathroom door, the top of the treadmill, sprawled out on the wooden floors near the window and lying on Jason's laptop.
• He has to be locked away in our bedroom when it's time to cook or eat. He has no concept of the fact that human food is not cat food, and goes mental when he sees milk, butter or yoghurt.
• He will harass you for your breakfast cereal. He is unrelenting in his quest to EAT.
• Despite being a short haired cat, he is currently shedding. Everywhere. He adores being brushed and I have to vacuum a few times a week. It's possible that he's even shedding more than me - that's impressive.
• He's not a big cuddler. He'll choose when he wants them, and he'll let you know {aka he'll bite you} when he's done. If you pick him up at around dinner time, he will be patient with you and try his best not to bite, because he knows food is coming. We may or may not take advantage of this.
• He's vocal. Oh so vocal. You only have to open the fridge door and you'll find out for yourself.
• He wins visitors over fairly quickly. He's a fraidy cat at first, but he warms up quickly and becomes a bit nosey. His cute little white paws & nose smudge get talked about quite a lot and people think he is charming. {Until he starts stealing their food.} He likes to stalk people, and think it is all a big game.

• He knows when Jason is getting home from work. Despite our heavy apartment complex door opening and shutting loads of times during the day, he can always tell when it's going to be his daddy. He'll wait in the hallway just for him. But when I come home? He doesn't even bother jumping off the treadmill. 
• He is incredibly naughty. He knows when he's doing something wrong, and he'll give us this look of guilt before bolting.. only to come back and try it again to see what we'll do.
• He is also incredibly clever. He wakes us up at least once every night {okay, he wakes ME up, since the boy conveniently sleeps through it all} to have a 3am snack. His first trick to wake me up was climbing up onto the bookshelf next to our bed and subtly (!) knocking things off one at a time. We thought we were being clever too, and stacked our books in a way that he can't fit up there anymore - but he's just found that he can walk over to our cupboard and stomp around, which will make just as much noise. We've raised a monster.
• He knows his bedtime. Around 10pm every night, he'll come and sit directly in front of us and meow until someone gets up to feed him before bed.
• He has developed this super cute habit with me while I'm trying to make tea or coffee. He'll jump up on the counter and give him giant nose rubs/head bumps over and over again. While he's probably just being territorial about the food cupboards, I'm going to go ahead and say it's just because he loves me so much that he feels the need to Eskimo kiss my nose. SO CUTE.
• He'll happily sit at the window and watch the pigeons fly past for hours.
• Every night, we bring him into bed with us for family snuggles. Sometimes we make him dance for us. Mostly, he just sits and purrs. It doesn't last for long. Yes, we're THAT kind of family. 
• I have no shame in admitting that he's the most spoiled cat on the planet. He really, really is. 

Does your pet have any quirks that make them that little bit unique?