Playtime with Fidgy-Pie

For FattyPants-Fidg, playtime can come in an infinite number of forms, ranging between the categories of "mild intrigue" to "hey cat, that's a really bad idea."  There is no object that cannot be considered a toy, and no living being that cannot be clawed, licked, bitten or meowed at to the point of breaking down and involuntarily becoming a playmate.  Henry's idea of playtime is much more sedate.  It consists of  watching birds out of the window, and staring at the ceiling, where the baby geckos who have infiltrated my house like to taunt him from.

Fidget, I'm fairly certain, would either cry until he was hoarse or try to pull his own fur out if I tried to get him to sit still and simply look at something.  Instead I've come to realize that calmness and peace are not attributes that Fatty will ever possess, therefore I embrace him for who he is and indulge his weird taste in toys.

Fidgy-Pie has only one favorite toy, and remarkably, it really is a cat toy.  It's a toy from several Christmases ago, one that was given to him by a friend and former roomie.  One that has been chomped on, drooled on, stomped on and thrown about so fiercly it's an entirely different shade of green than when it first was presented to him.  I refer to it as Fidget's "Number One," or will tell him to "go get his Riker."  He has an oddly obsessive relationship with Number One, and rarely goes to sleep without it, the way a child might demand a particular teddy bear at night.  It is a frequent occurance that I'll find Number One under my pillow or in my blankets in the morning.  There was also one time when I woke up with it in my hand.  Here is Fidget and his beloved Riker:

But Fidg-Face, being ever unconventional, refuses every other toy I've ever bought him.  Henry will occasionally go pick something out of the toy bin, but Fidget merely stalks by the little wicker basket in disdain.  Instead, he prefers to play with things that were never meant to be used as toys.  In the past month, some items and activities of choice have been...



My dog:

 

(I don't know why these videos are sideways, I have no idea how to fix them and I'm tired of wrassling with it, so STHU.)

Concrete Forming Tubes:

Clothes hangers:



My hand:



The blankets:

Getting creative with his stroller (No, I did not put him in there.  That is all Fatty's own doing.):

Trying to take my phone while I'm trying to take pictures of him:





Even while sleeping, his favorite game is stretching out to his full length of almost 3 feet, bracing himself against the wall and kicking me repeatedly--sometimes to the point where I wake up entirely sideways, sleeping horizantally while Fidget rests comfortably on my pillow (my pillow is the brown blob to the right in the photo):



What does Henry think of his baby brother's incessant antics?  Ridiculous.

The only good thing about Fidgy-Widgy's unbounded supply of energy, is that by the end of the day, he's completely exhausted, and sleeps all through the night, only waking up when my alarm clock goes off.

While Henry-Muffins is most certainly not a morning cat, hating to be woken abruptly, and not *truly* awake until around noon (sort of like my sister...), Fidget is not a night cat.  When it's bedtime, it's bedtime, and Fidget is the sole voice of when "bedtime" takes place.  He lays down, closes his eyes, purrs for almost 4 minutes exactly, and is then gone.  Gone to some wonderful dream land, where he is King of the Front Yard, and can chase and chomp on as many crickets and leafy objects as he wishes.  If by some regretable circumstance I have to disturb the Stripey Beast, he is generally quite crabby.

Such is the hard-knock life of my certain stripey cat.