Me with Hal
Originally uploaded by me.

Spoonin'.

OK, so this photo was a little bit staged. As there are usually no witnesses to this phenomenon, I had to take advantage of it when Hal was in a snuggling mood while I had a friend over. But it really was morning, and I hadn't combed my hair yet. Anyway, more proof that I have a great cuddly cat, we sleep like this all the time. On the flip side, this is why I live on over-the-counter allergy drugs.

Those who have met Hal usually deem him one of the dumber cats they've encountered after knowing him for a few minutes. He's huge, he's goofy, and he persists in doing things that aren't good for him. However, he occasionally has shining moments of cat genius, like last night for instance. We got a new type of fish-flavored cat treats a few weeks ago (free in the bin of Tidy Cat.) They have the slightly over-the-top name of "Aquari-Yums," and they come in a plastic screwtop bottle. I figured this was a good thing, as Hal will chew through the plastic/foil packets of our usual treat brand if he can get hold of them. So the other night I opened the Aquari-Yums and gave him and Harper a sample. They went over well, and I screwed the top back on and put the bottle on my bedside table. No worries. Then last night, I'm sitting on the couch and I hear Hal scratching around in the bedroom. I figure he's probably just in the sandbox; he can be pretty industrious, so I didn't think much about it until the scratching and thumping had gone on for several minutes. I was just getting ready to go see what the hell was up when he came bouncing into the living room with a piece of green plastic in his mouth, which he dropped in front of me and then looked up expectantly. It was the screwtop to the treat jar. I went in the bedroom, and he had knocked the bottle off the table and into the trash can, where it landed upright; apparently he'd gotten the lid off, but still couldn't get at the treats because the bottle didn't fall over. So he came out to request my assistance in his crime--"Hey, hi, I got this thing off, but there's something still not right here, could you give me a hand?" It worked, of course, I rewarded his ingenuity before moving the jar (lid restored) to a new undisclosed location. Wow, though. What a cat.

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