Past experience with cat-wrangling over the years have taught me one thing (amongst many): It doesn't matter what the object is, if human cares about it, cat will use said object as a cat would, in order to communicate with human.

Communications from cat tend to be along the lines of: I'm hungry, or in most cases, I want attention (play/stimulation).

Past objects observed: Keyboards, houseplants, pens & pencils, kitchen area counter and anything on it, pet ants, rock and fossil collection.. the list goes on.

And related to cat areas, the secret that I've found was to never rely on buying fancy cat furniture but rather making a unique spot for cat every few days. Blanket for comfort, areas always in sight range of the work desk but not in it (to be distracting for work). Bonus points if you visit and pet cat when they're sleeping in those spots to reinforce that this is their spot and all is well with safety and comfort.

And same for toys, makeshift toys are cheaper and more effective than overpriced pet store shenanigans (Eg: elastics, pieces of string tied together, sandwich bag clips, small bouncy toys). The secret there is also reinforcing playtime with those toys by simply playing with cat!

Edit: written with cat at arm's length distance in makeshift bed in a chair~

They are incredibly communicative animals. Their problem seems to be that I am a very stupid creature that often does the wrong thing, like not feeding them every time they’re hungry, sitting at a desk instead of playing with them, carrying them out of the room when they were clearly trying to get on the kitchen counter, and so on.

From my direct multi-year study, the surest way to have a cat not lay in a specific place is to place a fluffy cat bed in that place. Also, no toy is more precious to a cat than a non-toy item stolen from the hooman with hair ties being one of the most precious items.

My cats actually love their cat tree. I’ve had to replace it because they clawed through the scratching post legs (all the way through the cardboard underneath the sisal rope).

Knowing that they love rectangles explains a lot too. They love every Amazon box that arrives, the folded hand towel in the bathroom, the top of my pc mini tower (rectangular and warm). Though they get off the tower when I’m playing a game since the gpu heats up so much and the exhaust fans blow out the top—it just gets too hot for them. I made a “cat catcher for my bed—a single hand towel folded in half lying on the otherwise featureless comforter. There’s almost always a cat there when I wake up in the morning.

This desk might actually work for me since one of my cats loves to sleep right under my office chair, dangerously close to the wheels. He’s got real long hair and I find tufts of fur around the chair and feel absolutely horrible. Crazily I almost never notice when it happens, he doesn’t yelp! I finally ended up buying a small scratching post with a bed on top and set it under my desk. He instantly took to it, so no more running over the poor cat. As a bonus he’s now in petting reach so I can get my cat fix whenever I need (petting is a two way street).

Yeah after investing in countless cat toys from the pet store, I found out that my cat's favorites are (in no particular order):

- McDonald's paper straw

- Bird feather from outside

- Empty toilet paper roll

- Shoelace

- Strap of Velcro

- Bottle cap

I awoke this morning to newcat lapping from my bedside drinking glass (with a dash of tea/caffeine). She has two other waterbowls... but I guess is mad at me because the edible I ate last night caused me to sleep in too long for her breakfast likings.

Lil'shit knows this is not allowed, on a tabletop she's not allowed upon, no less!

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I'm not a cat person and somehow have inherited a black kitten from each parent.

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At least she didn't curl up napping upon my Apple Silicon (thankfully kess attractive than older Macbook AMD GPUs)... that's when I know I've actually fucked up #catWorld