Shiva and Pingu, or シバ と ピング
It's four in the morning. For kittens, this means it's time to wake up.
"Mom! MOM! I want to go out now! MOM!" Shiva, a gray, wire-haired tabby, meows. For emphasis, he adds in a good couple of scratches to the wallpaper near the door of the tiny dorm room.
Jillian, the "Mom" that Shiva is whining to, is fast asleep. Because she sleeps like a log, (and hogs the sheets,) she will not be roused from her peaceful slumber at this time.
Anthony, however, Jillian's significant other, is subject to Shiva's cries. Shivering, (due to lack of sheets) Anthony sleepily rolls out of bed, having no idea what time it is, and rubs his eyes.
"シバチャン。。。なんだ？” he asks, knowing full well what Shiva wants. Regardless, he attends to other things that one usually does upon waking up, then fills Shiva's dry food and water bowls.
"Listen, punk, I want to go out, I don't want... oh, that food actually looks pretty tasty." Shiva, fickle as a cat, (hehe) decides that eating is actually preferable to going out, and begins to feast on his fish-shaped bits of other kinds of meat.
Anthony, meanwhile, performs a few other daily chores. He cleans out the litter-box, straightens up the room a bit after hurricane Shiva's nightly destruction, then washes up a bit and brushes his teeth before crawling back into bed by the sound of Shiva's ferocious munching of those little fish-shaped morsels.
"何時ですか？” Jillian asks Anthony as he wraps his chilly arms around her warm, pajama-clad body. "Uh... I don't really know," he replies, "どして？” But Jillian never hears him, because she's already fallen back asleep.
As Anthony finally begins to doze off again, probably somewhere around 5:30, Shiva decides that it's time to play again - with Anthony's hair. Because Anthony's hair is fairly long, Shiva considers it fair game for all kinds of scratching, biting, and chewing fun. In a vain attempt to deter Shiva from ingesting unhealthy amounts of TRESemmé, Anthony unceremoniously tosses Shiva further down the bed, only to have the kitten return with an angry vengeance. Now he wants blood.
"シバ、だめ！いたい！” Anthony pleads as he fights for his life. He retreats beneath the covers, but Shiva, unrelenting, finds a vulnerable foot which he attempts to devour. "Nice try, but you won't get rid of me that easily!"
When Anthony desperately curls into the fetal position in a last-ditch effort to stave the mad kitten off, he accidentally bumps Jillian in the rear with his knee, waking her. "ああ！ごめんね。。。 シバ。。。” Jillian, understanding instantly, grabs the cat, sets him down off the side of the bed, and goes back to sleep.
Anthony, blinking in confusion, watches as Shiva apparently accepts this action as the decisive "playtime is over" maneuver. The now-calmed kitten wanders under the kotatsu, (a kind of low-table with a small heater underneath that has a blanket attached that drapes over the edges) and goes to sleep as well.
Despite how tired he feels, Anthony is now fully awake. Carefully and delicately, so as not to wake Jillian again, (although nothing short of another knee-in-the-rear is likely to wake her) he quite literally tip-toes between Jillian's limbs in their typical sleeping-sprawl and boots up Jillian's laptop.
Seizing the moment as a rare opportunity when Jillian and Shiva are both asleep, Anthony begins working on his blog. He sits cross-legged under the warm blankets of the kotatsu, and sets about writing long, overly detailed posts peppered with blurry, poorly-lit pictures he'd taken during his trip to Japan. Eventually, his knees and legs cramp up, so he stretches them out underneath the kotatsu, but in the process accidentally bumps and awakens the beast once again.
"Okay, now you've gone and done it..." Shiva grumbles, stretching out as well complete with a big, kitty yawn. He looks around, gathers his bearings, then promptly attacks Anthony's legs.
"Ow, geez! Shiva! だめ だめ だめ。。。” Again, Anthony is fighting for his life, trying foolishly to grab the cat who has latched himself pretty firmly onto Anthony's ankle. Jillian, awakened by the simultaneous sounds of her alarm clock going off and Anthony slamming his knee into the bottom of the kotatsu, rises slowly and bleary-eyed. Shiva, also startled by the beeping of the alarm clock, darts out from beneath the kotatsu, and looks up at Jillian expectantly.
"なぜ おきた？” Jillian asks Anthony, who is gently rubbing his knee with a grimace on his face. He looks at Jill, clearly confused. "Huh?" he asks, dumbly. "Why are you awake?" Jill repeats, although this time in English. "Oh, right," Anthony says as he returns his legs to the warmth of the kotatsu, watching Shiva warily as the kitten prowls about the room. "Couldn't sleep... uh, are you hungry?"
"A little," Jill replies, her eyes also on Shiva, who is now batting around a plastic ball with a souvenir pin inside purchased from a vending machine during Jill and Anthony's visit with their friend Charlie in Kobe. "Aw... look at him! Isn't he adorable?"
"Yeah, he's a plain bundle of joy." Anthony answers bitterly as he unfolds himself from beneath the kotatsu. He examines his leg and finds fresh scratch-marks, similar to the ones covering both Jillian and Anthony's hands and arms. "Do you want me to go get some breakfast?"
"I think we've still got some of that choco-bread," says Jill, as she stretches. She replaces Anthony at the spot in front of the laptop, then rubs Shiva behind the ears as she checks her e-mail. Shiva, naturally, begins to purr. He's always an angel right after the fact, of course.
"Oh, yeah. It's right here..." Anthony removes the bag of chocolate-chip bread sticks from the shelf, then examines them more closely. "Hrm..." he scratches his stubbled chin as he forms the sentence in Japanese, "Uh, あの。。。ちょっと。。。”
"何？” Jill asks, looking up from the laptop. Anthony is frowning. "ちょっと、uh, mold が ある、um, から。。。 たべられませんよおもいます。”
"Oh, it's moldy, so you don't think we can eat it?" Jill repeats. "Yeah, uh, I think that's what I was going for." Anthony sighs, tying the bag into a knot before tossing it into the combustible trash. "Do we have any of those fruit cups left?"
"Oh, yeah!" exclaims Jill as she opens her mini-fridge. An odd, slightly-fermented smell drifts out as she removes two cups from the multitude of veggies and leftovers packed into the tiny, well-used appliance. "Gah, I wish we knew what that smell was," she sets the cups on the table and looks up at Anthony, who is grabbing spoons.
"Me too. It's pretty... well, gross." He climbs over the bed, which is actually probably a fire-safety hazard, but he and Jill don't worry about it, and plops to Jillian's right on another edge of the kotatsu.
"Do you want mango, or peach?" Jill asks, taking a spoon. "I don't really mind. Well, you like the peach ones, right? So I can take the mango." Jill puts her hand on the mango cup, presumably to hand it to Anthony, but hesitates. "I do kind of eat the peach ones a lot, though, do you mind if I take the mango?" Anthony tilts his head as he stares at Jillian for a beat, then does that sort of exasperated smile-sigh one does when they're mildly frustrated with someone they care about, despite not having a really good reason for being frustrated. "Sure, that's fine."
The two slurp up their fruit cups while Shiva examines the sticky lids, then gets one stuck on his paw. The kitten freaks out, tries to shake the lid off, succeeds, then runs around the room wildly, knocking over a cup full of pencils and a book off the desk in the process. He then jumps onto the table, nearly getting the sticky fruit cup lid stuck on himself again, and finally settles down on Jillian's keyboard.
"シバ、だめ！” Jillian cries, trying to push him off of the keyboard. "What? It's warm here. Besides, you guys pay more attention to whatever this thing is than you do to me..." Shiva looks up at Jillian, innocently. "Anthony, could you...?" Anthony, spray-bottle already in hand, sneak attacks Shiva from behind, wetting his back with a little squirt of water. Shiva, however, ignores him. Anthony, confused, tries again, but to no avail. Finally, Shiva turns around, probably curious what the all the fuss is about, and is accidentally squirted square on the nose. He shakes his head, jumps off of the laptop, (somehow managing to turn the screen image at a 90 degree angle, change the font type to Japanese input, and open and close several internet browser windows in one fell swoop while the computer beeps multiple times in protest) and springs onto the bed, glaring at that wretched pink water bottle that Anthony seems to adore.
"ごめね、 シバチャン！” Jillian apologizes to the cat, before noticing the havoc Shiva has inflicted upon her laptop. "Oh, Shiva! What have you... wait, what!? How is this even possible!?"
Anthony, who has set the water bottle away, but is still keeping a close eye on Shiva, turns to Jill, sighing. "What'd he do this time?"
"I don't even... well, look!" Jill turns the laptop to face Anthony, who has to crane his neck to understand what's happened. "He... what? He turned rotated the screen some how?" Anthony scratches his head in confusion. "I know! It's all sideways!" Jill cries, squinting at Shiva with angry eyes. "Cat... how do you even...?"
Shiva, having no idea what the other two are so concerned about, returns to batting around the little plastic ball. "I'm gonna get you, you little ball!" Shiva says to the ball. The ball does not reply, since plastic balls with souvenir pins don't typically have a larynx, at least not to my knowledge. Then again, I guess it's entirely possible that little plastic balls have another method of communication that I'm not aware of. It probably isn't fair to assume otherwise, (You know what they say assuming makes you and me) but in the scheme of things, it probably isn't really all that important.
While Jill fiddles with the computer screen, which is really difficult since the mouse-alignment is also screwed up, Anthony tosses another ball to Shiva before tidying up a bit, making sure to get rid of the sticky lid that started the whole mess.
Jillian, sighing in frustration, gets up from the computer and opens the closet, getting some clothes prepared for the day. "Well, we'll have to worry about it later... we need to get ready for class. Shit! I also need to give Shiva his medicine." Anthony, peeking out from the bathroom, mumbles something incomprehensible due to the toothbrush in his mouth.
"何？” Jill asks, as she putters about the room looking for socks. Anthony's face appears from around the corner again, now toothbrush free. "Sorry, uh, what time is class?"
Shiva, who has been batting around the little plastic spheres has somehow succeeded in pushing them both under the bed, which doesn't actually seem physically possible, since the space between the bed in relation to the diameter of one of the plastic balls... well, it just doesn't work out.
"Oh, it's at..." Jillian begins to respond, but disappears behind the open door of her dressed as she changes her clothes.
"Jill? You didn't actually finish that sentence out loud... could you grab my jacket while you're in there?" Anthony asks as he digs around in the pile of laundry on the bed for something decent to wear - preferably not the same outfit he wore yesterday, although the clothes from the day before would probably be okay, if he could find them.
"Sorry! Class is at 8:40. We probably need to go soon." Jill says as she closes the closet door. She tosses Anthony his jacket, then straightens her hair. "What time is it now?"
"Um, I don't know. Lemme check." Anthony leans over the bed to check the alarm clock. "Oh, it's like... ８時はん." He climbs back, then looks at Jill, who is getting Shiva's medicine from the refrigerator.
"Wait, it's 8:30? We need to go! I'll give Shiva his medicine really quick, and then feed him." Shiva who has been trying desperately to retrieve the little plastic balls from underneath the bed, meows up at Jill in confusion and defeat. "Mom, Mom! Where are my little balls? I cannot find them!" (This, however, is before Shiva has had his little operation, so this joke isn't quite as funny... yet) Jill, ignoring Shiva's question, since despite her phenomenal animal empathy skills she still doesn't quite understand Cat, scoops up Shiva (No easy task) and takes him to the bathroom, which involves some squeezing past Anthony through a tiny, tiny hall. She applies the medicine, which is done by putting a tiny drop of some yellow substance in each of Shiva's nostrils.
"Well, really it's like, 8:27, but... oh, class is at 8:40! Yeah, we do need to go!" Anthony scrambles about the room gathering pencils and his notebook, as well as Jill's wallet, jacket and bag of school supplies. "Jill, I've got your stuff! I'll meet you outside?" He makes his way to the door, arms full of stuff.
"Honey, could you...?" Jillian begins, still wrestling with Shiva in the bathroom. Anthony waits for a moment for Jill to finish, then after about twenty seconds grows impatient. "何？ Could I...? Could I what, Jill?"
Jill, appearing from the bathroom with Shiva in her arms, squeezes past Anthony again and makes for the fridge. "I was gonna ask you to grab his food, but I realized that I hafta put his medicine away anyway." Jillian explains, replacing Shiva's medicine in the fridge and retrieving a packet of wet food - Shiva's reward for going through the medicine applying process.
"Mom, Mom! I get wet food now, right? Please give me tasty, delicious, wet food!" Shiva meows near his food dish as he paces around, impatient. "Jill, I'm gonna slip out while he's distracted, okay?" Anthony says as he inches towards the door, arms still full of stuff. The food-bait tactic to keep Shiva inside while they're gone is a normal morning routine for Anthony and Jillian, in order to keep Shiva from being discovered by larger, meaner cats.
"Okay, I'll see you out there." says Jill, who is putting Shiva's food in its dish. "Good job, シバチャン. You're getting so good at taking your medicine now! Stay here while we go out, okay?"
"Yeah, don't get into too much trouble while we're gone, cat. We'll be back soon." advises Anthony before exiting quickly who, despite their issues, really does love that cat.
"Man, when they get back, I am gonna bite that guy's ankles so hard..." thinks Shiva as he devours his meal, then climbs up on the bed and promptly falls asleep, as is his post-meal ritual.
Shiva, the Sleepy Kitty
Author's Notes: So, this for me is a nice little break from the usual blog monotony. This is all pretty much based on the usual morning for Jill and I here at Miyazaki, although I've embellished a bit, of course. The 90 degrees rotation thing with the laptop did actually happen, but we managed to fix it. (Thank goodness) After writing this, I realized that I made Jill seem maybe a little difficult to deal with and me seem kind of mean. I'd like to think that we're not actually like that, these are just characters with the same names as us and put in the exact same situation, after all, right? Unfortunately, I'm really not much of a morning person, (Which is why most of my blog posts happen at like, 1:00 in the morning or so) and because of Shiva's antics and cramped sleeping, the word I use to describe how I feel most often is ねむい、or NeMuI, which means "tired."
Please don't think I'm whining, though! Things work out okay, and I manage to fit in little naps here and there. In all seriousness, Jillian is a darling, and I'm happy to be here with her and Shiva. Morning can be a little difficult, but we make it through things okay! We do speak in that odd sort of broken Japanese that is sometimes characteristic of American anime fans, but we also study the language more seriously during the day as well. ("How do you say, 'useful' again? Was it 'yaku ni tarimasu,' or 'yaku ni tachimasu'?" "Uh... I thought it was the latter, but now that you said "tarimasu," I'm not too sure... let's check the dictionary...)
A concern my Grandmother had about Shiva is whether or not he'll respond to Japanese or English commands. I'm pretty sure that the concern is fairly moot, since the only "commands "Shiva really seems to respond to are the spray bottle of the sound his food makes when shaken. If he does have some base understanding of language aside from our tones when we yell at him or whatever, the poor thing is probably thoroughly confused by the varying English and Japanese Jill and I try to speak to each other.
Shiva, unfortunately, has recently been diagnosed with the Feline Leukemia Virus, which is usually fatal within three years. Jillian made a more detailed post about the vet visit here. Because this virus is not only really dangerous for cats, but also highly contagious, we're worried that we may not be able to take Shiva back to the states with us as originally planned. If anyone knows anything about how we could treat him or possibly get him back home with us, we'd be really, really grateful. However, if things are as I fear, and bringing him back to the states is going to be simply impossible, we're determined to give him the best life we can while we're here with him.
So! Until next time! The next post is going to be a sort of time-warp post, I think. Instead of writing about the stuff I said I was going to write about, I'll be writing about something else as usual. This time, I'll be skipping ahead a few weeks. Jill and I went to Kagoshima yesterday, so the next blog post will be about that. (There will be pictures, too! WIN) ttfn~
Please don't think I'm whining, though! Things work out okay, and I manage to fit in little naps here and there. In all seriousness, Jillian is a darling, and I'm happy to be here with her and Shiva. Morning can be a little difficult, but we make it through things okay! We do speak in that odd sort of broken Japanese that is sometimes characteristic of American anime fans, but we also study the language more seriously during the day as well. ("How do you say, 'useful' again? Was it 'yaku ni tarimasu,' or 'yaku ni tachimasu'?" "Uh... I thought it was the latter, but now that you said "tarimasu," I'm not too sure... let's check the dictionary...)
A concern my Grandmother had about Shiva is whether or not he'll respond to Japanese or English commands. I'm pretty sure that the concern is fairly moot, since the only "commands "Shiva really seems to respond to are the spray bottle of the sound his food makes when shaken. If he does have some base understanding of language aside from our tones when we yell at him or whatever, the poor thing is probably thoroughly confused by the varying English and Japanese Jill and I try to speak to each other.
Shiva, unfortunately, has recently been diagnosed with the Feline Leukemia Virus, which is usually fatal within three years. Jillian made a more detailed post about the vet visit here. Because this virus is not only really dangerous for cats, but also highly contagious, we're worried that we may not be able to take Shiva back to the states with us as originally planned. If anyone knows anything about how we could treat him or possibly get him back home with us, we'd be really, really grateful. However, if things are as I fear, and bringing him back to the states is going to be simply impossible, we're determined to give him the best life we can while we're here with him.
So! Until next time! The next post is going to be a sort of time-warp post, I think. Instead of writing about the stuff I said I was going to write about, I'll be writing about something else as usual. This time, I'll be skipping ahead a few weeks. Jill and I went to Kagoshima yesterday, so the next blog post will be about that. (There will be pictures, too! WIN) ttfn~
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