adventures with kittens: hide and seek

Brian brought me something tiny and furry last night. Forget jewelry, THAT's love. Meet Penny:

Pretty much everyone who knows me knows that I am a cat person. Like the most cat person of cat people. I wish I could post a picture of me with the last kitten I got, when I was 9 and my full-blown awkward stage was blooming, but said picture is at Chez Mom & Dad. (By the by, the last kitten I got is now the cat I still have, although he resides at my parents’ house. His name is Mischief and he is getting old, has been fat, and is recovering from feline diabetes. I love him.) Anyway, I hope this sketch will give you an idea of what it looked like:

 

But back to the new bundle of joy. Immediately upon being let out of her carrier, she made a mad dash for the tiny space under the heater, where she tried to stay all evening (except we kept pulling her out to pet/snuggle, which she would tolerate for approximately thirty seconds, then as soon as she could, run back to her heater haven).

Bedtime: before hitting the hay we decide to look for her again, to be sure she's not trapped or something. She's not in her usual haunts, which at this point include under the heater, under the couch… pretty much anywhere she can be “under.” However, she’s not in any of them. Finally I find her behind our printer, standing on her hind legs between the printer and the wall. She seems very alarmed to be found in this position.

2 a.m.: Brian, who is suffering from a raging case of indigestion and can't sleep, wakes me up for a kitten scavenger hunt. She's not in her carrier/bed, or under anything… Brian eventually points her out to me, on the desk behind our picture frames. She is adorable. We are slightly perplexed as to how she got on the desk, since I doubt she can jump that high yet. She seems too sleepy to care that we’ve found her in this position.

4 a.m.: Brian, who at this point has given up on sleep, wakes me up again to extract the kitten from behind the bookshelf, where he worries she will get stuck and/or pee on things that will be hard for us to clean. She seems pissed that we have found her in this position and are making her leave it.

5 a.m.: I wake up to find Brian is still awake and he informs me that the kitten is being unusually affectionate. I find her laying on top of the printer (a new favorite spot, at least for this hour). I put her on the desk and she proceeds to mew, purr, rub against my hands and climb all over me. Eeeeeee!!! Happiness. Pure happiness.

Unfortunately, once she’d had enough of that she retreated to under the bookshelf, where she is now ignoring me. She plays me so hot and cold.

EDIT: Picture acquired.

WHAT. ARE. THOSE. SHORTS?!?!?!