We had a new addition to our household a few months ago, who is bound and determined to push the limits on the laws of physics, and also to disprove the adage, "Curiosity killed the cat."
This should give all two or three of my loyal readers the idea: we have a small, bright-eyed black kitten whose curiosity knows no bounds, and who (so far) is completely fearless as she romps and plays and attacks and fights and carries on the active, busy life of a curious kitten.
First of all, there is the kitten's name, which is "Nigel". The kitten, by the way, is a female - but when my son, James, received the kitten and was told the name, he just grinned, and decided to keep the name. (His sisters are also of the opinion, this is a cool name for a little girl cat to have. I'm not so sure, myself; she doesn't really react to the name, but certainly knows she's being referred to when the word "CAT!" is yelled as she attempts to do some bad act.)
Nigel has some strange habits or likes. For one, she likes boxes, even partial boxes. For the longest time, we had this corner of a box that only had two sides (as opposed to a full four-walled box, which she also enjoys sitting in), and she occasionally goes over and sits in this corner piece. We also have a normal-shaped box that she will go and sit in, just for variety.
Her strangest thing she's begun doing is her fascination with water filling up a bath tub. We have one of those old-fashioned claw-foot antique bathtubs with a brass spout for filling the tub. When someone goes to have a bath, she'll come running, and will climb up on the end of tub above the taps to watch the water filling the tub; sometimes she'll reach down with a paw to where the water is coming out, and other times she'll very carefully walk around the perimeter of the top of the tub, watching the water curiously. She shows every indication of wanting to know just what's going on with that water, but so far she has enough coordination and grace to walk the tub's perimeter without falling into the water. I'm just waiting for the day when she looks down into the water and slips and falls in, so I can see her reaction to the water.
See, one of the ways we've found to discipline her from doing "bad" things is to spray her with water. She really does not like that, and will run off when you spray her; she's gotten to know and hate the water spray bottle to the point where I just have to point it at her and she'll scamper off.
Another fascination is with our DVD player. Virtually everytime I go to put a CD or DVD into it, she has to come over and watch the operation intently, as if trying to figure out how it works.
