The Cat Sat on my Homework, Professor

It's official - Jelly Belly is now a member of our family. No sooner did I complete the adoption than she started sporadically romping with Baby. I've seen her do it twice this week now! That's great. Jelly is starting to come around. I feel like the proud Mom.

It's really hard to get anything done around here, what with having two profoundly spoiled kitties. I have a small, windowless, room at home that I call my office. It is where I do my job (what's left of it) and my homework. I have a stand-up workstation, which is simply a tall desk that I can stand at to work, or sit at in a tall chair. It's better for the lower back.

Baby has always gotten up on the desk with me when I settle in to do my work. I don't know what it is about paper and books, but cats love to use them as beds and pillows. So I'm constantly removing Baby from my homework or my laptop. Poor Jelly is too chubby to jump up on the desk. So she usually meows for attention from her spot on the floor next to my chair. If I don't pet her, she gets up on her hind legs and reaches up to me on the chair seat. She wants to be scratched.

For a while, that drove me crazy. She whined and whined. Recently I found the solution: I pick her up and put her on the desk too. With two cats, a laptop, and the keyboard/mouse for my desktop computer, there is little room for work. So I squeeze my reading materials in, between cats, and try to get some work done. God forbid I get up and walk away for a minute, because I'll come back to find a cat sprawled out on my homework.

Yesterday I was trying to finish reading my Computer Law assignment from the electronic evidence Search and Seizure Manual. I was forced to come to a stop when Jelly settled in on Chapter 2, as so:

I got up and went around the corner to grab my digital camera. Within moments, Baby had joined her:

What was I to do? I didn't have to do much because, before I knew it, they were fighting over my law binder, which I found to be quite hysterical. (Baby: "Don't you raise your paw at me, Sista!")


Eventually, Baby gave up and left. The only way I knew to get rid of Jelly was to leave the room because eventually she follows me to wherever I may be in our small apartment. Only then could I finish my homework assignment!


A couple days earlier I was reading the big fat CISSP book by Shon Harris for my Protection of Info Systems class when Jelly fell asleep on my notebook, proving that the highly technical topic of cryptography is equally stimulating to her.

At the same time, I think the CISSP Exam Cram book killed Baby:


It's amazing I get anything done at all, what with the constant activity on my desk!