Eli

I introduced the Hive community to Eli a couple of months ago, when my granddaughter was throwing a party in the basement. I was babysitting for Eli upstairs, in my office. Ordinarily, he is not welcome in that room because he gets into mischief.

Here's a picture from my earlier blog, with Eli feeling feisty, getting ready to jump on the refrigerator.

However, this feisty cat is invited to hang out upstairs in the hallway. That's what he did tonight. I captured a few photos of him chilling out.

Eli, I believe, is a domestic short-haired house cat. According to the ASPCA website, this is not really a breed, but a cat with mixed ancestry. The vast majority of cats in U.S. households are domestic short haired.

In the picture below, Eli is stretching. He is not a young cat, maybe fourteen years old, but is alert and spry. The ASPCA estimates the lifespan for this domestic cat to be between 12 and 14 years, but Eli doesn't show any sign of slowing down. And, I've had cats that lived much longer.

Notice how Eli keeps an eye on me in this picture. If I make a sudden move, he may pounce.

Here he seems to be resting on his leg. Or is he scratching his ear? That's my shadow on the right looming over him. I'm taking these shots with my cell phone.

Here's a brief video I uploaded to YouTube that shows Eli doing a little grooming. Eli is a clean cat.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EkcC3zJfEE4

Although Eli is welcome to hang out upstairs, he's not as welcome in my office or my husband's office. We only allow brief, supervised visits to these areas. Eli likes to sharpen his claws on our faux leather chairs. That is certainly not an approved behavior. Here he is coming to say hello to my husband. As long as my husband is sitting in his chair, it's safe from the claws.

In the next picture Eli is showing off the claws that do so much damage to our chairs. They also can do damage to our skin, when he takes a playful swat at us. He is a very friendly cat, but you never can truly relax with him. You never know when he's going to reach out and swat with those claws. I've had cats before, but never one that was inclined to do that. We have to warn visitors. He is so friendly, they let down their guard. We warn them not to :)

Here he is back in the hallway again. Basically, he's just being cute.

Here he is, relaxing again, but keeping his eye on me. He does have beautiful eyes, doesn't her?

And here he is eyeing a tall dresser in the hallway. He's quite a jumper and is probably trying to figure out if he can make it to the top of the dresser in one leap.

Another brief YouTube video showing him being the very clean cat that he is.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TRQS3ErPgXs

Here Eli is literally taking a cat nap. This nap didn't last long.

When he's ready, Eli decides the visit's over. Here he is eyeing the stairway. He did go down right after this shot, but immediately came back up and stayed a little while longer. He likes it when I spend time with him and chat.

All our pets are adopted--rescue animals. In Eli's case, he truly was a rescue. My daughter found him as a two-week old kitten, curled around a car engine. A neighbor, who knew my daughter took care of animals, alerted her to a meowing that was coming from under the car hood. Sure enough, there was a baby kitten. Eli was in good shape. He has had only one health scare in his life, a blockage that required surgery. Now he has a special diet and has thrived beautifully since.

Here is a picture of Eli as a kitten. Looks very intelligent, doesn't he?

I'll end with a picture of Eli in what may be his favorite place. This is the front window, downstairs. On sunny days he watches the street (very quiet) and takes in the rays. It was Christmas season when this picture was taken, and we had a tree in front of the window. The debris you see on the window seat is from the tree.

I hope you enjoyed this little visit with Eli. We'll have to come back in a couple of months and check up on him again.

Thank you for reading. Peace and health to all.