I’m going to keep this short because I have to pet my black kitties and walk under a few ladders in honor of this superstitious day.

You’ve probably heard from a lot of people that you should wash your hands often for 20 seconds. Well, if you are curious about how to do a GOOD job that takes no time at all, check out this video put out by Big Picture Science. They got their information from the CDC, so I’m all over it. Plus, it’s a lot more fun to do more than just move your hands back and forth, trying to remember which song you are supposed to sing.

Happy Friday the 13th from Hela and Alfred, who wash their paws all the time.

But this blog has a no negativity rule, so I’m challenging myself to write something positive about daylight saving time (as opposed to the ten rotten things I could list if this wasn’t a no complaining zone.) Here I go.

My cats don’t know that we changed our clocks, so they still meow at the same time each morning, but now it is an hour later.

That’s all I’ve got.

My hubby used to be a dog person, like an “all cats should die” dog person. Now he is a cat person! So when he heard about a podcast discussing cat behavior, he sent it to me.

Short Wave is a ten-minute, daily, scienced-based, NPR podcast, not much different than my podcast (except sponsored by NPR, so the podcasters get paid.) Both podcasts encourage people to feed their curiosity, and each episode is on a different topic.

If you think cats are the best, take a listen to this episode of Short Wave. If you believe dogs rule and cats drool, you still might like this episode because some of the hosts are dog people.

And of course, if you like Short Wave, you should try the Footle and Grok Podcast. I’ll have to do a cat episode someday.

I think they are in their teenage years, so they cause a lot of trouble and don’t listen to a word I say. They seem to like doing this a night, when I’m trying to sleep. So, I’m a little tired, but it’s nothing that a good nap won’t cure.

Naps are curious things. We make children take them, but we often deny ourselves the same luxury. Studies show that naps are important, but it’s difficult to sleep on the job.

Take a nap if you need it. I might need it until my kittens become cats and figure out that they are supposed to sleep twenty-two hours a day.

“I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four.” Yogi Berra

I have three kittens as all my readers know, and honestly, I don’t want to answer their questions. They’d probably ask things like, “Why can’t I go outside even though it scares me?” or “Why can’t I destroy the couch/carpeting/paperwork?”

The answer to these questions should be obvious. (The answer is “Because I said so” in case it wasn’t obvious.)

Now, if they asked me, “Can I go on vacation with you?” or “Can I sleep with you if I promise to be calm?” I would gladly answer, “Yes!”

But I know my cats, and the only thing going through their minds are, “What can I get away with?” They already know the answer is “nothing” because I am always watching.

Still, they are cute, and it might be fun to have a conversation with them. However, I want to ask my kittens a few questions of my own, like “I know you know your names, why don’t you respond when I use them?” and “You know you’re NOT supposed to get on the counter (I can tell this by their guilty faces), so why do you?”

They probably think these are dumb questions, but I feel knowing the answers would improve our relationship. I guess I’ll never know because unless Phineas and Ferb bring their animal translation machine over to my house, the cats and I are going to continue to befuddle each other.

Every cat I’ve had loved to either walk across my laptop or lay on the keyboard. Nowadays, I turn off my computer whenever I am not using it so that my three kittens can’t delete anything important (this happened with a previous cat.)

However, when I’m actually using my laptop, I move the cats away from the keyboard and plead with them to walk behind the screen, not in front of it.

Still, things happen, sometimes bad, sometimes neutral, sometimes good. Last week, Hela stepped on my keyboard, and a screen popped up. It was shortcuts for Gmail. Thanks, kitty.

The keyboard shortcuts aren’t that useful for me, but the phone shortcuts are neat. I’m sharing this link so you can learn a helpful shortcut too. Thank my cat.

When I was growing up, we removed the decorations on New Year’s Day. Dad would be home to help with the tree and outdoor lights. We’d put away all the ornaments while watching the Rose Parade, then Dad would haul out the tree while Mom vacuumed up the needles. By the afternoon, the house was back to normal.

Nowadays, I have no problem undecorating on December 26, but this year I was busy visiting friends and haven’t done anything. Today is the day. I can’t wait any longer.

First of all, I want to give my home a good cleaning. An easy time to do that is when the decorations are gone, but the everyday decorations haven’t been replaced. Also, my five-month-old kittens keep knocking the sheep off my nativity, and I’m tired of them ignoring me when I tell them to leave baby Jesus alone.

By the way, if you want to declutter, get a cat. I now have bare surfaces on my tables and bookshelves because the cats love to knock things off, both on purpose and by accident. To save my knick-knacks and my sanity, I cleared everying before my three cute terrors could break them.

So my question for you is this – when do you undecorate your house? December 26? January 1? Twelfth Night? Valentine’s Day? Let me know, and we’ll see what is most popular.

I knew Hela was going to be a Slytherin, and she was. I thought either Chewie or Alfred would be a Gryffindor, but Alfred turned out to be a Hufflepuff, and Chewie is a Ravenclaw. I think Chewie is a Gryffinclaw (Gryffindor and Ravenclaw), but that wasn’t an option.

You can sort your animals, too. I used Buzzfeed quizzes because I find them more reliable than others. There is one for cats and one for dogs. If you have a different pet, they have one for general pets.

I used the cat one for my three cats. Just to test the general pet one, I redid Chewie. He got Ravenclaw again, so I guess that’s his house. I’m a Ravenclaw, so I know it’s the best.

If you sort your pet, let me know what house they end up in. I’m still looking for a Gryffindor.

We’ve made progress since we fogged the house while the kittens were at the vet. They also have flea collars and have stopped scratching.

I realized I know nothing about fleas. They may be a pest, but they’re still animals just trying to live and reproduce. I hope these flea facts don’t gross you out. They may be fascinating, but I still want them out of my house.

Fun Flea Facts (or not so fun) [From ThoughtCo.]

• Fleas transmitted the Black Death. We blame the rats, but it was really the fleas. The plague that the fleas carried would kill the rats, and then the fleas would start chewing on humans, thus spreading the plague to them. Getting rid of the rats got rid of the fleas.
• Fleas can lay up to fifty eggs a day and 2,000 eggs in their lifespan.
• An adult flea may take as many as fifteen blood meals in a single day.
• Fleas are smooth and skinny, so they can slide through animal hair without getting tangled up.
• There are over 2,500 species of fleas with 325 in the contiguous United States.
• Almost all fleas in homes are cat fleas, Ctenocephalides felis. Despite the name, these fleas feed on dogs too.
• Dinosaurs had fleas too. These fleas were .8 inches long and had mouthparts large enough to pierce dinosaur skin. However, they couldn’t jump.
• Today’s fleas can jump 12 inches forward or upward. That’s about 150 times its own height.

I’m at a friend’s house and Magic (a large black cat with a short tail) decided to write my blog post for me. Thus the 2w on the first line. I left it there as a reminder that we should all back up our computers in case a cat gets ahold of our keyboards and wreaks havoc.

Many years ago, I had a cat named Sheridan. He wasn’t the smartest animal out there, but he laid on my keyboard and managed to delete an app off the desktop. From then on keyboards were off-limits to all animals.

So back up your computer. Do not delay. Do it today. And keep your cats away from the keyboard unless you want them to write your posts for you.