on a very rare occasion, sumi allowed me to take pictures of her last night. usually, as soon as she hears the beep of my camera turning on, she'll pose in the most adorable position, and as soon as i'm about to snap the picture, walk away. and on the times i try to catch her when she's sleeping, somehow she just knows i'm going to take a picture of her, and she'll wake up and move. smarty kat.

and i have yet to figure out how to configure the shutter speed on my camera to take action pictures. most pictures i try to take of sumi tossing about her toys come out blurried and smudged.

i consider sumi a very spoiled cat. but then again, what cat isn't? but as spoiled as she is, she is very simple to please, toy-wise. just ball up a piece of paper, throw it across the room, and she could play with it for hours. or, if i really wanted to indulge her, i could just give her an entire roll of paper towels and she could shred it to her heart's content.

she also seems to like bags. the bigger the better, but even small ones will do. she tosses about in them and hides in them. she especially likes the handles of the bags, always going through them and occasionally getting stuck. it's cute to watch her walk away with the bag still attached to her, but it's never long before mommy comes to the rescue.

jon and i have spent a considerable amount of money on store-bought toys that end of being rejected and ignored. on the left is the booda soft bite terry elephant that jon bought. it doesn't get played with that often. very rarely actually. we chose it because of its cuteness and softness and also because it had catnip in it. unfortunately, catnip doesn't faze sumi as it does with other cats.

on the right is the petzone fish race n' chase which was supposed to (and i quote) "capture the imagination of curious kitties, the race n' chase cat toy is an action-packed adventure. the stuffed mouse or fish makes crinkling and rattling sounds as your cat chases it. just when she thinks it's been captured, it goes spinning out of reach again. features 3 side and 3 top openings to keep things interesting." yep. and she never ever played with the stupid thing. the only time she stuck her paw in it was to grab a treat that i would put in it to entice her. i even rubbed treats on the fish so that the smell would tempt her to play with it. that didn't work at all. after a year of neglect, i ended up giving it to a friend of mine who has three cats. they love it. at least my $15.00 dollars was finally put to good use. come to think of it. i can't believe i spent $15.00 on it. but with that description, how could i not have been sold. too bad sumi wasn't.

you'd think we learn to stop buying her toys after the failure with the race n' chase toy. but, no. i love spoiling sumi. the next thing we bought her was a punch-ball, which is the photo on the left. i figured it was a classic cat toy, how could she not like it? ha ha. aren't i stupid? she'll play with it once in awhile, but only when i play with it with her. she likes it when i make it boing. but usually she'll just run up to it, sniff it and, maybe if i'm lucky, nibble on it, and then walk away.

on the right is the smartykat flutterball. i tied it to an elastic string and connected it to a wand that suctions to the window. she plays with this time to time when she's cruising on the bed. it's fun to watch when she gets really into it. she can get very acrobatic.

the only store-bought toy that she consistently plays with is the ourpets play-n-squeak mouse that i bought her. in the beginning it was the neatest thing. when ever she pounced on it or batted it, it would squeak. then after awhile, it got kind of annoying. it's not so fun waking up in the middle of the night to continuous squeaking. now, i'm used to the sound and it doesn't bother me in my sleep anymore. its ears are now more like tufted horns than cute li'l mousy ears. and it's now more matty than furry. but who am i to complain as long as she plays with it.

owari.