Hazel thinks she’s a gerbil. Like most cats, if there’s a box, she wants in it, no matter how small.
But then she chews it up. Chews it up and tosses the chewed off bits all over the table. (you can just make
out the cardboard debris in the left foreground of the top photo.)
It is about time to retire this rather decimated running shoe box.
That’s not that unusual (for a cat). Our 16-year-old kitty has done that her entire life. We think she was weaned too early.
It may be worth noting, however, that ours is also a tortoise-shell calico. (And calicoes are, by definition, weird.)
She’s a very pretty little girl. I would suggest leaving the box alone until she decides it has had enough.
djm
There’s a level of sauciness in kitties of this coloration that often exceeds the average.
What a handsome cat, and a worthy ornament for your home! Color-coordinated, too. Or maybe to hear your cat tell it, your home’s the worthy ornament for her.
I’ve always been bemused by that compulsion cats have for making particular things special places to sit even if the choice is just a scrap of paper or a coat sleeve. But, they somehow exalt it. All the world’s a dais.
Friends of ours had a cat who was not allowed to set foot on the dining room table. The cat was perfectly aware of this rule, and he never broke it. Put a piece of paper on the table, however, and it instantly became a cat bed. He wasn’t, technically speaking, standing on the table, you see.
Right, cats do seem to think like lawyers, don’t they. Clever little things. As to the general phenomenon, mine’s content to sit on the floor, but put out a plastic shopping bag on the same floor, and she’s on it straightaway, looking coronated. It’s…special.
Our guys live in paper bags, I have to remember not to take my own cloth bags shopping sometimes to keep their supply up. They will haul them around to where we are so we can tap the sides of the bags for their attack pleasure. The older dogs recognize this behavior as abnormal, not so the puppy. She is now too big for a bag but she continues to carry one around like the cats. Where did I go wrong! 
Huh. My present one won’t haul squat. She requires that I offer things, or she’ll do just fine without, thank you very much.
I did once have a cat that liked to play fetch with his toys, not unlike a dog.
Hazel plays a form of fetch which bears more resemblance to a baby which has tired of its applesauce.
Waiting until someone is within noticing distance, she begins to knock every object off the table onto the floor,
always checking to make sure you appreciated each splat, then she stares at you defiantly.
Our guys, past and present, have always played fetch. But our last girl was the best, she would do a sit-stay until released. Pulled a turkey off the counter one time and dragged it to me, it out weighed her 5 to 1 easily.
Hey emm, when you typed that subject line, did you say “neener, neener, neener” afterwards? 
No…I feared being so bold, thinking I’d most likely be proven wrong.
You want cat weirdness? When I was young, we had a tomcat named Jumper. He got that name by frequently leaping into the air in a futile attempt to catch airplanes flying overhead. Jets. At high altitude. I have no idea what he thought he’d do with a 727 if he caught it.
Hey Emm:
My Mom called, she wants her tablecloth back. What the heck are you doing with that thing? Your house always looks so tasteful in photos, what ever possessed you to buy that tablecloth? I can’t tell from the photo but it looks like a plastic flannel back. Well, what is your explanation child?
Explanation? That I’m a bit of a slob, and that my children are even worse? (actually, kind of a lot worse.) That underneath the tablecloth is a table pad on top of a lovely Stickley butterfly-joint table which we bought at a warehouse sale? That we do things like make cookies, spill cereal, construct school projects or other crafty things all over that table?
Oh…and that we let a naughty cat run all over it spewing bits of cardboard?
Your mother may not have it back, but I will consider a trade if she has one without kitty claw pricks all over it.
Lookee:
p.s.: you have not seen the wall at the top of those stairs to the right where, a few years ago, I painted poster-sized swatches of 6 or 7 paint samples so that we could pick one. The wall is still exactly that–a patchwork of paint swatches. Some day I will hire a painter since the wanna-be architect hubby built the space with a million-foot-high ceilings upstairs a la Frank Lloyd Wright–The Oak Park Days, and I don’t want to paint from 20 feet, or whatever it is, in the air.
I think Stickley would love that use of his table.
“The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.”
My cat does that! I think it’s because if something is on the table then it’s mine, but he thinks if it’s on the floor then it should be his. So his solution is to knock everything that rolls or is shiny onto the floor so he can fully inspect it and chase it round the flat.
He also sits on any newspaper or magazine I happen to be reading.
Now, ladies. I’ve never claimed primacy in the weird cat department.
But here’s my contribution for the day: Mubu was just now galloping wildly around the apartment and yowling (singing, I think it is, as she seems to want nothing in particular when she does it), and then plop went out cold sleeping as if dead by the radiator. No half measures for that girl.
“Hey, look what I caught!!”