July 30, 2008

The trouble with cats is, they're nocturnal. Well, let me modify that statement: A certain cat, Bessie by name, is particularly nocturnal. Ginger and Cinnamon, being of mature years (14, and almost 14, respectively), need their sleep.

All the cats seem to sleep from about late morning until late afternoon. Bessie tears around from late afternoon until........well, who knows? There was one skirmish during the night, brief and fairly quiet, with Ginger. Then Bessie did her usual jump-up-and-perch-on-the-upper-window-ledge-like-a-parrot thing off and on. She was silhouetted against the window and did, indeed, look just like a parrot. She's most appreciative that, in this warm weather, we leave the bedroom windows and the blinds open in the night.

Last night, when I went up to bed, Bessie was in the guest-room and Ginger was next to the bed in our room. They were looking at each other, quietly, although Ginger's tail was swishing, but not fanned out (which usually means trouble). I was cautioning Ginger to stay calm when, all of a sudden, Bessie came charging at her! Ginger hissed and went to pounce, Bessie went charging down the stairs, Ginger lay back down, and Bessie, in the blink of an eye, was right back up the stairs, sticking her head around to look at Ginger. This went on 3 or 4 more times: Ginger hissing her down, Bessie back right up, etc. I think Bessie looked upon it as a game. Ginger was not so kindly disposed.

Bessie was in our bathroom this morning when Cinnamon ventured out and was about to do his usual morning thing of coming in and drinking from the sink, when he espied Bessie. He immediately slunk back under the bed, with Bessie right after him, sticking her head almost under the bed. There was a low growl and she backed away.

By the way, these days Bessie has almost complete run of our bedroom, as indeed she has of the entire rest of the house, whereas at the outset she was pretty much kept out of there by a sustained effort on Ginger's part.

I was able to eat all my breakfast on my own this morning, not without a fair amount of effort on my part. Because your cat has been so poorly disciplined, she doesn't know that she should not come up on the kitchen table. However, because I'm such a wuss, I don't discipline her either! She wanted to know what I was eating (my daily cereal with coffee yogurt and blueberries) and all but stuck her nose right in it. When I moved the bowl away, she simply lay flat out right in front of me. We nuzzled noses a bit and then I went back to eating, albeit with me holding the bowl in the air! After I'd eaten and scraped the bowl, she was allowed to lick up the remaining tiny bit of yogurt that was left. You have a very sophisticated cat: how many others would want to eat coffee yogurt!

This just in from Daddy/Norman: "I'm walking from the kitchen to the stairs which means I am passing through the den, when all of a sudden, I am ATTACKED at ankle-height by this ferocious killer cat who had been lying in wait for her prey to pass. She grabs my ankle, then, in a flash, darts away. She is on every horizontal surface in the house: entertainment unit, dining room table, window ledge facing the yard, this desk, in front of the screen, etc."