Tuesday, July 15, 2014

When we went to bed last night, I fell asleep on top of the covers and left the window open. The temperature went down quite a bit and I awoke and finally went under the covers. A little while later it seems that Tommy was also feeling chilled because suddenly I felt a warm little fur ball against my leg. Throughout the night she spent time under and on top of the covers and up near the top of the bed on just the fitted sheet near my head.

The day began well.  Tommy got her morning “rub down” and then we settled into the routine of making coffee and completing the puzzles. I’m now able to keep the study door open as it isn't much of a novelty anymore and Tommy usually only goes in there when I go in to work on the computer.

She still tends to follow me around first thing in the morning, but isn't yelling at me all the time.  It’s actually pretty nice to have her at my side in the morning. When I went to shower she headed into her usual spot to wait. She sits in the bin of sweater vests, but I put it on a bottom cubby so it would be easy for her to access it. As always when I turned off the shower and stepped out to towel off, there was Tommy “reminding” me to hurry up and finish.

The rest of the morning was pretty uneventful. I needed to leave around 9:30 to go to a neighbors for coffee and conversation and I wasn't sure how Tommy would handle being alone in the morning.  I was gone until almost one o’clock. I’m not sure how cats handle time spans. Do they know the difference between one hour and three hours?

When I returned she was waiting at the bedroom door. When I opened the door she came out and only yelled for a moment or two. I went in and added food and water to her dishes. She then jumped up and the bed and just looked at me.  What had I forgotten?  I hadn't given her a treat for being a good girl while I was gone.  Once that was handled all was well and we caught up with some television and computer time.

Little did she know that I would be leaving again at 5:15. When she woke from her afternoon nap I made sure that we had some play time. Although I tried to engage her in play, she really wasn't interested.  She didn’t even want to run after the light from the flashlight. When I left at 5:15, she was sitting on the bed and seemed content.

When I returned about 9:30 I found that her mood had changed. She spent more time than usual yelling at me and tried to bite me twice when I petted her. She was in her usual position for petting her chest and neck and didn’t give me any hostile verbal cues, so I thought I read her mood correctly.  As always when the biting attempt occurred, I said “Ouch,” and left the room.

As I sat alone in the bedroom watching the news, I sensed that she was taking much longer than usual to “atone for her sins.”  Both times I spied her sitting under a dining room chair. It took quite a while for her to finally enter the bedroom the first time.  The second time, I was ready for bed and needed to close the bedroom door, but if I closed it with her in the dining room, she wouldn't have access to food or her litter box. I decided to bring her into the bedroom.
During that time I also found a slightly shredded roll of toilet paper in the bathroom. Tommy had not shown any interest in the toilet paper roll, so I thought that it would be safe to put the next roll up on the toilet since the other roll was nearly depleted. She did shred part of it. After I cleaned up I was glad that I had purchased a Cottonelle storage container on eBay like the one in the guest bathroom. It arrives on Thursday, so it was an opportune purchase.

She wasn't pleased to be in the bedroom and we finally both fell asleep. I was at least happy that she didn't go under the bed. She stayed on top of the bed, but started the evening far away from me.  I think that as the night progresses she will end up in her usual position next to me.