09:
There are window installers here today (to install actual windows, not Windows software), and they are replacing all the windows on the back side of our house. As I mentioned last time, Wendy the Cat has a certain fascination with windows, curling in a kidney bean shape on their ledges, smudging her face on the glass so that it subsequently needs to be Windexed, eyeing the birds with an uncharacteristic alertness. So you’d think she’d be happy about the window installers paying a visit, but instead she has reacted only with fear. I guess she doesn’t know about their kind intentions of providing her newer, sparkling windows for her to smudge. It must be terrible to be a cat and to witness men ten times your size, wearing heavy boots and carrying heavy panes of glass, hammering and splintering the existing windows, using electric drills. She probably thinks they will stomp on her and drill her up and smash all the windows so that there are none left for her to look out from.
Copyright 2010 Nisee Made. All rights reserved.
When Window Installer #1 came to the door, she got scared of the doorbell and her ears went backwards, and then he came in and she darted to the dining room and hid on one of the dining table chairs, under the safe shadows of the tablecloth. Then she ran up the stairs and hid under my bed. Maybe I will give her a piece of gorgonzola cheese later. She was worse, though, last time, when the duct cleaners came with their giant vacuum hoses and suctioned up all the dust out of our ducts. She hid under one bed and another, as they went from room to room. She wouldn’t speak to me for hours. She thought she might be mistaken for dust, I suppose.
22:
This bi-weekly blog post will follow the adventures (and quiet musings) of Wendy the Cat. At fourteen pounds, she is slightly overweight but trying to make healthier choices. I found her at the Maryland SPCA, when I asked the volunteers to recommend a cat whose personality was firmly developed. As a “torbi,” a combination of a tortoiseshell and a tabby, Wendy possesses a rather unique coloring; her fur is orange and black and white arranged in odd patterns with an occasional discernible stripe. She is white-stomached and white-pawed. She is stoical, unfazed, but chases things when she thinks she has no witnesses. When she walks, she sways like a gypsy caravan.
Copyright 2010 Nisee Made. All rights reserved.
When I first took her home, I opened the window so that she could experience the world. I didn’t have screens, so I had to hold her the whole time to keep her from going on the roof. I feel that all creatures should be exposed to fresh air. This includes both me and the cat. The poor cat. She was all excited. But now that she knows there’s something out there past the glass, she keeps trying to escape. She’ll push at the window handle with her face. And a few weeks after that, she figured out that the front door of my apartment leads to another new place, and so she keeps trying to run out. She hides behind the door or covertly under a chair and then darts at my legs in an attempt to get past. Forgive me for getting philosophical about this, but I wonder if she has a concept of when the doors will stop – does she know that once she’s through the apartment door, she’s still indoors (in the building) and that there’s another door, and then once she’s out that door, does she know there are no more doors? She doesn’t – I mean, because if I had never shown her that the window or door could open, she wouldn’t have known, and would have stayed contentedly indoors forever.
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