More on cat
We went away for a couple of days, and when we returned there was no sign of the real cat, but the spirit cat put in an appearance and sat on my feet briefly. So it's still around, but I suspect that I might only notice it when I know for sure that the real cat is not also nearby. The real cat came by after a day or so. We're now feeding it regularly. I have some misgivings about this, as it seems to be very much a fairweather friend. Literally - if it's sunny, the cat comes and sleeps on our couch, but if it's raining or windy it finds some other bolthole. I figure if it was truly a stray then we'd see it during the rough weather - our patio is sheltered from the wind and completely dry, and the couch and cushion (cushion now allocated solely to the cat) are always in place and comfortable. The fact that I never (or rarely) see it when a storm front crosses over suggests that it has a place to go to that is *more* comfortable or warmer than this, and that's not how I'd describe the alley outside. It also vanishes if we feed it - after gobbling the food, of course. As if it figures that now it's got what it wants out of us, it's time to go beg at the next door. But still. We have a cat-guest, and it does appear to be hungry above and beyond the mien of starvation any respectable feline can adopt when the smell of frying bacon and roasting chicken fills the air. (There are downsides to living immediately above a delicatessen, and one of them is that no sensible cat will believe you when you tell them you're vegetarian.)
Case in point for the hunger: W let it in the other afternoon. He called out "I'm letting the cat in", I took the baby on my lap. Cat followed him in, investigated us, hung out on the sunny floor after being discouraged from trying to share my lap. A few minutes later I looked up and realised the cat was no longer there. I handed the baby to W and went for a little look, then came back to the living room and said to W "You know how you tend to leave leftover food all over your computer desk?" And he does, he always serves himself more than he will eat and the remainders can stay on his desk for as long as two weeks. It's a habit I have chosen not to ask for change, and just accept that occasionally I'll have to open the windows before I can work at my desk. W looked at me sheepishly and said "That's one of those things I'm going to have to change now, isn't it?". When I grinned, he started thinking out loud. "Well, there was a tiny bit of curry, and a very old half of a cheese sandwich, and...". I interrupted and said, trying not to laugh, "The cheese sandwich is now strewn in pieces across the floor, being guarded by a cat who is managing to simultaneously look completely guilty and totally possessive. It is now *it's* cheese sandwich, back off or else." We left it be, and W picked up the remains later. It had eaten all the cheese and most of the bread, which is impressive given how old the thing was.
So I have begun training it to be good around the baby. Baby is on floor a lot, in the warmest and softest spaces, and in the centre of attention, which is exactly where the cat wants to be. Generally I don't have the two of them on the same surface, but the exception is when I'm hanging out the laundry. So I decided to use this as my training ground. The cat very quickly got the idea of not standing on the baby. And, as cats will, started pushing this rule by walking around the baby in such a way that its feet were always next to the baby and not on it, and it just happened that its body would be going across the baby's head, but it Wasn't Standing On The Baby. So I made the next rule, which is that the baby's mat is always out of bounds. No walking on the mat. I'm reinforcing this by making sure (for now) that the baby is always on the same mat, too, so it's easy to identify. The cat was smart enough to start to get this rule pretty quickly too. So then its next trick was to very carefully put its feet Right Next To But Not On The Mat, See, and then roll. Rolling onto that so-desirable mat, of course. But its Feet Weren't On The Mat. It seemed quite disappointed that I didn't fall for this. I am still working out the best way to discourage it from lolling around with its feet by the baby's head, as it's enough of a kitten to like to grab and play with things with its claws. In that vein I almost had the cat problem completely solved today when it tried sinking its claws into a live electrical cord while I was ironing. But I caught that in time. Or maybe claws just aren't that great a conductor even at 240V.
Case in point for the hunger: W let it in the other afternoon. He called out "I'm letting the cat in", I took the baby on my lap. Cat followed him in, investigated us, hung out on the sunny floor after being discouraged from trying to share my lap. A few minutes later I looked up and realised the cat was no longer there. I handed the baby to W and went for a little look, then came back to the living room and said to W "You know how you tend to leave leftover food all over your computer desk?" And he does, he always serves himself more than he will eat and the remainders can stay on his desk for as long as two weeks. It's a habit I have chosen not to ask for change, and just accept that occasionally I'll have to open the windows before I can work at my desk. W looked at me sheepishly and said "That's one of those things I'm going to have to change now, isn't it?". When I grinned, he started thinking out loud. "Well, there was a tiny bit of curry, and a very old half of a cheese sandwich, and...". I interrupted and said, trying not to laugh, "The cheese sandwich is now strewn in pieces across the floor, being guarded by a cat who is managing to simultaneously look completely guilty and totally possessive. It is now *it's* cheese sandwich, back off or else." We left it be, and W picked up the remains later. It had eaten all the cheese and most of the bread, which is impressive given how old the thing was.
So I have begun training it to be good around the baby. Baby is on floor a lot, in the warmest and softest spaces, and in the centre of attention, which is exactly where the cat wants to be. Generally I don't have the two of them on the same surface, but the exception is when I'm hanging out the laundry. So I decided to use this as my training ground. The cat very quickly got the idea of not standing on the baby. And, as cats will, started pushing this rule by walking around the baby in such a way that its feet were always next to the baby and not on it, and it just happened that its body would be going across the baby's head, but it Wasn't Standing On The Baby. So I made the next rule, which is that the baby's mat is always out of bounds. No walking on the mat. I'm reinforcing this by making sure (for now) that the baby is always on the same mat, too, so it's easy to identify. The cat was smart enough to start to get this rule pretty quickly too. So then its next trick was to very carefully put its feet Right Next To But Not On The Mat, See, and then roll. Rolling onto that so-desirable mat, of course. But its Feet Weren't On The Mat. It seemed quite disappointed that I didn't fall for this. I am still working out the best way to discourage it from lolling around with its feet by the baby's head, as it's enough of a kitten to like to grab and play with things with its claws. In that vein I almost had the cat problem completely solved today when it tried sinking its claws into a live electrical cord while I was ironing. But I caught that in time. Or maybe claws just aren't that great a conductor even at 240V.