Tunnel Vision Action Sequence

Day 45: "Where's that silly little cat?" Merry can hide better than any cat I've ever met. His grey colour blends into any background, making him harder to locate than black Tippy ever was. I can usually draw him out of hiding by getting Stick for some interactive playtime, but not always. In this particular instance, I stood up from weaving, didn't see him in any of his customary haunts, so I said, "Where's that silly little Merry-cat?" Then I heard the Tunnel crackle as he shifted his weight ever so slightly. I picked up the camera before getting down on my knees to play the Staring Game, knowing that the "eye" of the lens was even more likely to get a reaction than even my own staring eyes, and sure enough, he launched as soon as it winked. The Staring Game has developed a new wrinkle. Instead of rushing past me in a faux attack, now he often jumps onto my back while I'm on my knees and rides me like a horse. I don't think he understands that his mama is an old lady. To him, I'm just a big kitten playmate.

The Staring Game

Day 8: One eye meets my one eye at the opposite end of the Tunnel. His pupil dilates into a gaping, dark hole which threatens to suck my soul straight through the pipe. The contact is held for a moment which feels like it might stretch out into infinity until his hindquarters begin to twitch. I blink, and in so doing, seal my fate because no sooner than my eye opens the barest crack, I am bowled over by a furry comet, which then streaks past me to make a slingshot loop around my backside, returning in its oval orbit to the original position at the far side of the wormhole. And the Staring Game begins another round.

The Tunnel has put a new dimension on this all-time favourite feline activity. Tippy and Skunk both played it with me as I lurked behind a table leg or around the corner of a doorway. The rules stipulate that only one eye of each player can be employed, and that the cat always wins, receiving the reward of a backwards-tumbling mama and/or a mock shriek of alarm. Sometimes I grab him as he rounds me. "Didja get me? Didja get me good?" Occasionally...rarely, that is to say...Merry gets a little carried away and forgets that it's "play," not "prey," and at that point, I call it quits until he remembers his manners.

Cat Psychology 101

Day 358: The general recommendation for length of time a 6-month old kitten needs to wear a recovery collar after neutering is 10-14 days. I had planned to leave Merry in his soft collar for the full 14, but the incisions had healed nicely and the scabs were starting to flake off on their own, so I liberated him about 36 hours early. That said, I still wanted to distract him from working too vigorously at the site, so in advance, I had bought him a "recovery gift": a crinkly, crackly tunnel. It's been hidden until today and in fact, I almost forgot about it and was sidetracking him with the Stick game, but I remembered after an hour or so and unpackaged the tunnel. He took to it immediately, playing with the dangly ball, going in and out through the side window, playing with Stick through the hole until he was so thoroughly worn out that he phlooomphed in a sunspot and is currently enjoying a nap. "Phlooomphed?" Yes. We have my sister-of-the-heart Patty to thank for that word with its triple "o." It replaces "flopped" which, after all, really belonged to my sweet Tippy as part of our bedtime routine.