Nefer's Adventure

[telophase]

A short, unscientific survey of my received comments on LJ over the past three months shows that you guys have stronger opinions about food and duvets than just about anything else.

Also, Nefer had a BIG ADVENTURE last night, which consisted of getting locked in the garage for four hours. Apparently she snuck out of the kitchen into the garage while myrialux was getting his laundry out of the washing machine and I was cooking Brussels sprouts (and the rest of dinner). I didn't notice a lack of Nefer for a couple of hours, and checked the bed where she'd been nesting for the past couple of days in my clean laundry*, and didn't see her. I thought it was a bit odd, but as she'd disappeared before into various hidey-holes around the house for several hours at a time, I didn't bother to look for her.

Two hours later, after I'd watched Top Chef and two episodes of House Hunters International, I noticed that she still hadn't shown up, and mentioned it to myrialux, who poked about the house for a while, then opened the garage door. In came Nefer.

She seems to be none the worse for wear after her experience - her fur wasn't even cold, which leads me to think she nestled up against the washing machine or something - but she did snuggle up to my leg as we were falling asleep, which she usually doesn't do, preferring to sit on the warm heating pad thing I heat up for her on cold nights. (Ans also threw up in her food bowl. God only know what she ate out there.) And when we tested her by opening the door to the garage, she looked at it with interest and started walking over before we shut it.

I, however, am a TOTAL WRECK when I think about it. Which I know is overreacting a wee, tiny bit, as she's fine, no harm, no foul. It's just that I'm oversensitive on the subject of my cats. Hell, if I take a shower and afterwards find one of them sitting outside the bathroom door, I feel all guilty that I couldn't hear them meowing and let them in. So, y'know, four hours in the garage, no water, no food but for bugs, at some point of which she must have meowed next to the door, unheard... WAAAAARRGGGHHHH!!!! I mean, she was TRAPPED OUT THERE IN THE GARAGE WHILE I WAS TYPING OUT A POST ABOUT BRUSSELS SPROUTS! THE HORROR!

I am, however, wondering if another aspect of her behavior will change now that she's fully familiar with the garage smells. myrialux reports that he's seen it several times when I'm gone all day for work, and I've seen it once when myrialux has left to go game for the day: she picks her stuffed hamster** up in her mouth, trots over to the garage door, drops it on the mat, and meows at the door. She often takes the hamster around the house, drops it, and meows, but we didn't know if it was a sort of instinct, calling for kittens to come so she can teach them to hunt, or if she's doing it for attention, or both. The garage-door thing means that she's made the connection with us leaving the house through the garage, and may be calling for us to return.***

Or we may, perhaps, be witnessing the birth of a religion.




* I dump it on the bed in the morning, so that I will have to put it away before I go to bed. What happens is (a) I dump it back into the laundry basket right before I go to bed instead of putting it away and (b) Nefer makes a nest and sleeps in it.

** A Hamtaro which is, alas, not much longer for this world. I'm in the market for a small stuffed animal no larger than my fist, about 4" on the longest axis. We found a stuffed quail, but it's a bit too big and she doesn't pay any attention to it. Any leads?

*** EVEN MORE HEART-RENDING, I TELL YOU

Comments

[eight_demands]

Your laundry routine is very similar to mine, only generally I end up not clearing it off the bed at all and just sleeping on it myself for a week or so.

[telophase]

I used to do that. Then I moved in with myrialux, who takes a dim view of sleeping on my laundry, and thus the current routine evolved.

[movingfinger]

Maybe she was having too much fun out there in the exciting forbidden zone of interesting smells and new sound effects to meow plaintively!

[telophase]

One can only hope!

[movingfinger]

We had a very practical cat who occasionally got herself shut in the cellar (in several different houses, because she enjoyed cellars and attics immensely) and when we'd notice she was "missing" we would often find her on the other side of the cellar door, waiting patiently, whiskers festooned with cobwebs and sometimes with a mouse, or just half a mouse, discarded nearby.

[telophase]

When I got home at lunch (office sweltering due to over-heating, so I'm working form home for the afternoon), Toby went into the garden room to water Stumpy, the aloe, and Nefer reeeeeeally wanted to go in that room, too (it's not heated or cooled an used to be an outside door, so we just don't use that room).

I did once have a harness and leash that I used to take her out on the porch of an apartment I was in a couple of times. If I didn't have to worry about fleas, I'd take her outside on a harness here. But alas, she will remain an inside cat, no matter how much she wants to be an outside cat, until we get into a place that we can put a cat door in.

[rydra_wong]

So, y'know, four hours in the garage, no water, no food but for bugs, at some point of which she must have meowed next to the door, unheard... WAAAAARRGGGHHHH!!!!

The forgiveness of cats is great and merciful. They do not count our failings against us.

(Also, she will have forgotten about it before you have.)

[telophase]

She is currently sitting on the router blinking slowly at me. :)

We knew my mom's cat had a memory of three days. She got her monthly anti-flea medication given to her on tuna, in a bowl next to her food. After she finished the tuna, Mom would pick up the bowl, wash it, and put it away. It always took three days for the cat to stop pointedly looking back and forth from the empty spot on the floor to whoever was in the kitchen.

[estara.livejournal.com]

Duvets and food, the most important things in life!

Also: awwwwww!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I am TRAUMATIZED, I tell you, TRAUMATIZED!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Re: small stuffed animals for cats

There are several stores on Etsy which sell toys specifically for cats. A lot of them have catnip in them; I don't know if that's a plus or minus for you, but my cats love it. Here are some of my favorites:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/scrivenerferret
http://www.etsy.com/shop/OhBoyCatToy
http://www.etsy.com/shop/spellwell (including Kitty Death Star!)
http://www.etsy.com/shop/CattitudeCreations
http://www.etsy.com/shop/casbahkitten (her bird ones are SO CUTE)
http://www.etsy.com/shop/hannapt (including the famous catnip eyeballs)

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I just bought a pair of catnip eyeballs because they appear to be about the right size. (And possibly shape - I'm not sure if she rejected the quail because it had floppy wings and a tail or because it was too large, so the round eyeball should work...)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Awesome! I hope she likes it. I haven't bought any of the eyeballs myself, although I really want some, because my girlfriend says it would freak her out to have the cats chewing on giant eyeballs. XD

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I was tempted by the various plushie severed heads I saw! XD

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yes, those are fantastic! My cats currently have a cow for their toy, which makes me laugh, because house cats are not really natural predators of cows.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Pork is about the only meat Nefer will eat, although she doesn't get to because it makes her throw up. And I find it funny to think of cat's natural prey, the HOG.