In my three days of temporary bachelorhood, I have:
Whoo! I am a wild man.
Before the kidnapping.
A little more than a year ago, we were part of a kidnapping. And it was one of the best things we’ve ever done.
I don’t have a reason to write about this, other than Sammy’s new buddy, Missy, posted a couple of pictures of him on Brightkite tonight. She said he’s doing very well.
I still love his pink nose.
He deserves as much. In this case, crime paid. Big time.
I’ve said this before: Miles seems to be a pretty smart cat.
I think I’ve also said this before: Miles is definitely a persistent cat.
Miles thinks his breakfast should be served, at the latest, at 6 a.m. He may start asking for breakfast earlier — sometimes as early as 4 — but if we haven’t started moving by 6, he’s usually ready to turn up the heat. That can include jumping on and off the bed, touching our faces with his paws and LOUD, endless conversations.
On weekdays, that’s usually enough, because Mrs. Crappy has to get up and get ready for work. On weekends, when we’re bent on sleeping in a little bit, he may have to try something else.
That’s when he’s especially ingenious. He does a fantastic job of finding something so annoying that we pretty much can’t ignore him and then does it until we have no choice but to get out of bed. His favorite? Finding a plastic grocery bag and rustling it until one of us gets up.
On Sunday, our genius cat found something new. Remember The Hat? It has bells. Lots of them. Miles found The Hat, on top of the stuff we unloaded when we got home late Saturday. I knew this because I heard the bells, tentatively at first.
Jingle. Silence. Jinglejingle. Silence. Jingle. Silence. It was hard not to laugh.
After a few jingles didn’t produce a reaction, he went for it all — he knocked over the box The Hat is stored in, making our bedroom sound like a freaking Christmas song.
He got his breakfast. And The Hat got a new storage space — up on a shelf, where our persistent cat cannot reach it.
Hey. This is warm.
Bright, but warm.
I'm not sure what's going on here.
But I think I like it.
There is good reason to believe that the smartest person in our house is the one who isn’t actually a person.
When he’s not begging us to let him down in the basement, Miles spends a good deal of his time napping. He’s getting close to being nine years old, so sleep is becoming an increasingly important part of his routine.
And you can tell — he’s a professional.
He’s happy to take short naps with us in the mornings and evenings, and he still sleeps on our bed just about every night. But the power sleeping comes in the day, when we’re at work.
And here’s where the smart comes in.
He’s figured out that the sofa bed in the office has a very nice space underneath, protected by the sofa’s cover, which hangs down all the way to the floor.
He also has discovered there’s a furnace vent in the wall right next to the bed. And that if the cover is pulled up just a bit, all that heat blows right underneath the bed.
When he emerges and comes downstairs when we arrive home in the evening, he’s always a little sleepy — and very, very warm.
I wonder if there’s room under there for a couple more.
