Waiting for The Other Paw to Drop....

AngelBoy has been very, very good lately, which makes me extra-cautious with him. As my middle cat, he's the most sensitive. And he lets his fractured sensitivities show in the most inventive ways he can imagine.

But lately, even though he's been pounced on by Rusty (oldest cat), AngelBoy has been a charming little blue-eyed cat for months now. Instead of being confined to either the screen-porch or the laundry room at night, AngelBoy has been sleeping in our bedroom at night. He sleeps on the fainting sofa in there, on top of a bright blue fleece blanket. I no longer believe that cats can't distinguish one color from another.... AngelBoy is definitely attracted to anything blue. And I doubt if he knows that the shades of blue he loves match the blue of his eyes.

I don't know why Rusty is doing all of this pouncing on AngelBoy, but when I hear Rusty meowing loudly and walking towards AngelBoy, I know what's going to happen: Rusty gets behind AngelBoy's neck and clamps his teeth into the thick fur and just hangs on for dear life. And poor AngelBoy doesn't even fight back or try to get away... he just lays there, letting out one high-pitched "meeewwww" after another, till I get there to break them apart.

More often than not, AngelBoy gives Rusty a scathing look before walking away, then he'll jump up on the pink velvet sofa in my sitting room and curl up for hours. Clearly, AngelBoy seems to be embarrassed that he had to be rescued from Rusty's jaws.

I'm surprised that AngelBoy hasn't turned this displeasure into an "accident" in a corner of the carpeting. He hasn't done that in the longest time, which is why I had started to put him in the porch or the laundry room at night. And don't think that AngelBoy isn't aware of the night-time routine around here. Somehow, that little blue-eyed cat knows when I'm going to pick him up and put him in "his room" for the night.

The reason I stopped confining him at night was because when I went to get him and put him into his room, he would run away from me and go straight to his litter box and use it. He would sit in there and look me square in the eye, then walk out with his tail up high and he'd walk close by my leg and give me a blue-eyed look that seemed to say "There! I've done all I needed to do! Are you happy now?"

So I started letting him stay "free" in the house at night when he started to do that, and he's been using his litter box every night just before I get ready for bed. Then he walks into our bedroom and curls up on the blue blanket on the sofa and he stays there all night long. He'll wake me up at dawn, usually, mewing by my side of the bed. He does this because he has again used his litter box. AngelBoy is like me... he doesn't like to see a dirty box, and he wants it cleaned out. I can't fault him for that one.... he knows the routine around here.

The big test with AngelBoy will come when the workers start re-doing the smaller bathroom. The old linoleum has to come up, and new tiles have to be installed. AngelBoy's favorite litter box is in that bathroom, and I'll have to take it out of there while the men are working. Now if that isn't enough to mess up this blue-eyed cat's routine, I don't know what is.

I can see AngelBoy now... his little blue-eyed, furry self sitting in the hallway outside of that bathroom while the men are working... and he'll be thinking: "Hey! You with the tile! Are you done yet?"