Last night my house was surrounded by not one but two massive fireworks displays. On one side of the house it was the city's downtown fireworks (I guess; that's the biggest "thing" in that direction) and on the other side of the house it was the massive modern church that does everything it can to appeal to the general public, including fireworks on the Fourth of July. It is unfortunate that the trees surrounding my house, and the fact that I'm in a small valley, make it impossible for me to see either of these displays from here.
I had every intention of going to bed at my normal time and letting Apricot deal with the fireworks as best he may. I got home from my Fourth of July party in plenty of time to quickly go to bed, which I did.
And then I couldn't sleep. This was before dark, so it's not like the fireworks noise was keeping me up or anything. Perhaps I felt guilty about leaving Apricot to be alone with the fireworks ... or perhaps I was still too wound up from the party. Maybe a little of both.
But the end result was, when more than half an hour had passed and I was more awake than when I lay down, I gave up, got up, and came out to the living room to finish my book, explaining that "I can't sleep" to Apricot who was hanging out in the cat tree.
The fireworks slowly started up, a pop here and a bang there. Apricot looked out a window on one side of the house, and then after a while went and looked out the window on the other side of the house. I guess he was trying to see what made all that noise.
When the firework explosions started coming closer together and more of them, Apricot came over to me and asked if he could be up. I was curled up in the chair, my legs bent next to me, and so there wasn't really a lot of room or a good level lap. However, I know from previous experience that if I unfold, he'll change his mind and decide to go elsewhere. So I invited him up, figuring he wouldn't stay long due to the uncomfortable nature of the current configuration of the chair and the person in it.
I keep underestimating how small he is. He wedged himself into the space between me and the chair arm. This involved folding himself in half, so all his feet were in the same spot up next to his face. His tail was curled around against his face. My arm on that side was resting on the chair arm, and I was petting him and scratching ears and rubbing his face with the other arm.
He stuffed his nose deep into his tail and tried very hard to go to sleep. (This is similar to pulling the covers over your head to make yourself a cozy spot to sleep in). I finished my book, although it didn't take long. And by now, I was extremely sleepy as well. Had he not been folded up beside me, I would have gone to bed.
But, given that he was still not asleep (the ears are a dead giveaway), and he was obviously using me for safety against the firework storm, I wasn't about to move. So I rested my hand against his hip, fingers curled over into the space left among the four paws, head, and tail; rested the other hand on the arm of the chair, and, since this is a wingback chair, rested my head up against the wing on that side, so my body was arched over him.
The fireworks must have really been bothering him because normally that much looming on my part would make him nervous, but he stayed there for probably an hour all told, maybe a half hour after I finished the book and a half hour before. He kept trying to sleep but the fireworks wouldn't let him relax that much.
There were a couple of big boomers that almost shook the house. I think it really helped that he was lying against me and that I was (by this time) so tired and half asleep that, although the boom startled me, the startlement didn't translate to any kind of muscle twitch or body movement. By the time my body realized I'd been startled, I was already over it.
Thus he could feel that even during the big booms I didn't even flinch, so obviously, it was nothing but noise and he was perfectly safe.
When he left the comfort of being next to me, it wasn't to run and hide. He just went to one of his sleeping/watching spots in the living room and settled in there. This was much to my relief as I was so very sleepy by this point, and I gratefully went to bed.
Of course I'd left my phone in the bedroom, charging. So of course I was unable to take a picture of the first time he folded up like that against me. There was so little room there that one half of the folded cat was actually resting up against my hip and leg, like a "V" shape in addition to the folded in half part.
This morning he was perfectly normal; his usual happy pet-me-now morning self. Whoo hoo, we survived the fireworks!
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| This morning he took a catnap in my lap He's resting on my arm too--those are the tips of my fingers sticking out next to his nose! |
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