Today (Sept 9) I had to stay home from work due to being sick. A very weird kind of sick, too, not what I'm used to. Just extreme fatigue and muscle weakness in my legs. I'm really hoping this is a passing virus and it'll go away soon.
But anyway, this meant that I was doing as little as possible, in order to try to rest and heal, so I spent the morning asleep and the afternoon watching tv.
About the third episode of the show I was catching up on, Apricot strolls in, calm as you please. He doesn't even give the tv a glance of his attention, instead coming up to the couch. I held my hand out in invitation mode (this is a palm-down, cupped hand, which invites a self-petting from the cat) and he jumped up and made use of the offer.
And then he snuggles up next to me, facing the tv, without a single tremor or sign of any fear. Of course he left after five minutes or so, but he came back two more times before I finished the tv watching portion of the day.
I am amazed. And pleased. Now if he would only get comfortable enough to fall asleep with me, for long periods of time. He still prefers to be somewhere "alone" for long sleep periods.
I wonder, though, how much of this sudden breakthrough had anything to do with earlier today, when I was on the floor with him, playing on my phone. I put the phone down with Dragonvale running. It has little animated dragons. Apricot could see them and he was quite fascinated.
He even pawed at the screen a couple times, but he couldn't make it do anything. I think the fur between his toes prevents contact because I've seen internet videos of cats playing with ipads and making stuff happen on the screen, so it's not that a cat paw can't activate the screen.
But he was still captivated by the animation, and maybe seeing on the little screen close up made him realize that the big screen wasn't any more real or accessible than the little screen.
So, yey, I can watch tv without scaring my cat! Or excluding him from that part of my day.
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