Mayhap I Have This Backwards

Yesterday (Dec 2) when I was home from work, instead of doing the chores I was supposed to do, I decided to go sit with Apricot on the green litter box's box. He was sprawled out on it, looking out at the porch.

When he saw me headed toward him, he very sweetly got up and moved over to give me room to sit down. I can honestly say I've never had a cat do that before.

Anyway, there we were, me playing with my phone and him looking out the window. All the sudden he gets very alert. I looked out to see, and there was the black cat that sometimes comes around.

Apricot jumped down to look out the other patio door. Now wait a minute. He could see the cat perfectly well from where he was. The other patio door offers no improvement on the view. The only thing I can think of was that he was putting himself on the same vertical level as the black cat, to be more friendly rather than looming above.

Are they friends?

He sat and watched the black cat and purred. He purred so loudly I could hear him from where I was still perched on the green box. He showed no signs of distress, just sitting calmly and purring at the black cat.

The black, for his part, watched Apricot back. It wasn't an intense stare and sometimes had the cat-blink in it. So it was a friendly watch-back. The other cat wasn't too sure about me, though. I think he and Apricot have "met" before, and he wasn't sure this human he now saw was okay with him being there.

So I cat-blinked at the black cat. I had to do it a lot. The black cat isn't like Apricot, thinking I'm a cat who is just deformed. He knew I was human so it took a lot of cat blinks before he realized that yes, I did indeed know what it meant and I was doing it deliberately to show him I was okay with him being there.

He eventually gave me a half-lidded cat blink back. And after a while, since he had things to do and places to go, he got up and sauntered off.

Apricot seemed disappointed, but he jumped back up onto the box beside me and kept a watch out in case the black cat returned, and Apricot purred the entire time he waited, a good twenty minutes.

Maybe I have his predicted reaction to Colby and Thimble backwards. Maybe Apricot will want to meet them the moment they come through the door. We're doing enough scent exchanges that everyone should be familiar with everyone else.

That'd be awesome if they were like instant friends ...