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| Hiding from the vacuum cleaner. Cropped from a much large picture since I was actually vacuuming at the time I took it, and I wasn't very close. |
This was not well received.
Putting things in their proper order, however ... I went for my morning walk and when I came back, Thimble and Colby were in the cradle of the big kitchen cat tree, waiting for me. I announced my homecoming as usual (this is something I have been doing for Apricot's sake, to let him know that it's just me, nobody else. If I have someone else with me, I don't do the announcement).
Thimble has seen Apricot do upside-down kitty, and Thimble adores the whole concept. He gets to be petted and investigate my shoes? It's heaven! Being in the kitchen to start with, he gets there faster than Apricot. But the past two days, and today was no exception, Apricot has come in anyway. He just comes on the other side of me so I have Thimble on one side expecting pets and Apricot on the other.
As to how I am supposed to undo my shoelaces I don't suppose either of them has bothered to figure out. Usually Apricot leaves first, and that gives me a hand free.
Then I walked into the bedroom, asking in general if anybody wanted to "help me come clean up." This is another phrase Apricot knows, so I was accompanied by all three cats. Apricot, however, knows Saturday. He knows because of the laundry that gets started before the walk, and because the night before I sort out the laundry on the kitchen floor (I had help from Thimble and Colby last night).
So he left the bedroom even before I'd gotten started changing clothes. Thimble and Colby didn't pay him much notice. They should learn that Apricot knows things, important things. I shut the door, and this did cause Thimble's ears to perk up, but he didn't see much to worry about considering I was in the room too.
Then I started putting everything I can lift off the floor, and this was strange enough to get both kittens' attention. For a moment. My bedskirt has a narrow place behind it before the bed itself meets the floor, and this provides a great deal of ambush and pounce fun for the two of them. I finished the bedroom, found and toted both kittens out with me, and shut the bedroom door again (and also the door to the tv room and the unretrievable couch.)
It was when I put their toys up that they started getting worried. I was followed out to the living room, where I found Apricot still on ground level. That was a bit unusual. I put everything else up, and then got the vacuum monster out.
Both kittens, I think, followed me back into the pink room, but I took the one who made it all the way in out into the hallway again, and then plugged the cleaner in and turned it on, and this precipitated a drastic flight down the hallway into the living room.
When I got into the living room, I found both kittens sitting apprehensively in the green cup of the stair cat tree, and, much to my astonishment, Apricot sitting in his Thinking Spot on his cat tree. He's never been there before when I vacuum. He's always in the Ops Deck. I wonder if he was trying to show the kittens he wasn't all that-scared-if-you-know-what-I-mean. I was hoping their presence might make him a little braver.
Well, Apricot has an established "run" point. I come into his section of the living room, but only along the wall, (which extends a little bit into the room), and then I turn and vacuum the part in front of that bookshelf, so both my back and the vacuum cleaner's "back" are turned to him. This is where he thinks it's safe enough to make a run for the bedroom and under the headboard. The cleaner can't easily get into the hallway again because it's gone around two corners, unlike when it goes into the bathroom (right next to the living room but also gives out onto the hallway directly) or when it goes into the foyer (the foyer is what makes this whole roundy-roundy area so confusing. I live here and I can't keep it straight in my head.)
Apricot ran, but the kittens didn't. The vacuum cleaner could clearly see them so they stayed paralyzed in their "hiding" place. But soon after Apricot's run point, I get to the end of my cord and have to switch plug-in spots. I always make the vacuum cleaner start up again as soon as I can so nobody thinks it's safe to come out. However, this is also the stage at which I pause and get the second load of laundry out (the first load goes in before my walk, the second after the walk) and start the dryer, and, when Pippin lived here, it was when he got his "free ride" back to the pink room.
I have a policy of one free ride per cat per vacuuming session. If you come back out into the living room, tough. You can make your own way past the cleaner the second time. Pippin, I believe, liked to scare himself, and despite his free ride would often pass me before I got to the cleaner again and go ensconce himself in the kitchen, and then watch with wide, terrified eyes when I vacuumed the kitchen.
Colby was still in the green cup, but Thimble had found the motivation to run. Only he'd run into the kitchen, since running past the cleaner seemed a stupid idea to him. (It's the best idea, but I can see how it wouldn't be logical at first.) So I took Colby past the (running) vacuum and into the pink room. He was terrified as we went by but settled down as soon as it was behind us, and he was thrilled to find all the toys on the floor again in the pink room.
Then I did the laundry switchover. I didn't see Thimble anywhere, and figured he probably went behind the washer and dryer. So when I started the dryer (and no Thimble appeared) I went to the middle of the kitchen and said, "Thimble, if you're in here, you're going to find this is a very bad idea." I wasn't expecting anything. I was mostly setting triggers up for next time. (In other words; I would say that, then vacuum, Thimble would be scared. Next week if he runs into the kitchen again, I would say the same phrase, with the same intonation, and Thimble might remember and leave.)
But he came out from under the chairs and table legs, where I hadn't seen him, and right up to me. So I praised him, picked him up, and gave him his free ride back to the pink room. He was very happy to see his toys and his Colby again.
After I finished up I put all the living room toys back on the floor (that's the last step) and had both kittens there before I even completed the task. I think they heard the mouse squeak when I dropped it on the floor. Well, that's them sorted, I thought, now for Apricot.
As usual, he was under the headboard, looking determined to stay there (and a bit sleepy). So I told him it was safe and went to take my bath. Neither kitten has been in the bathroom with me during a shower; I invited them to come in last time, but the heater running sounded a bit growly and they declined the invitation.
When I came out, Apricot was out in the living room, playing with the kittens, in their usual standoffish way.
Last night I'd had to break up a session of three-way Thunder Cat in order to put everyone to bed. Thunder Cat is where they race from one end of the house to the other and back again. Chasing happens as well but it's sort of secondary to the whole process. And Apricot had been right in the thick of things!
Now when I have to leave for my parents' house for breakfast (a Saturday morning tradition), I usually give Apricot a goodbye kiss. I tried this morning, but he was in the middle of pouncing on the tunnel with Colby in it, watched closely by Thimble, and he (Apricot) didn't appreciate the interruption!
So that was the Vacuum Monster; everything went as well as could be expected, which was certainly nice.
The Greeting Ritual happens when I come back (it's in the same post as the upside-down kitty link). This was the first time I'd left and come back with all the cats in the house all together. I didn't know how this would go.
Upside-down kitty went like it had before; Thimble first, and Apricot joining in.
Then Apricot walked over to where I sit down and pet him and looked over his shoulder at me, and I hastened to do as bidden and sat down properly for him. He curled up against me, his head where my fingers could scratch his neck and chest and the edges of his chin, and my other hand could pet him, full body strokes, slow and gentle and caressing.
Colby, on the other side of one leg, watched in fascination and after a while, propped himself over my leg with a kind of "man I wish that were me" sigh. Apricot's tail went right by his head.
Thimble was a more active kind of jealous. He was on the other side of Apricot, watching me. I don't know that he's ever seen anybody get petted like that. At first he thought maybe it was a game, and reached out to touch my hand as it glided over the end of Apricot and returned to the head of Apricot. But as I ignored him, and my hand didn't react in any way to his soft paw of inquiry, he decided it wasn't a game.
After a bit more watching (Apricot was taking longer than usual to get a fill-up of loving, probably because we hadn't done this properly all week), Thimble decided that the game was "love on Apricot" and wanted to participate. He tried washing the end of Apricot, but the fluff at Apricot's legs defeated him (Thimble's own ruff isn't big enough yet for him to have experience washing long hair), and so he came up and tried to wash Apricot's ear and neck.
I tried very hard not to let my trepidation show in my hands or my breathing. This is something that could go very wrong.
Thimble washed the thick fur next to Apricot's ear, a long swipe with his (relatively) tiny tongue, and then sniffed at Apricot's ear and backed off, looking confused.
Remember Apricot's ear problems, with the yeast infection? I don't think it ever goes away, since the yeast is part of what's supposed to be in his ear (just not that much of it). I think it flares up every so often, and if you irritate the ear, it causes a flareup. (So I never scratch Apricot's ears underneath the ear flap anymore, no matter how much he likes it. It's been a real pleasure being able to rub and scratch Thimble and Colby's ears, because I am good at it, and they get such joy out of it.)
And I think Thimble could smell something "off" in Apricot's ear, and he wasn't sure what to think of it.
What did Apricot think of being washed, even a few licks? He was so sleepy and happy that he didn't even register any kind of complaint, not even muscle tension much less actual movement. I think this was the best possible time for Thimble to come try to wash him, although I would never have thought that before it happened!
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