Yesterday after work I was making my bed. Now Thimble was trying to help me, but he doesn't yet understand that he's not supposed to pounce on the sheets as I move them. So he got squirted with the water because he wouldn't quit even after being shown the water container.
He got upset. He doesn't like being told he's not supposed to do something. He often gets bratty about it and goes and takes it out on Colby. Well, being the same age and up for a mock battle pretty much any time, Colby usually doesn't mind.
Unfortunately, Colby wasn't handy. Apricot was. Apricot was sitting out in the hallway where he could watch me make the bed through the doorway. Sometimes he comes in and sometimes he doesn't. He's not scared of the bed-making procedure like he used to be, but when I'm moving around the bed rather rapidly, he thinks it might be best to stay out from underfoot. (He's correct about that.)
Thus when Thimble got upset that he got punished, and ran out the door, the first cat he encountered was Apricot. I didn't see what actually happened. I heard a high-pitched yip from someone. I think now it was Apricot, but at the time I couldn't tell. All three of them, oddly enough, have the same pitch and tone to their voices. I expect they will differentiate in time.
Apricot then disappeared and I found him later under the couch when I went looking after I finished the bed. There was no storm coming. Why would he be under the couch? That's when I realized that "yipe" comment had been from him, and whatever Thimble did had scared him so bad he went and hid.
I told Thimble how disappointed I was in him and that he needs to be nicer to Apricot. I didn't raise my voice or otherwise get demonstrative. The event was over and it's not like I know how much Thimble can connect English words to something that happens in the past. But I wasn't happy that Apricot had disappeared and I let Thimble know that, just talking.
Then we (Thimble and I) took a bath, with Thimble getting his usual amount of slightly damp. That's a good half hour. Apricot was still disappeared when we came out.
Apricot emerged later that night. I was on the settee and he was lying down next to the half-wall that provides a little corridor from the living room into the kitchen. (It's full from the floor to the ceiling; it's only a bit over six feet long and sticks out seemingly randomly from the edge of the kitchen door into the living room. It has one of the vents in it and that's why Apricot likes to lie there because he gets a cool breeze.)
Thimble walked over to him and I thought, oh, no, can't you leave him alone? But I didn't say anything. I only intervene when I think things have gone way, way too far.
Thimble leaned his head down and gave Apricot's forehead a few licks with his tongue. Normally when Thimble wants to wash one of his brothers, it's several minutes before he's done, and I was very apprehensive about how Apricot would handle Thimble being (literally) in his face for that long.
But I was wrong. Thimble only gave him a few washes and then backed away a step and looked at him, with kind of a "oops" look. Apricot gazed back; I couldn't see his face as he was at the edge of the wall.
And then Thimble went on his way, and the rest of the night they were good together; their normal selves with the occasional shoulder-rub in passing and so on and so forth.
I think Thimble apologized. I believe that whole quick wash head hung down look was Thimble saying, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize I scared you that much."
He's such a sweetie ... when he remembers to be!
No comments:
Post a Comment