This is New: Carrying Two

One of the things I was most worried about for getting Maine Coons was if I was going to be physically able to carry them when they were grown. I'm not very strong and it's more difficult for me to build muscle in my upper body than most women.

Thimble likes to be toted everywhere, ever since I taught him how to jump onto my shoulder. (Thank goodness I taught him to do it from an intermediate point, like a sofa arm or a kitchen stool. He revels in his ability to jump to high places, but it hasn't occurred to him yet that my shoulder is one of those high places.)

Apparently, carrying a 16 pound cat everywhere (not really), is helping develop my carrying muscles.

One night after kitty playtime, I announced, as usual, "Who wants a ride?" I carry one of them back to the bedroom to the food area; the others run. Normally, this is Thimble who gets carried, but every so often one of the others beats him to the end table where I stand to ask the question. Whoever gets on the table first gets carried.

This night, Thimble made it there first, and Colby looked dreadfully disappointed. Colby then jumped onto the cat tree and snagged my shoulder as I walked by. I looked at him. I looked at Thimble, curled like a comma against my chest and shoulder with most of his weight on my one arm.

"Okay, Colby, we'll try it," I said, and scooped him against my unoccupied shoulder with the other arm. He "comma'd" against me so their backs were to each other and they each were looking out over a shoulder.

And I walked back to the bedroom with them, both of them, at the same time, in my arms. Grand total of about 31 pounds.

I think I'll be okay even if Thimble hits twenty as a full grown adult, which is unlikely as long as he's a normal weight for his size.

I was quite impressed with myself, carrying them both like that. I've done it once since then, and I improved on the "putting them down" part by using the bed as an off-loading facility. Trying to get all the way down to the ground (which is what I did the first time) had proved itself to be quite difficult since I couldn't tilt forward without making cats uncomfortable and wanting to leave abruptly.

And Apricot kind of likes it because he's less likely to get run over as we all proceed down the hall.

Apricot's Wet Head

One day, a few weeks ago, I walked by the middle of the room living room cat tree where Apricot was hanging out, and casually petted him.

His head was wet.

It was dark. I couldn't see why his head was wet, but, since I'm me, my mind went instantly to a bad place. I sniffed my hand. It didn't smell coppery, like blood.

I then turned the lights on and examined him. He was fine, although a little baffled by the sudden attention including lights. Just, his head was wet. Apparently, with water.

Now when Colby drinks out of the water fountain, he often gets his neck ruff wet. But I couldn't figure out how Apricot got the top of his head wet while drinking from the fountain. Their other water dishes are just normal cat water dishes, with non-moving water. He would have had to stand on his head practically to get his head wet there.

It took a few more days of paying extra attention to what he was doing before I caught him in the act.

He's been drinking from the very small puddle at the base of the bath-tub where it drains out. Some of it collects. Because the faucet is dripping. And when he drinks from the puddle, the faucet drips on his head.

I guess I have to call a plumber. Apricot won't thank me for removing his new watering hole, I'm sure!

Sophia's Magical Visit

It didn't start out very magical.

My sister came to visit. On the Sunday she drove to my house from hers, I was in the guest bedroom on the bed on my back, reading my Kindle. It was getting close to 8 pm, which is kitty bedtime, and kitty playtime, and they were getting a little rambunctious.

Colby leaped up on the bed at chest height to me, leaped over me diagonally to the other side of my head, and kept going. His back foot tapped the Kindle in my hands, making my grip less than secure. Everything would have been fine except the reason Colby kept going came after him at full speed.

Thimble followed the same pattern of jump, only when his back foot hit the Kindle, he knocked it out of my hands completely and smacked it into my upper lip.

This, by the way, hurts quite a bit.

I was severely not pleased with him. They know they aren't supposed to be playing on top of me like that. I was irrationally not pleased as well, since I was mostly blaming Thimble and not Colby, even though both of them were fairly well responsible. And I was upset because I was simply upset--the week had not gone well and I was stressed. As usual. You'd think I'd handle it better or get used to it or something.

Well, I knew what I was feeling was irrational, so I managed to not yell, or do anything overtly scary, but Thimble did get "talked at" (as in, "you know you're not supposed to do that and this hurts a lot" with whines and whimpers in there too. Granted, those were deliberate to let him know I was hurt--that's how cats let each other know they went to far. They whimper about it. And meow, but I can only do human versions of meows and they don't sound right.)

Unfortunately, before I could get settled down and settle Thimble down, my sister arrived. She then stayed in the same room where the "incident" happened. And shut the door.

You are not supposed to shut doors!

Now Thimble met her as usual, being my greeter cat. It wasn't until the next day that he started acting weird. It wasn't until the second day that I figured out why. He was acting skittish around her. Wanting to be elsewhere if she was there. Really acting more like Apricot than himself.

Well, we think he was kind of viewing her as his "punishment" and was expecting the other shoe to drop, so to speak. 

While Thimble was starting to act stranger, Apricot was under the sofa any time Sophia was in the house and not behind closed doors. (He's there in the photo; see his tail? The rest of him is pretty well hidden behind Thimble's bulk.) She remarked that Apricot had done better when the kittens weren't there, as he'd stayed out in the Ops Deck of the living room cat tree and watched her, at least.

I said that it made sense, though, when you thought about it. Apricot and Thimble split up the "monitoring safety" duties between them, so as long as Thimble was around, Apricot could hide under the sofa all he wanted to, in full confidence that Thimble was on top of things.

But this time Thimble wasn't on top of things. He was very much not on top of things. And Apricot started coming out and showing up, in the distance, more and more often as Thimble got more and more skittish.

Until the evening of the day before Sophia was scheduled to go home. We (she and I) were doing stretches in the living room, and Apricot wanders out into the living room, calm as you please, and stays.

Not in the Ops Deck. Not up on any of the cat trees. Down on the floor. With us.

Sophia was doing a stretch on her back and Apricot meanders over to her and sniffs her. Both of us humans were just almost paralyzed, trying not to do anything to scare him or make this brave moment something he would regret.

From that point on, he started acting his normal self around her. We stayed in the living room some more after stretching, just talking, and Apricot came over to me several times for head bumps. Just like usual. And this is the first time anybody besides myself has seen the "real" Apricot, the way he is when he isn't scared stiff.

Magic.

Apricot's new confidence even made Thimble feel reassured, so by the time Sophia left the next day, everybody was acting normal again. Not that Colby ever stopped being his normal self. Colby, bless his heart, is a little oblivious. As long as someone is taking care of things (those things including him), he doesn't really pay attention. 

I had taken the day off on Tuesday, but Wednesday, when she left, I'd gone to work as usual. She left a few hours after that (which is why I went back to work that day). She said that Apricot had walked with her / followed her down the hall to the pink room door, whereupon he peeled off into my bedroom. She asked if this was "good riddance" or "good bye" or a combination of the two.

I don't think it was either. When Apricot walks with me down the hallway, normally I go into my bedroom. At that point, he jumps up on the bed and wants petted. Sometimes, if he's feeling a little more anxious than usual that day, he will stay in the center of the bed and I'm supposed to lean over on the bed and pet him, making my body "hide" behind my head so I'm not so big when I pet him. It reassures him.

I'm betting that if Sophia had gone into the bedroom as Apricot expected, he would have gone into the middle of the bed and wanted her to pet him for the first time. If he was experimenting with how far he could take this new acceptance, that would seem to be a logical, safe way to do a first-time pet. 

Now we are both curious, Sophia and I, to see if he will accept her from the beginning the next time she visits, or if he'll have to get used to her again.