First, nobody was in the kitchen to greet me. Even after I came in and shut the door and went to turn off the alarm. Usually at least one of the Coons is in the kitchen (most often Colby) and the one on lookout tells everybody else "her car's here" and the other Coon comes running to pretend he was in the kitchen waiting for me agonizingly the whole day too.
Apricot knows there's no dealing with me until I turn the alarm off, so he doesn't come running, but he's already making his way across the living room toward the kitchen by the time I get to the alarm panel (I can see into the living room from there.)
But this day, nobody was there. I called in a hesitant, scared voice (because my anxiety had pounced on me with naked claws and ripped into me declaring they weren't there because one of them had had a dreadful accident and the other two were with him), "Colby?" No Colby. "Apricot?" No Apricot.
A pause while I struggled to get the errant, nasty thoughts under control. "Thimble?" There was a note of disbelief about that one. I'd waited until last to call him. He's my velcro cat. He's always with me (unless I'm asleep or not in the house). On the few occasions he's missed my exit to another room, he's always dreadfully worried about it and runs to find out where I am, so I hate pointing out to him that he "lost" me again. I always tell him when I'm leaving but there are rare times when he's so busy doing something else (sleeping or having mighty battles, usually) that he doesn't register what I said.
Anyway, luckily for my heart rate, about the time I got the last syllable of his name out, they all three came thundering into the kitchen, just thrilled as could be that I was home. But even this was weird because Thimble came in last, and he was hesitant about something. Not me. Apricot. Thimble gave him a look, a kind of "may I come in too?" look.
I began to have suspicions that maybe Thimble had gotten a little too full of himself while I was gone (on vacation, a week ago) and Apricot had had to lay down the law (today).
Because of my weird "always cold" thing, in the summer my house is 77 degrees during the day. Despite the temperature, when Thimble came in to be with me a short while later as I was riding the exercise bike, he crawled under the blanket on the sofa (I use the blanket in winter) and stayed there, only his tail and nose protruding.
Normally he sprawls out on the sofa or the back of the sofa, on his back, paws splayed out, getting as cool as possible. He likes to burrow but normally only sticks his head under the blanket for just a short time before deciding it's too hot.
Not only did he stay there, but Apricot strolls in, all seemingly unaware. Apricot clambers up onto the sofa (no graceful jumping for him, mind you) and walks onto the blanket on top of Thimble. And then he proceeds to knead the blanket, with Thimble underneath it, and then collapses onto him, with every apparent intention of staying there.
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| Thimble's tail is next to Apricot's tail, closer to the back of the sofa; Thimble's head is sticking out of the front of the blanket, next to the foot rest. See him? |
Again, not normal. This usually would have caused an explosion from the blanket as Thimble extricates himself and turns on the cat who climbed on him (it has happened before, in the winter, with Colby) and uses it as an excuse to have a mighty battle.
Nope. Thimble just stays there, and after only a short while (long enough to make a point, perhaps?) Apricot climbs down off of Thimble and wanders off in search of his own thing, while Thimble waits until he's gone and then pulls himself out from under the blanket and does his normal "mom it's too hot in here" sprawl.
There were a few other minor things I noticed, not that I remember them all these days later, but all together I came to the conclusion that whatever actually happened, the result was that Thimble was treating Apricot with more respect, which means Apricot had to have done something.
Good for him!
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