random thoughts – Day 1,631 – (Wednesday) – cat training

Sneaky Kiki is really honing her skills. She has the timing down and seems to know the precise moment when I  relax and fall into the web she has spun in which to trap me with a sense of calm and safety.

Back in the box spring again.

On Monday, she apparently detected my sense of comfort/false belief that she had lost interest in the box spring. She laid the trap and lured me in after she hadn’t even ascended the staircase to the landing in weeks. 

Kiki slipped upstairs like a ninja while I drank coffee and read a book. She hung out in the box spring all day, safely barricaded in her self-imposed exile, out of my reach. It was nighttime when she eventually left her palace of peace and I was able to trot upstairs and close the door. The look I got from her when I came back downstairs was priceless.

This morning, after spending the night downstairs while I slumbered behind the closed door, Kiki tricked me again. Unbeknownst to me, she was outside the bedroom door when I opened it. As the door swung open for me to leave the room, I spotted her as she crouched and slithered in like a panther. She even paused halfway across the room and turned to look at me over her shoulder as if to say "ha! just try and catch me!" before completing her journey to the far side of the bed and slipping back into the box spring. She was still there when I left for work.

Cobblestone work underway.

Work was quiet and productive. There was the weekly team meeting. There was my microwaved lunch of rice and leftover sautéed vegetables. There was an afternoon walk in the sunshine, past the crew busy resetting the cobblestones at the Merrimack end of Shattuck Street. 

As I headed to the canal, concrete barriers sat in a parking lot, lined up like dominoes. Downtown has cobblestones, canals, concrete barriers, and brick. So much brick.

After work, there was no sign of Kiki. She will come out when she comes out, probably around 10:00. That's the hour when she generally comes to meow at me until I give her treats and head rubs before I go upstairs to bed. It may not be possible to train a cat, but Keeks the cat definitely has me trained.