Apr 082010
Fingers the cat sitting on a post on the corner of my front porch last night, lit by an overhead light. She spent a fair length of time on this post… playing. It seemed that there was an insect buzzing around her that she was trying to catch; but I never could see it myself. Either the bug was too small for me to see, or it didn’t exist except in her imagination. In either event, she enjoyed herself by playing with somethign I could not detect. It’s things like this that have, over the centuries, given rise to the belief among some that cats can see into the “spirit world.”
5 Responses to “Fingers at night”
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Our cats, especially Jenny when she was by herself, would often chase an invisible prey then take off running full speed around the house, occaisionally engaging one of the other cats in the area who were watching the show.
To me, it seemed like she was practicing her “cat-fu” and keeping limber. She’s an indoor cat. Everytime she pooped, after burying it, she shot out of the cat box and did a few laps.
A cat I had when my children were born, Maggie, was normally a quiet indoor cat. But sometimes, especially at dusk, she would blast around the baseboard in the bedroom, chasing something invisible. My wife was quite thoroughly spooked by this, but I calmed her by explaining that it was “mouse pixes.” That was acceptable because it meant that I could find no reason for the activity, which meant that there were no bugs or real mice in the bedroom.
My kids believed in mouse pixies until they got to school. You have not lived until you have faced an angry 6-year-old boy who has just discovered that there are no mouse pixies.
Mine will usually go for a couple laps around the house around bedtime. Beats me why, but they seem to enjoy it.
Jim
Of my two indoor cats, Koshka will sometimes get the “rips” (as a friend of mine calls it) and will tear-ass around the house. Raedthinn, on the other hand, almost never does. What he does do, however, is a guard dog impersonation. When someone is on my property he can generally hear them, and that annoys him. He’ll start a very low, quiet growl, which alerts me to a visitor/intruder lurking about. But sometimes he does that when there’s no evidence of anyone nearby. Ghosts or aliens, I would imagine.
Michael Holt wrote:
>My kids believed in mouse pixies until they got to school.
>You have not lived until you have faced an angry 6-year-old
>boy who has just discovered that there are no mouse pixies.
There…. are…. NO… mouse-pixies????
::::insert image of child-like-face-screwing-up-and-getting-ready-to…::::
WAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
Of all the cats my wife and I have been associated with we’ve only had one (1) that didn’t get some form of the “Midnight-crazies” as we call them.
JJ instead would suddenly get up and walk around the entire living area pawing at closed doors and sliding under blinds to get at the windows and generally “inspecting” HER domain. She would then return to the spot she started at, nod if you happened to be looking at her, and very lady-like settle back down.
Not that she wasn’t or couldn’t be active when she wanted though. When she was about 10 or so our next door neighbors 1-year old got ‘uppity’ and ‘challanged’ her. He hissed and swipped at her a couple of time, she slowly rose and stretched… Then “dribbled” his head on front porch deck, (she had this style where she’d rapidly “slap” with her front paws {she had no claws when we got her} which we termed an “Auto-Paw-Attack” and she had some STRONG paws 🙂 and proceded to beat him until he turned and ran away.
She took off after him and matched him dodge-for-dodge, sprint, leap, and turn all over both of our houses. (Connected “Base” housing with a single porch)
The neighbors and we were laughing so hard we could hardly breath as we heard him squalling and whining dopplering in and out and around. The best part was though when he came, littereally, crawling out the front door, clearly exhausted with JJ walking calmly behind him, reaching out to “pat” his butt every time he tried to stop until she let him collapse in plain view for all of us to see.
She then made sure she made eye contact with all of us Humans present, did her dainty little “settling-down” dance and preceded to begin cleaning herself… Then the kitten when he properly “presented” himself before her head bowed in submission :o)
Randy